Love it when a plan comes together.

BUT IT IS EVEN BETTER WHEN EVERYTHING SCREWS UP AND YOU GET AWAY WITH IT.

[AKA Tx operator’s report for Collier Cup event 4 July 2014]

At the beginning of the season I offered to do an early season DF on the basis of it being dark – giving me the chance to run a station fairly near to home and hiding up a tree, in a bush coupled to a couple of fences or something like that – just for a change.

In the event I swapped with Mark Coventry, running an event close to the longest day – no torches required.

In the end we located the Tx close to Holy Brook and the railway line – ensuring that the aerial crossed the water several times, disappeared into nettles etc wherever possible. Andy and I [with some assistance from Maisy] spent several hours getting the aerial in place [I estimate about 150M] the aerial was in clear air and at a good height about quarter wave from the Tx and loaded perfectly on my Transmitter – and we still had time to stroll back to Andy’s house grab a cup of tea, park my car in a suitable side street and still be back at the Tx site by 19:15, confident of getting a cracking signal back to Cowleaze Wood.

It all started to go wrong on the walk back – call from John Mullins – no clock cards. Got to the site – connected the Tx – previously had seen SWR better than 1.2:1 into the aerial 1 hour earlier – nothing. So I contacted Alan and, since it would take between 20-30 minutes brisk walking to get the spare, we agreed to issue the approximate bearing/distance and start as usual. On this occasion I had been sufficiently confident not to bring the backup mid-Thames set.

This may have been the point where the luck changed – in retrospect I think the distance and Reading might have been a step too far for the Collier Cup start but the >20km distance given to the teams negated that one. Everyone found the Tx, there was suitable grumbling and the reluctant congratulations on the site etc. Peter bought the beer afterwards being the last finisher.

Roger Shepherd