Five teams started this event run by John (stand-in) Champion, G4MDF/P. The signal was fairly audible giving to most teams a bearing of around 128 degrees which passed through Marlow towards Slough. Three teams went towards Marlow and slightly beyond to find that their cross bearings passed near to the river Thames and the Marlow/Maidenhead railway. Steve Stone found, to his amazement, that he had plotted a bearing going towards Princes' Risborough whilst I, on seeing all the cars at the start leave to the right, turned left towards Nettlebed. I then found, four miles down the road, that I had plotted the wrong bearing. After taking two more bearings, I drove up a small lane searching for DF cars (no sign) and, after two more bearings, returned to said road and proceeded on foot until the signal came on. It almost blew my head cans off but, unknown to me, John had wired the long fence and it took me ages to actually DF further down to find all the other teams chuckling at my misfortunes.

I always believe that you can learn something from every DF event so here is one to help. If you're pushing 60 put your "B" glasses on to read and plot your bearings no matter what you look like.

Thanks to John for standing in at the last moment.

Brian Bristow