The Torbay event started with competitors ducking in and out of the rain showers just to get signed in.

The start transmissions were unfortunately during a shower which was not helpful. Also, only the B station was heard by all and the A station only heard by me - I did hear it , honest. This is, unhappily, a first as we have always had two signals at the start.

So, the DF teams were given approximate directions for both and the approximate distance for A station which put that station somewhere in the Haldon Hill plantations. Luckily for the A station, the plantations are very large, as many competitors found out.

Station A was positioned under power lines at the extreme edge of the map with Colin Boyce the operator. These power lines are just on the map for 3km but go through the plantation and seemed to pull the bearings around quite a bit so that several competitors spent all afternoon chasing it down.

Several competitors managed to sort it out after a few transmissions and then went on to look for Station B. This was set in "Rhododendron Wood" near to Dunkerswell Airfield, and what a wood it is. I have never seen so much Rhododendron in one place.

Those competitors who went to this station first had made a little dent in the cover and so the winner, Dick Brocks, had a slightly easier task to burrow through the dense undergrowth, but only slightly. The station was about 200m uphill from the path where the earth staked antenna had been run along the path.

A special well done goes to Graham Jones who finds his first two stations ahead of many seasoned prefessionals.

Paul Clark