After lots of rain during the morning and early afternoon, the weather cleared into a very pleasant evening. Bill and Doreen ran the hidden station and managed to keep dry. The station was located on Horspath Common, just to the east of Oxford and about 16 km from the start. There were several ways in to the woodland but Keith Holden managed to park about 200 m from the transmitter, others had a much longer run.

The signal was, apparently, quite good at the start but some competitors reported that it seemed to get weaker as you approached the transmitter! I suspect that the antenna had some directivity and was putting out a lot of sky wave, this idea is supported by the fact that the bearings from the start were inaccurate and variable.

Doreen did the operating and was concealed in a patch of gorse and hawthorn with the odd bramble thrown in. Nevertheless, Peter Lisle seemed to have little trouble and came in well ahead of the field (how do we keep this guy out?). Many people had difficulty with close-in bearings and there were several places where the set clearly led away from the transmitter. At least two teams had been on site for about half an hour before getting to the vicinity of the Tx.

Congratulations to Peter and commiserations to the rest.

Bill Pechey.