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 Organiser George F G0JWQ |
Sunday 11th May 2025
Multi-Tx DF Location
Fordham, West of Colchester. CO6 3LX Driving to the site - map with zoom Car park NGR TL 927 286 |
 10 Txs and associated triffids provide the amusement. |
| After
failing to find a new location in time, I reverted to an old
favorite. I find it interesting to see the changes that have
taken place here as the years have gone by... the bushes are now
thickening nicely and the lower levels are thinning out as it turns
into a fully fledged wood. Not everyone agreed, I got comments of
"the bloody branches are still very low"! |
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| Anyhow,
lovely weather, I tried a trick on the ABC group to mix it up (and I
think caught a couple of people) with C being close to A, so the
observant would have a short walk, and the less so got to walk
backwards and forwards. I'm not sure if there was a short track
straight through from A to B, but I took the long way round. Having spent too long setting that up, I thought I'd do simpler but longer paths on the next group. I was using GPS for the distances, but messed up slightly as it turns out G was a good 220m from F (sorry about that). I hope the choice of positions and paths made it interesting, those I saw out and about seemed to be smiling, though I'm sure the bushes are thicker as I saw very few of you out there. Thanks as ever to Roy for the equipment etc... I feel a tad guilty being called 'the organizer' for events like this. Maybe spell it with a small 'o'. Maybe call us the Planters. Anyway, all the best, and see you next time. George. |
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 Is this working?
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 Let's get this tuned
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 Hmmm, is it over there?
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 Yep, that one is over there.
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 ... and they're off! |
 Deep in the weeds ...
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 ... who knows!
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 Philip looking for ghost ... in here ... no ..
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 Nope it's over there ....
|  ... or back there .. |
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 Limbo by the path .... yes ! |
Results
Times
   So how did Colin win the 'Star' and become our 'Hero'? We have used this site many times, so I am fairly familiar with its layout, but as usual there is always something new comes along to trip us up. Weather was about as perfect as one would wish, dry with sunshine and a cooling breeze. My joker was C and after the formalities, photo’s etc I set about finding a flat area on the path to plot some bearings. I noticed behind me were overhead power cables and hoped these would not interfere with reception as I was ready to plot. All went well ABC off to the SW, GHL & M to the north, F was NW & K was NEish. Mmmm . . what does that mean? I thought, I’ll think about that later because ABC’s directions were so tightly spread, I just needed to head off towards the stream in the bottom left corner of my map. I could see others were crossing the field, but I took the wide path along the edge of the wood then diverged on a path left and south. Also I picked up a weak signal from the Ghost which sensed behind me, so I thought I can do that later and carried on. I could now see I had passed Roy and concentrated on getting an exact direction for C, which was now on my left. As luck would have it there was a slight path through the long grass in this direction and I was now crossing the main paths and heading for the edge of an assortment of trees. I ducked and dived the spiny branches and hanging brambles, eventually finding a particularly assaulting specimen where I could see the Tx was buried under twigs. At least the triffid was high in the next tree and easily accessible. After many seconds I was relieved to see a 1 appear. Next there was not really much to choose between A and B, and I sensed that A was further into the trees whereas B was back out in the open, so whilst still doubled up I continued towards an opening in search of A. It wasn’t actually far away and again the triffid was up in the branches, but someone had beaten me as I took a 2nd place this time. Now I had to find my way back out by retracing my steps through the low prickly canopy and with much relief out into the brightness where I could stand up again. B took me SW across the long grass to the edge of trees but it was too dense here, so I had to go south around this before B’s signal began to rise again. These trees were a bit more mature and navigation was easier once inside. I’d almost reached the path on the west side before I actually found B for a 3rd, and at least I had a quick way out to go north for F. |
| I
took the same route back towards the car park until I had a stronger
signal to my left. That was handy, as I was just approaching a good
path straight in, I had to go quite a way in with many tree trunks
looking equally spaced and just the same. I needed a couple of signals
here to get it for a 4th, my scores were falling now. Next I decided to go towards the car park, then left by the houses to seek out K as my bearing roughly followed the path along the edge of the wood. It was not far off the path before the road with another 4th in trees that were much the same as at F. I figured it was time to have a go at the ghost as its signal appeared to be coming from further along this path. I reached the road and spotted Tim to my left, I crossed and quickly kept on going, eventually its strength rose and was steering me to the right, into a thin strip of trees with a fence behind. A path went towards the fence, that wasn’t much use, so I waited for another signal to pin point the Tx tree, Roy had appeared now at 2:30pm but was looking in the wrong trees whilst I quietly dibbed another 3rd and left. The remaining GHL&M all appeared to be together, but were actually strung out 2 either side of the road. I returned to the gate at the road, crossed then took a path immediately to my right to go west to the next path south. Now G&H were to my left, and M&L to my right. I decided H might be the nearest, and sure enough a short walk south I dived under the canopy of trees to my right. H gave me a 6th at 2:41pm. One thing I had noticed by now was the placing of triffids was usually at head height, so this is where I was looking first. However, I’m not sure which one it was, but when I thought I had found the Tx, I looked around for the triffid, but couldn’t see it. For some reason I glanced back to check where the Tx was, only to find it was the triffid hiding under a pile of twigs, not a Tx as I had thought, you got me there George . . |
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| I
found my way back on the path and headed further on for G, again to my
right but not so far in, a 5th at G was better. Back out on the path,
M&L were now obviously north so I quickly headed back towards the
road where I knew I could do a staggered crossing to my left for a path
on the other side. I stopped near the gate to assess better directions,
now I had L to my right (east) and M straight on (north). As the path
was in M’s direction I continued north until I had to go east into the
trees, a 6th here was quickly gained before heading back to the gate.
Now I new to turn left, but there were 2 paths, one followed the road,
and a left one more into the trees, I took this and soon had a rising
signal at 3:04pm, I had bagged my last triffid with another 6th place.
I could relax now with 55mins to validate. I re-tuned for C as I walked back to the gate, but before I got there my headphones went distinctly quiet, I didn’t panic though. I checked this and that but nothing would make it come to life. I decided that I still needed to get back to where I thought C was, so crossing the road I found a smaller path that I thought went diagonally down to the river. It did, but then turned sharp left and didn’t cross the river for about 100m, so was actually a longer route. Fortunately after the bridge crossing I encountered Colin M. I showed him my lifeless set to which he responded ‘there is a spare in my car and a key if you want to use it’ after deliberating, I eventually agreed it might be my only chance, and took his key back to the car park to swap sets. Now this set was new to me, no headphone socket and a speaker that faced away from the operator. With all controls set to max, I had plenty of noise, but as I tuned through red yellow and green, only green had a faint signal. Well at least it works, time to get over to C using my initial route exactly so that I approached in the same way. It was only when quite close did I get C’s call sign, I checked the sense button which worked well, but trying to get a direction on a weak null was not so easy, so I reverted to max strength with the set crossways. I recognised trees I’d seen before but not the one I wanted, then suddenly the signal went up and I was straight on to it, I had found my joker at last and validated at 3:36pm with a 7th, but not all had been here, I had just moved out into the open when Phil arrived. He soon went then Rosie arrived, it was also her joker so she’d come back to retrieve it, and at 4:00pm helped me instead. Back at the car park, it was obvious others had fun too, Roy was battle scarred but recovering, whilst Colin M attempted to validate before 4:30pm, oh dear! Later at the Cricketers I still had no idea how well I had done, to my amazement George announced my result last meaning I’d won, triggered a rescale, and was now the current multi-hero. It was all a lot to take in . . so Gary our tug of war is still on ! |
Hero League
 Well done to Colin F who
took the Hero trophy from Gary by 1 point (careful discarding
noted) causing a rescale for all by 130/151.
More detail here.
Next event is on Saturday 14th of June with Philip in charge. Noticeboard Event format Dates |
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