The club Christmas event was a FoxOr event with twist: The circle only tells you where you might hear the 1st FoxOr in a string or chain of FoxOrs. Once you find the first one, you should be able to hear the 2nd, and so on. Here’s the map the competitors saw:
You don’t know quite how long the chain you’re on currently is, other than it is between 1 and 5 long. In fact the chains were A=4, B=5, C=3 & D=1. I only had 13 transmitters!
You know there are 6 FoxOr frequencies to choose from, and a chain will never repeat a frequency (but between chains will, of course). You also know that as you follow out a chain, the next frequency will always be higher. In this case they were
A = 144.25, 144.75, 145.50, 145.70
B = 144.00, 144.75, 145.30, 145.50, 145.70 (144.00 was a mistake, was meant to be 144.25, but competitors knew beforehand)
C = 144.25, 145.30, 145.70
D = 144.25
Here’s the TX locations:
Things that went well:
– All the transmitters worked and could be heard.
– Nothing was stolen. Apparently some intrigued neighbours.
– The chain with the FoxOrs closest together (A), was perhaps the more difficult.
– There were transmitters people could visit when picking up TXs after that they hadn’t been to when competing.
– Noone had to be rescued.
Things that went not-so-well:
– Some considered it a bit hard to understand, or DF, or read the map.
– Grumbles about blackberries and fences on the A chain, but frankly these things were both self-inflicted. Read the map:)
– It was too long. No-one found all TXs, best was 9/13. I didn’t want too much interference between chains that could be confusing, so they had to be well separated, but that made it a bit long.
– FoxOr C-2 on 145.30 was (deliberately) 50% duty cycle, but could be heard over nearly the whole map. It was in the highest location (Essex Heights), and being a Sprint-TX in ‘FoxOr mode’ appears to have a bit more oompf. It’s only 1 range higher on the YNG sniffers, but that seems to make a big difference. In retrospect, lucky it was on a On/Off duty cycle. FoxOr C-3 was also a Sprint-TX, in Homing Beacon mode, but wasn’t as high up, so wasn’t as much of an issue.
Here are the full results:
| Name | TXs | TX Penalty (mins late) | Time (mins) |
| Monica | 9 | 87 | |
| Bryan | 8 | 86 | |
| Alistair | 8 | 90 | |
| Darian | 7 | 81 | |
| Geoff | 4 | 90 | |
| Jack | 3 | 55 | |
| Di & Henk | 4 | -2 | 92 |
| Suzanne | 2 | 28 | |
| Pierre | 2 | 61 | |
| Mark | 2 | 73 | |
| Emily | 2 | 75 |