Winter Series 2000-2001
Round 4 - 14th Januaruy 2001

Report by TX operator, Chris Plummer:

The day started well, fine and clear but damned cold again. I had eyed up the wood before on my many passings through Style on the back way to Manchester Airport, but had not gone into it until the morning. It was just off the northern end of the older runway where the new train loop to the airport joins the main line to Manchester. The cover was quite good under the tall trees, and the footpath not that easy to find if you (like most competitors) had an older map. The railway is in a deep cutting, and thus has a good fence with strings of barbed wire nicely insulated running along the top. I attached a dummy wire, (in fact it did radiate) to the fence and ran it into the bushes. I then set up under some spare brambles, a little way from the wood and loaded up the same fence. As an aerial this din't work too well and the teams only 8.5km away opened the envelope (spoil sports, I'd hoped they would set off for the woods around Poynton and have to navigate back again). As it turned out, the bearing in the envelope convinced some to search along the Mersey way to the north, but as the track on Giles' GPS showed, having him in the car can confuse the driver (Chris Heys). The track they made and retraced somewhat ended up on the wrong side of the main railway with a dead end road in the way.

While Chris Heys and John Jocys were kept busy on the wrong side of the railway, Dave Peacock was first on site in the wooded bit, so I gave a few transmissions to confuse him. Nearly all wire round the site radiated, including the 25kV overhead lines on the railway. With the dummy wire also having distracted Dave's attention, Chris and John joined him 10 minutes later, closely followed by Dave Chippendale. It wasn't until all four teams were on site that Chris spotted my red coat when investigating my corner away from the trees. I was tucked away in the acute angle of the two fences right as far north and away from the obvious wood as possible.

After we'd all agreed to generously award Chris Heys double his points in November for taking Giles, he wasn't too pleased when told the offer was limited, and no longer valid!

Once all teams had found me they then decamped (again) to the Ship in Styal village for the now traditional ale and pies, however the hot chili-con-carne was too hot for some. The service was rapid this time, we'll go there again.

Chris Plummer