Three firsts for the year:

1. With start in complete darkness and first evening DF with rain

2. Two seasoned Tx operators together for the first time

3. The first airing of the long awaited R Shepherd's transmitter (see below)

Seven teams supported this last single evening DF event of the season. The first ever transmission from the new Tx was greeted mainly with good comments as it came over fairly strong with all teams taking bearings circa 265, which went towards the Dorchester/Abingdon area. With heavy fog in places and rain most teams headed towards Benson.

The 8pm signal was extremely strong giving most teams a bearing going east of the town of Dorchester, with transmission times longer I managed to drive just past Dorchester and await the third Tx signal. Bill Pechey had a good cross on the River Thame and proceeded to run in from a track from Overy a good 25 minutes in front of the other teams.

The 8:15 signal proved Peter/Roger were in the wet area East of Dorchester and on driving down the track came across Mark Coventry and Graham Phillips. With a gentle jog proceeded down the footpath until a couple of torches were spotted. After talking to Bill Pechey (had he found the Tx) I knew it was close by. After looking down both sides of the river bank, I noticed Graham Phillips well out of puff! Ha, Ha! Let's go and look under the footbridge. (Great! Hello Peter) just beating Mark from the other side. Off we walked back to the cars wondering where the National Champion and Steve Stone had got to! Many minutes went by until the last two missing teams managed to get in before close down.

Much discussion was had regards the type of transmission the new Tx had given, but in all it was a positive first outing.

My thanks to Peter and Roger for putting on the last event for Mid-Thames

Brian Bristow.

Some comments from the designer of the new transmitter

I would like to thank all of the Guinea Pigs that turned out for the MTRDF event last night – you thought that it was the final round of the Collier Cup but – unknown to most – the event had been secretly cancelled and since it was not possible to contact everyone it was used as a test for my new transmitter – thanks to everyone who participated.

My special thanks go to Peter Bradley who acted as operator for the evening – in return I did render some assistance with the aerial installation – there was an unintentional side effect – I learned a few new tricks which I will attempt to use when I am installing aerials in future. Oh – just remembered - I have offered to run a Tx on the Triple Night :>) may be able to employ a few new tricks then.

For the record the transmitter was a completely new design, last night it was running about 8 watts, the design is Class-E with a PWM drive for the PA – my thanks go to Bill Pechey and Brian for their constant encouragement over the 4/5 years that the project has taken to date – once I have ironed out a few of the wrinkles I hope to have a Tx in service for next season and get some more feedback from competitors and operators. I note the comments regarding the ‘chirp’ encountered with C/W and the poor modulation on AM – it is fine in my workshop so I am fairly sure that the latter issue is associated with RF getting into the mic lead. For the record the oscillator is running at 1949991.9 Hz [or thereabouts], I have an idea where the chirp comes from and also some tips from various beer drinkers from last night.

Roger Shepherd