In this combined Coventry/Banbury event 11 teams took part. Teams started at Dover’s Hill near Chipping Campden where good signals were heard from both stations.

Station ‘A’ was located on a stretch of an old mineral railway line running between the Stratford and Warwick roads, the area concerned sandwiched between an industrial estate and a fairly modern housing development, meaning that road access and parking from both north and south was available within 100 metres of the station. The railway line forms part of a lengthy Banbury circular walk, which Mick is very familiar with and credit goes to Mick for finding out such a nice little spot. The station comprised of around 150 metres of wire in a simple long wire format with a tap into the transmitter close to one end. Brambles and a sturdy fence prevented access to the operator in all directions apart from one. Graham Phillips was first on site and could be clearly seen from my hide, followed a little latter by Colin and Rosie. However despite the rather compact site both disappeared for a considerable period of time. In Graham's case, well, it was possibly three quarters of an hour. Rosie and Colin were first to find my route into the transmitter. Shortly after, Alan arrived to complete the course and win the event, shortly after that a rather relieved Graham checked in and was encouraged to head off for his second station. Ten of the eleven teams visited the site during the afternoon and almost everyone found me individually without any queuing to check in. All in all a very enjoyable afternoon spent on the old railway line and a big thank you to all who took part.

Station ‘B’ was located in on a bridleway approximately 10km from the start by the side of a fishing lake and used a long wire teed off at one end. Although undergrowth was a bit sparse there were a few bushes around and one of them provided enough cover for Peter and his transmitter. Peter was on a rare visit from Norfolk and enjoyed getting into the spirit again. Phil and I found the site a few weeks beforehand and whilst checking out the area had a chat with the local landowner who was happy for us to set the station up and use the old tramway to get into the site rather than the very muddy footpath. Alan and Steve located this station very quickly with the rest trailing over twenty minutes behind.

The best way to find the transmitters was to do this station ‘B’ and then head off to station ‘A’ at Banbury, thereby reducing the mileage travelled. However, Chris and Graham did it the other way round and unfortunately paid the price.

A very pleasant tea was provided by the Coffee Shop where Alan Simmons and Steve Stone told all the other competitors how they had managed to lead the field. This was a great effort by Steve who managed to come second despite competing on his own. Alan and Geoffrey take the two qualifying places.

George Whenham