The last chance DF

It was now a two 'horse' race, would it be Philip or Tim crowned Colchester Multi-Man 2012?




Gary had brought Dave and Chris along






Great to see some new faces at the start and also new Multi-DF inspired equipment.  Colin's new set has four channels, each with  band switch, 10 KHz , switch and fine tune.  The three voltages from the chosen channel are fed to an op amp wired to produce the sum.  The resultant is then fed to the varicaps for tuning. Colin hopes to employ the same circuit in various DF sets that he has.

I am not sure if Rosie's set has been upgraded yet  but the woolen filter is noted!

The weather had been poor for weeks before and has been since but we had beautiful sunshine throughout the event.

Extra entertainment was provided at the start with two Micros running so that Richard, Colin (F), Pam, Dave and Chris could practise some set waving.

12.30   Maxi A was heard on 020 degrees and we were off.

Several, including yours truly, got into 'parallel bearing mode' and took quite a while to establish where Ian was.

Mini L before getting the black bag treatment.
Maxi A was located about 50 metres away - all mod cons.


Unfortunately we ran out of receivers so Gary shared his, taking it in turns to be misled by the DF set.
Rosie overtakes a 'Phiddling' Philip.


Colin F trying to get to grips with a set having more knobs than he is used to.
Richard was still smiling on his third DF ....... not normal!

This poor old chap had a problem ...... 

There appeared to be loads of interference on site, or was it the set?  Seemed like the RF gain was up too high making set unstable.  Continued on and managed to locate Joker J which I had parked close to but all else was swamped by the screeching ‘feedback’ noises.  Headed for the Main Tx as it was the only thing I could hear.

Tempted to give the  set a good bash, in case it was a poor connection but didn’t want to lose all operation, so treated it very gently. Came across Philip," Are you having interference problems?   No .... ."       Must be the set then.  Got to Ian (operator) at the Main Tx, had a typical DFer's moan about my set and bad luck etc.   He offered his set, at first I refused but this offer gave me the confidence to attempt to repair mine - a good thump - no improvement.

Another 10 minutes pass,  lots of set bashing  fails to remove the noise.  Back to Ian,  "Perhaps I better take up your offer".

Off I went, playing with the unfamiliar controls on his set ........ but all I could hear was noise ..... what was going on?

Back to Ian, he is bewildered when he hears all the noise too. I decided to press on with my own set ....  but why aren’t the others complaining about all this noise?

 Suddenly the penny dropped..... OK I admit it, ancient brain fade, I expect many will have worked this out several lines back.   In my pocket was my smart ar*e phone running the gps to track my movements. This had been used  for three years with no problems but I had noticed earlier that it had stopped tracking me.  I suspect it had crashed and was doing totally random things – whatever it was, as soon as I switched it off my DF set was fine.

(Was this my best excuse yet?)


Yep there was overgrown undergrowth.
Can anyone give Peter a rubber duck? Another broken sense aerial.
Results
 



Well done Tim!

The small cutting left shows the result for the 2012 league.  Tim and Philip tied on points so the average %  was used. Philip's % is low because of that event (Tim's!)  when he got nine stations but was out of time, thus scoring 0, how costly was trying for the tenth Tx?  Full table is here.

So over to our winner ......


A good signal was heard at the start giving a bearing of 20 degrees, and suggested that a likely site would be somewhere between Marks Tey and Assington at the top of the map with a number of other potential sites in between.

With Richard on board as navigator we elected to drive to “The Cricketers” for bearing 2. From here a very strong signal bore down from the North and so we dashed round to the western side of West Bergholt, where strong minis could be heard while A was quiet. A short drive down to the church and we were first out with Ian’s car on church parade.

A quick recce before stretching the legs revealed that mini H was close at hand and everything else wood-ward. H took two attempts and the presence of power lines hinted that it could be troublesome. Common sense resulted in H (40)  being found between transmissions. Unfortunately I had to leave Richard searching at the far side of the grave yard. Micros checked but nothing that close.

On reaching the wood I could hear J,K and L but opted to keep clear and head for I across the fields  in the hope that everyone else would opt to thrash around the wood without finding transmitters too quickly. Mini I (40) was found quite quickly but again there were no micros close, however swampy W lured me over to the wood with a strong signal. W was a quick find in a challenging environment. (See below Ed.)

A check on minis suggested that joker L was close, and after a further transmission I was just in front of Phil for 32 points. A quick sprint to micro Z alongside Phil but I just got to the right side of the bracken first.





W  was one side of the stream.
 Avoiding tuning to A, mini K was close but I overshot; however J’s signal put it at the eastern end of the wood, so I backtracked for K first. Knowing where to head for J, I set off towards it, but on approach the end of the next signal caught me short. Checking for micros, I heard X close by and was able to go get it (Yay 40 !) and return to the proximity of J for its next transmission. Feeling quite pleased with progress so far, J brought me back down to earth as it peaked up alongside a barbed wire fence but without a triffid nearby. After two further goes took me back to the same spot (trees, shrubs, leaf piles all searched) with no success, I decided to get away up the path and follow the signal in again. This time a new peak was located and shortly after J found behind a big holly bush.

So micro Y and maxi A still to find. I could hear both Yand Z transmitting from the same direction so headed back down through the wood. I managed to follow the rapid beeps of Y to its lair only to find that I had actually found Z again ! So I shot off to get away from the dominant Z until I could distinguish Y from it. Y was found across the stream after a short explanation of events to a passing couple. I had already tracked down the vicinity of A whilst contemplating Y and Z so along and up to see Ian guarding a big tree. With the aerial spotted it didn’t take long to find A’s triffid.

A quick panic after a lost ticket was searched for in the depths of a pocket before sanity reminded me to take one from A. Thought I had done quite well,  with no ticket below 20, but spent 40 mins getting cold before the end of the contest (warmed slightly by watching everybody else coming in).

Finally off to the pub for a really good roast, pint, and exchange of banter.

Thanks to Richard for navigating in the car; I was pleased for him that he found 7 triffids on his first solo attempt. Thanks also to Ian for running the event and spending all the time needed to research a good site and set everything up. And a timely thanks to Roy for providing all the equipment and maintaining it, the scoring system and the website.

Tim


National Champion and Top Colchester Multi-Man .......  Titanic Timbo. 		 Chocs away


Philip receives the Mid Essex Trophy - see here.

I managed to pinch the Chelmsford Trophy on the last event ......

..and the most prized of all ...  fanfare .....   the 'Getaway Trophy'  .... YES!!!!
Could there be more competitors in 2013?  We hope so, check this out.