The evening for the second round of the Collier Cup was, thankfully, dry after a long spell of rain. Eight teams showed up including Roger Shepherd testing his new set. Peter Bradley was on the transmitter.

The first transmission was fairly strong, although Roger had some difficulty getting a good bearing (more work needed!). I plotted 262 degrees and thought he might be on the Thames somewhere near Dorchester. We decided to go through Watlington and be somewhere near the Golden Balls roundabout for the 8pm signal. We passed several teams who had parked in gateways along the same road. We got to the roundabout with a minute or so to spare and then I remembered the problem I had last time I took a bearing at that place – there was a very strong noisy signal all over the band. One day, I will find out where it is and tell Ofcom about it if it shouldn’t be there. Nevertheless, I got a fairly reasonable bearing that went just south of Abingdon so the station was clearly further on than I had thought.

The bearing crossed the Thames near Culham and we went to the car park near Culham Lock. I had expected Peter to be east of here on the bank of the river. However, the sense said that he was on the same bearing but to the west. I double-checked the sense and started running down the bank of the cut, having explained the plan to Doreen. Two other teams (John and Roger) were in the same car park but thought it was further away and drove off.

My bearing was slightly to the south of the cut and I reckoned that he was probably near a footbridge. As I reached the footbridge, I met Andy coming down a different path. It’s usually a good sign when you meet a competitor who has been running from a different direction so I felt happier. I had had a nagging doubt when I saw the other teams drive off.

We ran up and down the bank for a while and concluded that there wasn’t much cover. At about this time Peter arrived and went through the same process. We all decided at about the same time that he had to be over the bridge (why didn’t I trust my instincts and cross the bridge first?). There was very little cover to the east so we went the other way with the transmitter on. Peter L. told me afterwards that the signal peaked up but he could see nowhere that Peter B. could be hiding so he thought that he would find the other end of the aerial, which had to run along the cut. I also looked around but couldn’t find Peter B. either.

After I had been up and down the bank a little, finding some very good hides in the process, I went back to where the signal had peaked first and there was Peter B. I don’t know how I missed him the first time. I noticed that his log sheet was blank so I felt pleased inside. Alan was also on site by this time and he, Andy and Peter soon found the station.

Peter was using his usual quarter wave antenna with an earth plate in the water. The transmitter matches this quite well and always puts out a good signal.

On the way back to the car we met a steady stream of competitors coming down the towpath. Everyone found the station and we were able to meet at the pub earlier than usual.

Thanks to Peter for, as usual, running a good event and getting everyone in.

Bill Pechey.