Firstly thanks to all the intrepid competitors who turned out for the Triple Night on the 30th October. Having 6 teams out made it worthwhile organising.

I would have liked to use two maps for the event but comments made at a Mid-Thames meeting changed my mind, so I plumped for the well used Reading and Windsor map. Unfortunately, because this map is so well used it’s getting harder to find new sites. As it happened, I ended up using two sites which have been the used for recent Mid-Thames events. However local knowledge didn’t seem to help.

I always try and keep things simple when organising events so I didn’t want to trick things up by having a close site with low power. Essentially, once I had chosen the tea venue I wanted to put the start nearby and spread the TX’s in an arc in the hope of avoiding the convoy effect. As it happens the teams split 2/4 to go to stations A and C first.

I was always a bit unsure about the start because it was sheltered by the hill on which the Motorway was sited. As it turned out it had a bigger effect than I would have liked, for that I apologise. All signals were heard but bearings were hard to obtain on Peter Bradley out West and Bill/Doreen down South. Alan out East didn’t seem to give anybody a problem. Apart from Graham Phillips, all teams waited for the approx bearings on stations B and C.

The site Alan was on, just outside Windsor, I thought would be the trickiest since it had potential problems due to the amount of streams in the area. Depending on where you parked and walked in you could have had to cross or go round a couple of streams.

Bill and Doreen were on the Thames at Lower Shiplake. This was the wettest site due to the flooded playing fields you had to cross to get to the woods. Unfortunately for Roy he made it even wetter by going ditch diving near to the TX. Although Bill and Doreen were well hidden the area of woodland was quite small, so it shouldn’t have that difficult.

Peter was in a wood just south of Christmas Common. Access to this site was possible by driving down a rough track. As I was walking down with Peter on the morning I commented that anybody who drove down there needed luck. Unfortunately Andy’s luck ran out and he got a puncture. Andy first decided to retire and then changed his mind and carried on - thanks Andy. Peter’s site was quite close to the end of the track and not far into the woods, so really this should have been the easiest of the three.

It sounds like those who made use of them appreciated the showers available at the supper venue. As it happened the size of the room only just accommodated the numbers.

I’m sorry it was all a bit of a rush at the end but we had to be out by just after midnight. I would have liked to hear how more people got on and what troubles they had. I was really surprised how hard it seemed to be.

Thanks to Fran and David for organising for the supper. I have some photos to go with the results but unfortunately the ones from the start aren’t very good due to the low light levels and using the flash didn’t seem to give good results either. I've included the best of them.

Many thanks again, and see you all next year.

Steve Stone