Despite a forecast of heavy showers during Sunday, eight teams managed to enjoy some reasonable weather for the W-S-M event that took place mostly in the northern part of the ST182 map. Heavy rain during the previous evening probably soaked the trees between the starting point at East Harptree woods and station ‘A’ located in the north of the map near to the village of Flax Bourton. Station ‘A’ was once again the ‘dreaded’ G4XWP/P (Brian’s term not mine) operated by the man himself Colin on 1950 kHz!

The station was located in Bourton Combe, a natural valley located only 9.5 miles from the start and as it had some historic quarries dug into the sides which are now covered in Rhododendrons, it provided good cover; despite this Colin hid behind a low derelict stone wall. The station gave a weak signal into the start despite a large amount of aerial in the form of a ‘T’ arrangement with one end earthed. Once the teams entered the valley and its half mile run-in from either end to where Colin hid, they where greeted with a huge signal. Despite only two ways in to the valley, Brian found a third route … down the face of the old quarry. Andy Collet was the first team to reach Colin after he entered from the northern side of the valley eight minutes ahead of the next team.

Station ‘B’ G4MDF/P on 1920 kHz was located 5 miles to the south of the start in a shallow and pretty little wooded valley halfway between Wookey Hole and the City of Wells. It did not show up on the map as anything other than a footpath and with no other distinguishing features; despite this some rough patches of brambles provided reasonable hiding places and the very tall Ash Trees gave excellent support for the huge Marconi ‘T’ which was over 60 foot high with the top section being some 300 meters across and terminating in the brambles (where else)! The station was operated by Graham and it put a very strong signal into the start … so much so that many teams thought it was located in Stockhill Woods and far nearer to the start. When teams arrived on site the signal was so strong due to the 60ft vertical component that finding a null or peak was very difficult owing to the swamping effect of the RF. Brian’s young team mate Mark spotted Graham in some brambles enabling Brian to win the event in a time of 16:10:57.

Once again the Strawberry Special pub put on a first class meal! My thanks to all who took part in the event and to Colin and Bob who helped to set the event up.

Graham Jones