A good complement of 16 teams gathered at Maidenhead Thicket for the Mid Thames Qualifying event. Most teams obtained two reasonable bearings, both indicating a fair distance in South/ South Westerly direction.

Half the competitors chose Transmitter A first, which was located just to the south of some lakes between Eversley Cross and Yately. Competitors approaching by footpath from the south were rewarded with a short run into site, whereas those lured by an official car park to the north added a couple of km to their afternoon’s exercise. Ray Goodearl was hidden under a fallen tree, and well camouflaged. Despite having a simple aerial system several competitors found the tx hard to find, including spending spells of time staring straight at Ray before disappearing off elsewhere.

Transmitter B was located on the South bank of the Kennet and Avon canal south of Calcot, to the West of Reading and near the crossroads of four footpaths. Peter Lisle (the organiser) found the site by approaching from the West, where the site was accessible off the footpath through a wooded area. He then subsequently brought Min Standen as tx operator in from the nearest entrance in Calcot in the North. Unfortunately those accessing from the South were greeted by a gated fence and signage that indicated the area where the tx was located was private property. This dissuaded several competitors from entering the wooded area and caused some fruitless searching for different access points. Those that did find the access point found Min relatively quickly but then somewhat unexpectedly went astray in getting across the fairly short distance to the A station.

Graham Phillips celebrated a rare national event victory, finding his second transmitter shortly after 4pm. Bill Pechey (ably assisted by Doreen who ran into the second site successfully on her recently replaced knee joint – well done!) came second, and Geoff Foster a close third. Regrettably these were the only teams to find both transmitters.

Peter Lisle