10 Txs to find

With the weather forecast predicting temperatures of over 30 degrees, I decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to have competitors running around in the hot sun all afternoon. So I limited the extent of the transmitters to a small wood and a couple of hundred metres around it, close to Stanway Lakeside community centre. The wood and outlying trees would provide some shade at times.

There was plenty of mixed vegetation in the wood to provide variety, and brambles, fallen trees and uneven ground to slow everyone up.There was a wire fence surrounding the wood, with at least four breaks in it to allow access.

Just to make things a little more complicated, so that competitors would be satisfied with the level of difficulty of the event, I decided that for each set of three transmitters, I would have at least one inside the wood, and one outside, with Triffids BGLM in the wood being a bit harder to find.

The greens, AFK, were located external to the wood and had easier access. Altogether this could result in competitors “breaking free” from each chain of three transmitters and making the order in which they were found more random. (I think this is borne out in the results).

Setting up the day before took longer than expected, so the last transmitter, the ghost, was strung up without much thought in a clump of low growing trees and hedging outside the main wood and over the path. The triffid was placed to require some crawling to get to it.

As it happened, on the day temperatures only reached about 25 degrees, but the cloud cover made it very humid.

I am told that the wire fences encountered on the site may have caused signals to radiate unpredictably causing a few problems. Such a shame !

M0BGE

Above:
The map provided for the event.

Right:
Enlarged view of the tiny area the Txs were hidden in!

Sense and sensinability .....

Always the innovator, Roy tries fixing a sense aerial to his bottle of lucozade.

At Tx L, Rosie's method of dibbing has "winner" written all over it.

Finding a way into the thicket to look for Tx ? wasn't easy ! ....

 .........

                         ....  where have they gone?????

......   high quality Jasper Conrad trousers today.

Results 

Times 

... but look how a beer brings out the smiles.
Or perhaps it's the thought of a new 92 handicap !

Colin wins the "Double Ghost" prize. Why double ? For finding the Ghost first. Secondly for finding it without knowing. We could all learn from his sensing method.  

I put my success down to lots of luck, picking an unpopular route and being in the right place at the right time. (Not to mention a low handicap and some women’s intuition). Unusually I didn’t use the map, compass or GPS after leaving the start.

The three bearings that I plotted were B, due south, M further west and F approximately SW. After the event I saw that M and F were spot on.

I Initially headed towards joker F. Got to a section of fence recognized from a previous event. Had a quick look through the gap whilst waiting for a transmission. George came along on transmission, went through gap and found TX straight away, just pipping me. Onward to G next, down slope and found a way into wood. No-one else around, found quickly but very tricky to reach triffid. H seemed weak so decided to leave for later and progressed across scrubby area towards M, which seemed stronger. After a bit of dodging round bushes came across Gary who seemed to be leaving, found easily in next clearing.

Decided to stay on open area and try and find another way in further along. Found a convenient gap just as signal came up. Ran down slope and followed Chris into bushes as Tim was taking a photo of Chris. Quickly located triffid L on floor.

B and K were similar strength but I decided to go back outside fence to make way to K, but when signal came up it seemed too far out of the way. So made the mistake of trying to go straight through the wood . Very difficult going. Got to edge and realized needed to get out. saw Colin F appear through gap nearby so went though and up slope to small fence. Stood by a suitable crossing point waiting for signal. Further along the fence was indicated. Waited until bearing turned through 90˚ and spotted triffid K reachable from my side, perfect.

Back down slope on to footpath towards B and ghost. Passed Roy in fenced area grumbling about messing up. Decided to bypass B in favour of the ghost, recognized a dense, horrible clump of trees where set was indicating. Colin M was already crawling about in dense undergrowth. I went up and down the edge of the bushes until bearing 90˚. As I entered the undergrowth Chris and Roy also turned up. After a few minutes of ducking and crawling I spotted the hidden TX under a pile of leaf litter. The next thing I see is Gary crawling at high speed straight to the triffid. I lunge forward past Chris and Roy and managed to dib next. Tim was nearby watching our antics with amusement.

Went straight over to where I had seen Roy. Got over fence on second attempt.  Followed signal it went off but quickly spotted an interesting looking slope with plenty of greenery. Hauled myself up using branches and found TX immediately, triffid was above my head again and I struggled to reach it.

Retraced my steps back in to field heading for A next. Seemed quite weak but quickly got strong along field edge. As I got to 90˚ bearing heard voices and found my way into trees as Chris and George were leaving. Now straight along towards C. George had taken another route initially but when I looked round he was following me along the track. Went through gap into field. Signal says towards edge. Scout along to find points of entry but no need as I get to corner and find TX. George had disappeared. Banked my points as I passed F. Gary was there, confused as he thought it was H. We went in parallel across an open area by a clump of Buddleia. Signal comes up and Gary is ahead of me scrambling up bank in corner.

Competitor	Hero Points	Events as Hero
Tim P	135	14
Gary P	129	30
George F	97
Colin F	91	11
Rosie M	86

More detail here

Competitor	Handicap	Points Awarded	Discard	New HP	Events as Hero
Rosie M	42	50	6	86	0
Gary P	109	20	0	129	30
Philip C	67	8	10	65	13
Roy E	72	0	0	72	2
George F	97	0	0	97	0
Chris I	53	0	0	53	0
Colin F	101	0	10	91	11
Colin M	41	0	1	40	0
Tim P	130	5	0	135	14