DF

Peter illustrating you can travel faster than the speed of light.

A few ferns weren't going to stop 'Multi-New' Pete ....

..... but a rhodo did slow up even the 'old hands' at Tx C.

Good to see that evolution is working ......

..... our Hero is making it look easy.

John is looking very relaxed ...

...... while Rosie could be lost in space.

Steve has let Ruth off the lead.

Pete is starting to take this seriously, never works for me.

Above S is the start and 1 is the ghost.

The central start location really dictated where the groups would be. Group A B C was probably the middle standard of the 3. I couldn’t resist putting C in the Rhododendron clump. Group F G H was probably the hardest as F was the farthest from the start, about 750M, and with H buried in the ferns, which kept some people ‘amused’ for a while. Group K L M was the easiest, as the woodland that side is pretty open, with only M being in some slightly thicker ferns. In only a couple of places did I make an effort to hide the Triffids, otherwise they were mostly reasonably visible, although John wasn’t expecting them to be up trees. I wanted to put the Ghost in a central location to give everyone a chance to go for it as it would be on any route when crossing between the East and West groups. Again I made no attempt to really hide it as the short transmissions should have made it difficult enough.

I walked around with Ruth at the start picking up K L M and then left her at the road crossing heading for F while I went and got my camera. Met again at G, with Pete, Tim, and John all getting frustrated at the short transmissions. Surprised to hear later that she got down to A B C, well done Ruth.

Congrats to Pete, who sprinted away from the start, while I was expecting him to wait for guidance from me, a very quick learner.

A few observations for future organisers. There’s no difference in setup time with the new triffids, although you now have the opportunity to go 3D. I managed to carry 6 pairs at once in a shoulder bag, probably wouldn’t have got them in a backpack. It took me just under 3 hours to get them all out this morning, having visited twice before to note exactly where I was going to put them. Also have a long enough pole, as the wire on A F K is pretty long, and my pole is too short, which meant these Txs were probably weaker than they should have been.

Special thanks to Pete for going back to pick up the C triffid, and to Gary and Tim for going back to pick up the associated Tx because Pete didn’t realise there were two items to pick up.

Steve

Fed and watered ... results from the bottom up...

.... suspense as we work towards the top spots.

Peter is still in the running ..

... but no ..... 2nd.

Surely not ...... first outing with a DF set ... this is how he did it:

Coming into this event, my first attempt at operating a DF set, a small ambitious part of me thought I could do quite well, but mostly I thought that was naïve. Before the event started, I practiced DFing in on a nearby practice transmitter – it didn’t seem that complicated, so decided to just go for it.

When the event started, one set of transmitters was clearly nearer than the rest, so I bounded off in that direction. After undershooting a few times, it began to dawn on me why Pete Lisle (who I often navigate for) always tries to overshoot the signal. I managed to find K, L and M with relative ease, as they were all on trees, and I knew the aerials would need to gain some height. A very pleasing start.

Then came my real stroke of luck. As I was making my way towards F, I thought I’d change frequencies, in case one of its neighbours was on my side of F. A strong signal was coming from 1910, so I followed it up to the road. When it finished, I knew I must be close, but I could only see one spot nearby where I thought a red transmitter could be hidden – a holly bush at the top of a ditch. Sure enough, there it was, the ghost (although I wasn’t 100% sure which transmitter it was)!

I carried on towards H, and found the general area, but it looked tricky, so I chickened out and moved on to G. After what seemed like an age, when I had DFed to the same spot from four different directions, I gave up there too, and searched for F, which I also struggled with. Frustration was beginning to creep in, when the signal came up, and I ran straight into John and Ruth, with F right next to them. I ran back to G, but with more people searching this time. Tim found it, and I followed him in – moved to where I knew H would be, and DFed straight in.