2012 Gage-Tyler Cup Round 7

19 September 2012

Steve Stone was the operator on the last Gage-Tyler event of the season. The five competitors found his signal was very strong but almost all skywave. The signal strength and direction varied quite widely but it was sometimes possible to hear the ground wave signal and get a bearing. No-one asked for an approximate bearing. We all saw bearings of between 30 and 40 degress (the true bearing was a little less than this). I thought Steve was probably just on the Reading and Windsor map and Graham thought that he could be a long way into the Aylesbury map. We were both wrong.

I decided to head to a favourite spot of mine near the Beaconsfield junction of the M40. I got a much better signal which was mostly groundwave. This bearing indicated due North. I went up to Amersham and moved off a mile or so to one side of the bearing hoping to get a good cross. Instead, I got due North again. I looked at the bearing on the map and decided that the most likely place was Weedonhill Wood near Little Missenden. It looked like a long trek if my bearing was right so I parked at the end of a footpath and got a bearing straight down the path. I soon discovered that the farmer had recently ploughed up the path but had not yet re-instated it. This made the going a bit heavy and it took longer than I hoped to reach the wood. I had a stroke of luck when my torch showed the footpath entering the wood just ahead of me.

The transmitter soon came on; the signal was very strong and I followed a network of paths which eventually, after two transmissions, led me to a large area of chest-high bracken. I thought Steve would be next to a tree or bush poking out of the green sea. He was, in fact, in the middle of a large expanse just relying on the bracken for cover. Peter had arrived on site by now and I managed to get in a few seconds ahead of him, having spotted Steve some distance away by using my torch at ground level.

Graham and John came in soon after but Mark had some difficulty with the bracken. Steve kindly kept the transmitter on after time and Mark found the site at about 21:45.

We met at the Red Lion at Little Missenden for a convival chat afterwards.

Peter had a sequence of disasters. At the start he found he had left his set on and the battery was flat. He quickly borrowed his old set from Mark to take a bearing and put the spare battery in his orginal set. He then found that battery was flat too! He had the presence of mind to go to a supermarket in Beaconsfield and buy another one. This was also traumatic because he had to queue up behind people with huge trolleys of stuff but a kindly old lady let him in front of her. He then found that the checkout machine wouldn't take cash and he had to dig out a credit card! He did amazingly well to come in second after all that.

Thanks to Steve for organising a very good DF in fairly pleasant weather (there was no moon though).

Bill Pechey

Competitor Time Adj. Time Time Diff. Score Bill North
Bill Pechey 21:02:30 21:02:30 00:00:00 -5 10
Peter Lisle 21:02:40 21:02:40 00:00:10 2 6
Graham Phillips 21:08:00 21:08:00 00:05:30 8 4
John Mullins 21:14:00 21:14:00 00:11:30 15 3
Mark Coventry NF 21:34:00 00:31:30 36 2
Steve Stone op - - - 4