As Sunday 20th March dawned, the weather in Timperley was worryingly calm.  At 8am I, along with No.1 son, headed north towards my chosen transmitter site.

I had tried to come up with a slightly novel station situation, trying to make the site difficult enough to present a challenge, but not so difficult as to make locating the lurker an impossible task.  Recent experiments with kite-supported 1/4 wave vertical aerials spawned the idea of using a kite supported Top Band aerial.

At 9.20am we arrived on the top of the moor where we were rather relieved to find a good but cold breeze blowing.  We soon settled on our 'hiding place', a spot adjacent to a wire fence that ran east to west, a couple of hundred metres north of Peel Tower on Holcombe Moor, close to Ramsbottom.

Two kites were launched, the main kite was a 72" wingspan 'Delta' that was supporting 40m of wire intertwined with the main line.  The second kite was a rather smaller affair that was launched about 25m away, its line being secured to the fence.  Its main purpose was that of a decoy, although it would also have been capable of supporting a somewhat shorter aerial in case the main kite failed (Murphy's Law and all that).

The main kite was secured to the ground with a metal 'corkscrew' used by dog owners to stop their doggies running off.  This corkscrew also doubled as an earth.  Experience has shown that a kite-supported aerial can generate a significant static charge so a 1 Meg resistor was connected from the aerial to the earth spike to prevent any static build up.  In addition to this earth the wire fence was also connected up.

A telephone call to Mr Heys confirmed that there were five teams out in all, but the first transmission at 10am was surprisingly weak, and it was some time before it became apparent that the earth connection to the fence was less than perfect.  A lot of scraping of the oxide on the wire fence soon corrected this situation which improved the radiated signal considerably.

No.2 son soon appeared, bounding over the moor (fuelled by the promise of a free lunch and a beer) to add to the number of 'anoraks' on the cold and windy moor.

Very soon after the second transmission at 10.42am Messrs Holland and Heys were seen running around the eastern slopes of Holcombe Moor.  They had seen the kites but not recognised the 'anoraks' flying them, probably assuming that nobody would be stupid enough to hide in the open, and certainly not flying kites that could be seen for miles.  In mitigation, my two assistants were probably quite unrecognisable to most members of the Club, they were only school boys when they were last involved in DFs.

A random transmission later, and Chris Plummer along with Dave Chippendale were spotted walking from Peel Tower towards the transmitter site.  When this dynamic pair were about 50m from the station, the familiar faces of Heys & Holland appeared from the well-beaten heather covered eastern slopes of Holcombe Moor.  Their appearance prompted a flurry of activity: Dave Chippendale sprinted to the station, handing in his envelope at 11.06am.  5 seconds later, the Heys / Holland duo arrived, followed 5 seconds later by Chris Plummer.  Never before has Holcombe Moor seen such excitement!

After the satisfactory grovelling of all the competitors, their envelopes were signed and their times recorded.

It was nearly 4 minutes later that Mr Peacock appeared on the scene, signing in at 11.10am. More random transmissions soon had the cheery face of Mr Heath appearing on the top of the moor, finally arriving at the transmitter site at a most appropriate 11.42am.

All teams in and it was time to pack up.  The small kite was very easy to bring in, but the main kite was more of a problem.  The wind was quite strong and it took quite some time to reel the big beastie in.

All in all it was a most satisfactory morning out, if nothing else it confirmed the importance of a decent earth system when running a vertical aerial, particularly on Top Band.

At the pub, a few hundred feet lower, the cold wind of the moor had changed to quite still air warmed by bright sunshine.  The pub, The Hare & Hounds, provided probably the best selection of well kept ales many of us had seen for a long time.  With 8 cask beers to choose from, along with a very cheap menu of really quite good food, we found ourselves in a most agreeable situation.  The very cheerful company, minus Mr Plummer, then spent half an hour studying maps, plotted bearings, results, and the possibility of a return trip to the pub to sample more of its excellent beers in a less restrictive situation, i.e. transport by bus / tram / train or whatever.
 

This way to...
 

Peel Tower
 

Dave Holland takes the direct way up
 

Everyone in, apart from Mr Heath
 

John Jocys's colourful kite aerials
 

Dave Chip and Chris P recover from their sprint finish
 

John's Transmitting equipment
 

Roger and Chris P
 

Roger and Chris on the descent back to the car (the photographer beat them down)