Fifteen teams gathered at Watlington Hill for the 2004 Geoff Peck Memorial event. Both stations were a little weak at the start but no-one asked for an approximate bearing. Station A was located in very open woodland to the west of Hambleden. A simple antenna was used but the station was concealed in a largish patch of old brambles and seemed to give some competitors quite a bit of trouble. Many thought that the station was south of the Thames.

Station B was operated by Roger, G8WCH, and was located just south of the M4, motorway close to Reading services. Again the antenna was fairly straightforward and the station was hidden in a particularly nasty briar patch. Things were made easier for some when Alan Simmons lost his balance in the thick of it and flattened quite a large area!

None the worse for his fall, Alan won the event by about seven minutes from Andrew Mead who took the stations in the opposite order. Well done both!

It was nice to see so many youngsters coming along and playing their part in locating the stations. Three teams had members under the age of 18. This must be good for the future of DF!

The tea was held at Crays Pond scout hut and was prepared single-handedly by Doreen. The tea was much appreciated and we all thank her for her efforts.

This was the weekend when the clocks go forward and this almost caused a serious problem; having set the clocks accurately on Saturday we had the situation that Roger's clock was effectively an hour slow compared with mine. Fortunately, we avoided a lot of editing of files by swapping Roger's clock for the spare one on the Sunday.

Thanks again to Roger and Doreen for making this a successful event.

Bill Pechey