After receiving a message from Andy Collett requesting a navigator for this evening's DF event it was only right I agreed as he assisted me early on in the season.

Seven teams heard a strong signal from Peter, G3UJO, giving Andy a bearing of 310 passing through the village of Wheatley. We drove up towards Worminghall and on the 8pm transmission managed to get two bearings which crossed with the start bearing near the disused railway at Wheatley.

As we arrived at the Motel car park, Alan Simmons arrived and both teams eventually selected to run down the side of the river. With frantic searching before the next signal nothing found, then with the 8:15pm signal on it appeared that Peter was indeed further down the map. Onwards both teams plodded until we arrived at a small copse with a stream and ditch with running water. After a quick search found Peter's hide. "How many teams in?" asked Andy! "You're sixth!" replied Peter. (Drat). So then we started the trek back avoiding the local farmer ploughing his fields, on and on we walked until we arrived back in Wheatley but, alas, we had walked to the wrong end and then plodded another one and a half miles back to the car arriving there at 10:00pm with aching limbs etc, Andy decided to depart to Swindon while I attempted to drive to the Pub in Cuddesdon only to get lost and with the help of Peter managed to find the pub and jubilant teams resting in the garden.

It was a sad evening that this crack team went astray. Let's hope its only temporary.

Brian Bristow

Another view

We heard a very good signal from Peter at the start with almost no skywave component. That indicated that he wasn't too far away even though the bearing went through the water meadows in Oxford that Peter has used on more than one occasion. We drove leisurely and stopped near Chalgrove for the 8pm transmission. The bearing indicated that he was between Wheatley and Cuddesdon but the cross was not near anything likely so we took a bearing from the cross and it pointed to a place where a stream crossed a footpath about the right distance away. This looked like a typical Peter site so we went straight there.

I saw no cars near the end of the path and started running full of excitement. Then I saw someone walking down the path in front of me. "Dog walker" I thought but as I got closer I saw it was Steve. He reached a stile some way ahead of me and I saw him climb over and walk straight through a field of cows and calves. When I got to the stile I had some misgivings because one of the cows looked very much like a bull to me and the situation suddenly became dangerous in my mind. I decided to wait for the transmission and see if there really was a need to cross the field. Peter Lisle then turned up just as the transmission started. It was clear that we had to cross the field, so, perhaps emboldened by each other, we ran round the side of the field away from the animals and leapt over the stile at the other side. The cows paid no attention at all.

Peter B. was about 100 yards away next to the stream using his standard quarter-wave and wet earth. I managed to get in just ahead of Peter L.

The evening was very warm and we all sat outside the pub chatting and waited for Brian to arrive. I'm afraid we had gone home before he made it (see above).

Bill Pechey