Bulletin 23 (28 May 2010 @ 01:30 GMT)

I am indebted to "Chick" who has provided amendments to the Regulations following the anomalies that she discovered while running the Panglossian Rally 2010. You can see (and download) the changes here > Regulations.

Bulletin 22 (17 May 2010 @ 01:15 GMT)

The Championship positions including the Panglossian Rally can be found here.

Bulletin 21 (29 April 2010 @ 23:45 GMT)

An important note about timing on future events:

The server that hosts the TTR website resides in Germany, so the default timestamp (for recording route card start and finish times) has always been German time. This can be confusing so has now been changed so that all future dates/times will now be based upon GMT (Greenwich Mean Time); this is also UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) - the standard time used on the Internet. The advantage is that this is an unmodified time i.e. it doesn't swing backwards and forwards during spring and autumn.
UK competitors should note that during summer BST (British Summer Time) is operation which is one hour ahead of GMT/UTC.
The Schoolfrenz and Thalamorph TTRs' start and finish times will now be 20:00 GMT - that's 9pm in BST-speak.

Bulletin 20 (16 March 2010 @ 22:30)

This Bulletin consolidates the information from previous bulletins which is relevant for the coming Panglossian Rally 2010.

World Rankings

The World Rankings have now been updated from The Nearest FarAway Place Rally 2010 results.

Which Maps?

There may at times be noticeable differences between the PDF maps and the Display maps. Here's the explanation.
The display maps (not printable other than via a screen capture) come via the Internet dynamically from Ordnance Survey's latest database.
The PDF maps were produced from a static PC based product (Quo) which will age over time in comparison to OS.
The differences will usually be small, but for consistency the PDF maps were used to set the Route Cards and Route Checks; that's why the Route Card Status page states the PDFs should be considered the Master Maps for your plotting and answers.

Multi-media?

Just an early giveaway that one of the Route Cards on The Panglossian Rally will require you view .AVI video files (No MP3 files this time). This type of file can be played with Windows Media Player. However, if you don't have this software available you'll need to install an alternative before you can solve this Route Card.

Map Legends

Since you don't need to buy paper maps for the Championship, some of you may not have access to the latest Legends,  Symbols and Abbreviations that appear on the maps we use i.e. Ordnance Survey 1:50000 scale Landranger series and this year the occasional 1:25000 scale Explorer series. This information is available on the OS website, but you can download the following PDF files here for convenience:
1:50000 Legend | 1:25000 Legend | Abbreviations | Additional 1:25000 Symbols

Regulations

Before you start the Panglossian Rally on March 31 make sure you have a copy of the latest set of General Regulations to hand since these will have been updated to reflect some post-TNFP210 Rally changes/clarifications.

Bulletin 19 (08 March 2010 @ 23:30)

The results are now FINAL. Thanks for your patience while I've dealt with your queries. The Nearest FarAway Place Rally home page has been updated to reflect the final standings.

Bulletin 18 (03 March 2010 @ 23:00)

Yikes, it's been hard work processing your post publication comments, particularly with a dead broadband line for much of the time (f.i. a farmer had excavated a ditch to relieve a local flood thereby digging up my telecable).

The following updates have been made and solutions and results revised:

• RC3: Another close call route was discovered and a third route alternative accepted.
• RC5: Incorrect transcript and answers uploaded.
• RC7: I've accepted another debatable YYY.
• RC11: An alternative LWR accepted.

I've processed all current queries, but the query door will still be open until 00:40 on Sunday, March 7.

Other News:

• Thanks to "Chick"'s £300+ sales of Rally Sport on eBay the charity fund has swelled to over £2,300.
• The competitor profile for Bart den Hartog has been added.

Bulletin 17 (15 February 2010 @ 21:15)

Bulletin 13 has been updated.

Bulletin 16 (11 February 2010 @ 22:00)

Gillian Goodlass is currently top of the Nearest FarAway Place Rally results so far.

Regular competitors will be familiar with the name since Gillian has been competing on TTRs for as long as this website has records. Currently she is ranked 8th in our TTR World.

If you want to know a bit more about her she has just sent in a profile which you can see at Gillian Goodlass profile.

Thanks Gillian. More profiles would be welcome.

Bulletin 15 (10 February 2010 @ 17:50)

About half way through your plotting time so no need to panic yet. There are still 50+ competitors who haven't started - obviously saving themselves for a final push.

As I write we are pence away from passing £2000 on the charity fund. As ever many thanks for your support.

I've been busy looking at your answers and comments, and as always you have found subtle variations to the intended route which means that marks gradually drift upwards.

One Route Card in particular has required a lot of scrutiny this end. The start and finish were common but the bit in between had two possible routes. Fortunately I had under development a means to mark and measure a route on the displayed maps, so I had to hasten its completion. (I'll make this tool available to you on subsequent rounds).
Accurately measuring the alternatives on this errant Route Card: over a distance of 36 kilometres the route lengths differed by a mere 350 metres - less than 1% variation. Since the events are meant to test your navigation and puzzle solving skills, not how accurately you can measure wiggly roads, I've allowed the answers for both routes to be accepted.

Thanks for completing the enjoyment rankings on your answer forms. Early days yet, but you don't seem to like roundabouts but do like watching mini-movies.

Bulletin 14 (02 February 2010 @ 15:30)

Ian Canavan has just remarked on some noticeable differences between the PDF maps and the Display maps on Route Card 9. This may occur sometimes. Here's the explanation.

The display maps (not printable other than via a screen capture) come via the Internet dynamically from Ordnance Survey's latest database.

The PDF maps were produced from a static PC based product (Quo) which will age over time in comparison to OS.

The differences will usually be small, but for consistency the PDF maps were used to set the Route Cards and Route Checks; that's why I stated on the Route Card Status page the PDFs should be considered the Master Maps for your plotting and answers.

Bulletin 13 (Updated 15 February 2010 @ 21:15)

A couple of competitors have mentioned receiving a "Not Logged In" message.

The Not Logged In possibly comes from your login session (which started when you visited the The Nearest FarAway Place Rally start page) timing out after 24 minutes of inactivity - a default security parameter set the host provider.

Either:
1) Don't fall asleep in front of your PC  ;-)
2) Solve the Route Cards a bit quicker  ;-)
3) Re-load the (start) page again and login again before entering answers.

I've requested the timeout value to be increased to two hours.

There are other reasons why you may receive the "Not Logged In" message. The most common is not starting your session via http://table-top-rallying.org.uk/Internet/TNFP2010/TT-Intro.php and then choosing LOGIN. This ensures that your "session" starts up cleanly for posting subsequent results.

Other, rarer, solutions are "Adjust your firewall settings" to allow data to be sent from your browser and "Clear down your browser cache".

Bulletin 12 (29 January 2010 @ 01:00)

Crikey ... we're up to 111 entries and still rising. When everyone has paid it looks likes we're going to get close to £2,000 for charity. THANKS.

I'm getting bounced e-mail messages to the following competitors: Richard Scott, David Moore and Mike Vary. Could they confirm their e-mail addresses to ttr@(DELETETHISBIT)table-top-rallying.org.uk

Thought for the event: Why does everyone start with Route Card 1?

Bulletin 11 (20 January 2010 @ 16:45)

Motorsport News - 20 January 2010

Motorsport News - 20 January 2010

Bulletin 10 (17 January 2010 @ 17:30)

84 entries and still hoping for a final rush to take us over 100. If your name is in red on the Entry List it means I haven't received your entry fee yet and you won't be able to login to start the event on January 27.

The Route Cards for the first event are complete and are being checked by "Chick". Previous competitors will recognise some old themes and plenty of new ones. You'll also see a Route Card 0: this is a dummy Route Card for you to simply practise how the answer process works before you tackle the real Route Cards.

Talking of "Chick", she was recently given (by Paul Hernaman) a large number of ancient motoring magazines - Cars & Car Conversions and Rally Sport - which she has packaged to sell on eBay. Sales have been good and the proceeds have been added to our charity pot. Brilliant!

Your start and finish times will be recorded for each Route Card. Don't worry that the time stamps are one hour in advance of UK time (the server is located in Germany), your elapsed time will be calculated correctly.

Talking of foreign things, particular thanks to our overseas entrants Messrs Westberg, Bean, Glynn and Owen for giving the competition a global flavour.

Bulletin 9 (11 January 2010 @ 15:00)

78 entries and slowing, but probably due to the fact that the TTR server was misbehaving with entry processing. That's fixed now.

Income is climbing and we have now passed the £1,000 mark of donations received. THANKS.

Just an early giveaway that one of the Route Cards on The Nearest FarAway Place Rally will require you to listen .MP3 sound files and another to view .AVI video files. Both of these type of files can be played with Windows Media Player. However, if you don't have this software available you'll need to install an alternative before you can solve those Route Cards.

Bulletin 8 (08 January 2010 @ 14:30)

76 entries and climbing.

I'm not a great fan of social networking but keeping folk informed of happenings can sometimes be useful. So, if you are a Twitterer, you can now keep up with Tweets about the Championship by following the username tabletoprally.

Bulletin 7 (06 January 2010 @ 01:30)

Now 70 entries and many more still promised. By virtue of those that have paid their entry fee we have already passed £750 to the Multiple Sclerosis Society. THANKS. If you haven't paid yet, your early remittance would be much appreciated.

One of the Route Cards on The Nearest FarAway Place Rally will be using spoken pace notes. While I was preparing the sound files I came across four hilarious pace note sound clips that I recorded from a radio programme some time ago. Right click if you want to download them. Clip1 Clip2 Clip3 Clip4

Last year when a leg injury prevented me from jogging - but not walking - I strode out on footpaths and sampled geocaching (http://geocaching.com). Using maps and a handheld GPS the objective is to find caches (treasure boxes) which are (mostly) hidden in the countryside. Some caches have a specific (longitude/latitude) reference where to find it; others you may have to solve a puzzle first - very similar to the TTR challenges. You obviously like maps and puzzles, so if you want to combine it with exercise give the sport a try.
So far I've tempted three geocachers to TTRs since they've entered the 2010 Championship; welcome aboard - Andy Gooden, Jennifer Butler and Alan Edwards.

It's a while since I've added anyone to the TTR Competitor Profiles, so if you want to tell the world about your life outside of table-top rallying send me your Bio and a photo, and I'll add it to the website.

Bulletin 6 (04 January 2010 @ 01:30)

HAPPY NEW YEAR to the 66 entries so far.

Since you don't need to buy paper maps for the Championship, some of you may not have access to the latest Legends,  Symbols and Abbreviations that appear on the maps we use i.e. Ordnance Survey 1:50000 scale Landranger series and this year the occasional 1:25000 scale Explorer series. This information is available on the OS website, but you can download the following PDF files here for convenience:
1:50000 Legend | 1:25000 Legend | Abbreviations | Additional 1:25000 Symbols

Before you start the Championship on January 27 make sure you have a copy of the latest set of General Regulations to hand since these are being updated to reflect some changes/clarifications appropriate for this year.

Would all spammers please note that your attempts to join the TTR Forums in order to post suspect material are being deleted since they are only open to Championship entrants who have paid their entry fee. So don't waste your time and mine.

Bulletin 5 (30 December 2009 @ 23:50)

60 entries - now for the New Year rush.

Don't forget to try the practice route cards and provide feedback. Many have already - thanks.

We have a Tullie family happening on the entry list: Iain (Masters), Alastair (Experts) and Cameron - son of Alastair -  (Novices). Perhaps you could coerce your brother, sister, mother, father, son, daughter ... into putting in an entry?

If you are feeling more charitable and are looking for something novel you can adopt a word. When I last looked Navigator, Co-driver, Plotter, Rally and Navigation were all available; but Crow is already spoken for.

Bulletin 4 (18 December 2009 @ 23:00)

53 entries and counting. Thanks. Keep them coming - the target to beat the 2008 Championship figure of 109.

I've published four sample Route Cards for you to practice your plotting skills during your quiet(?) periods over the Christmas holidays. These partly reflect some new mapping ideas which I expect to introduce into the Championship. I think you will enjoy the novel navigational challenge; but whatever your opinion, please post your feedback to the TTR forum - particularly if you encounter any operational problems.
Jump to here to get started on the Practice Rally.

For the technically minded, the mapping techniques use the OpenSpace framework published by Ordnance Survey which gives Internet access to its databases of 1:50000 scale maps and street maps.

Bulletin 3 (13 December 2009 @ 00:20)

We are up to 44 entries and £260 has already been received in entry fees which will be forwarded to the Multiple Sclerosis Society next week. THANK YOU!

"Chick" has confirmed that she will mistressmind the Panglossian Rally in March.

So that you can check out your map printing capability, a sample of the map size and quality can be downloaded here. This PDF map has been produced using the mapping software from Quo (pronounced Crow?) and output using the PDFCreator printer driver. Any problems please raise a query on the TTR forum.

Bulletin 2 (07 December 2009 @ 22:25)

A good start to the entries with 27 already received. As expected with a two-year old mailing list many of the announcement emails failed, so please spread the news to your friends and fellow car club members about the new Championship.

Next week a few sample route cards will be posted for you tackle as a warm-up before the first event in January. Availability will be announced via a bulletin, but you can receive immediate notification by subscribing to the website RSS news feed .

Bulletin 1 (05 December 2009 @ 02:11)

The announcement for the Internet Table-Top Rally Championships for 2010 has now been published on the website.
Full details are now available including Entry Form, Entry List and Regulations.