3. Spiders Web in Wrexham Forest
Some considerable time ago now, not quite lost in the mists of time (or Wales) is this tale of pure fiendishness. South Manchester were running the National Final, back in the days when Eric Mollart was ‘King of the Hill’ (and he needed to be that day). This transmitter crew had been assigned Wrexham forest as their turf, well not really turf, more like a tangle, they must have spent days putting up wire, which was no mean feat on the slopes of the ravines within the forest. The antenna ‘Array’, for that’s what it was, ended up virtually coating a whole mountainside with a spiders web of wire, contestants later found that, if in their frustration at not being able to find the transmitter site, they ‘Accidentally’ broke any wire that they had found, then, rather than have a live side and a dead end, both sides of the break continued to radiate as each wire effectively had multiple feeds.
Add to this the final fiendish plot of the transmitter crew, led by Pooh Bear himself , Ron Smith G3SVW, they slung the operator on a childs swing seat under an overhang of rhododendrons as it poured off a 45o slope down a shear 100’ precipice. Note. This is now frowned on after Dave (Icarus) Hollands accident on a Quad Night event.
Needless to say this transmitter was nearly impossible to find. The then young Brian Bristow spent all afternoon there before finding it at the last gasp (literally) The only team to find all three transmitters that year was Eric Mollart, who came to that transmitter as his last one and then it was only minutes before the end of the contest scheduled time.
As a post script to this, some 17 years latter SMRC again ran the final on the same map, but organised by new comers, who had not heard of the previous fiendishness. A few days before the event when discussions were in full swing in the pub after an SMRC club meeting, the newer organiser on being told we had used that map before, asked where the sites had been back then in the dim and distant past. When told , poker faced he said ‘Oh yes’, and promptly went into a huddle with his organising team (they had chosen exactly the same three sites) They then changed their sites, hurriedly as it was the Friday before the Sunday Final day, as Dave Holland, Chris Wells and Chris Plummer (All SMRC members) had qualified for the final. However, they kept one of the three sites, as it was SO GOOD. That site was Wrexham Forest.
When the day dawned the competitors set off (one site on the River Dee, smelled of all the sweaty armpits ever, see The Dairy below), but when the author came to Wrexham Forest, he found Christine Bristow, standing at the road forlornly surveying the tangle below. When asked how long her Hubby, Brian had been gone, she answered ‘Too long’ , also when asked if she recognised the site, ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘Last time Brian was kn***ed for a week as he had been in that wood all afternoon.’ The omens were not good. This time the crew had found a vast tangle of rhodies and a cliff ledge, the only way to get your form to them was by sticking your arm blindly round the back of a huge boulder and shooting ‘Sign this, You Ba*****ds’(How did he know?) Needless to say Brian did not win that final either.