The idea behind this event was to have two stations on roughly the same bearing; one near the start and one some distance away but with similar signal levels. This almost worked but the nearer one was a bit stronger on the day.

Both stations were hidden in rhododendron areas. The A station, operated by Min Standen, was in Wyfold Wood, near Gallowstree Common. He had managed to find a bush that was strong enough to support his weight and he was about ten feet in the air, visible from a distance but not from those crawling around under the bushes. The antenna had two parts; a half-wave leading to an earth stake in a muddy pond and a quarter-wave just lost in the bushes somewhere. The antenna was never more than about 15 feet off the ground but put a good signal into the start 4.8 km away. Min had some considerable difficulty finding the transmitter site and had to go out of the rhododendrons several times before he finally found where the wires led to!

Roger Shepherd ran the B station, which was located at the top of Ashley Hill, between Henley and Maidenhead. He was right down in a shelf in the ground under the bushes. The antenna was of indeterminate length and wandered around the rhododendrons but had some high sections in the beech and pine trees. The station was 19 km from the start.

The event seemed to provide challenges for the teams and only four teams found both stations in the time. Those four were only separated by ten minutes. Alan Simmons came in first, followed by Graham Phillips. Only Paul Clark took the stations in what I thought was the "correct" order and came third.

The tea was provided by Doreen in the Scout Hut at Crays Pond. People seemed to enjoy the tea but I was eating the excess coleslaw for almost a week afterwards!

This event saw the first live test of Roger's new clocks which use the iButton technology. Everything seemed to work well and we did not need to use the back-up pencil-and-paper record keeping. As time goes on, the software will be updated to add useful features.

Bill Pechey