2019 Gage-Tyler Cup round 7

18 September 2019

Flushed with the success on Sunday last, I decided to throw a sickie on Monday and stay in Devon to celebrate and relax... Monday, on the way home I stopped off in some woods nearby to Henley-on-Thames, where I am currently residing. A nice stroll in the woods after a long day of driving was much needed and I took an amble around in Holly Grove a few miles to the NW of Henley. What a find, plenty of nice sites here. With all the good weather I elected to get the antenna erected on Tuesday evening. This took about an hour and a half, to put up about 100m of wire through a load of Rhododendron bushes that I had found running down either side of a footpath!

I decided that I was not going to hide in a total thicket, but found a large hole in the rhodies that anyone wandering by shining a torch into would easily see me, perched on the branches about 5 feet off the ground, or so I thought. The correct bearing was 283 degrees and about 15km from the start at Maidenhead Thicket.

Peter and Ruth were first on site around 08:30 ish, crashing down the footpath while the transmitter was on and I think spotting the wire over the path quite quickly. Oh dear I thought, this is going to be too easy. Soon other teams were about on site. Peter correctly, or so I thought, found the back way around the bushes and wandered past my hideout and failed to see me much to my amazement. Subsequent transmissions seemed to take people away to the other side of the footpath where most of the wire was, which was my intention.

Eventually I heard some plaintive cries from Graham in the distance, so made encouraging remarks on the Tx to help him get to the site.

There followed a most surreal sequence of events where there were 2-3 people with torches crawling around on the ground below me, fighting their way through the roots of the rhodies. If only I could have got some video of the scene, along with various choice remarks!

Eventually Ruth's sharp eyes spotted me once she had worked out that pointing the torch up a bit and not on the ground might be worthwhile and managed to guide Peter in somehow without anyone else getting to me first. Everyone else followed in fairly quick succession.

A good pint was had at The Rising Sun in Witheridge Hill. (Odd fact, a Malcolm Witheridge was my physics teacher at 6th form).

Justin Snow

Competitor Time Adj. Time Time Diff. Score Bill North
Peter Lisle 21:16:41 21:16:41 00:00:00 -5 10
Bill Pechey 21:21:54 21:21:54 00:05:13 7 6
Alan Simmons 21:22:17 21:22:17 00:05:36 8 4
Graham Phillips 21:26:01 21:26:01 00:09:20 13 3
Justin Snow op - - - 4