Well here we are again the last championship hunt of the season, after torrential rain on and off during the day there is now a lovely clear sky. Tim G6HRN is the fox and so we are expecting something tricky like him hiding up a drainpipe on his motorbike!
Five teams out, including Ian G8PWE who had already spent 3 hours in traffic from Walsall just to get to the start!
19:29 First transmission, Tim is 1 minute early by our clock! As we screech off we wonder if the others are listening, maybe we will have gained a 5 minute advantage? Our morse tappers are back, we could hear the fox quite loudly but his direction was masked by the carrier of the slow morse chaps.
Adrian G7WFM got a sniff to the south but only with the use of his handheld beam and sideband radio, Mike G4EKW set off to Porchester Rd and others to Dorket Head. We seemed to be getting the quietest reading to the west and so made our way down Woodborough road.
19:34 Second transmission and still inconclusive, giant heterodyne between the fox and the morse tappers, decide to carry on towards Beeston just in case.
19:39 Third transmission and things are not good if anything the fox is getting weaker and even less detectable there seems to be an occasional reading to the south now and I am wondering whether this is a red herring.
Meanwhile G4EKW have drawn a blank on Porchester Road and is looking for another likely spot to try.
19:44 And Derby road by the University, its obvious we need to find some high ground so we turn left at Woodside Road and head for the Boots bridge in Beeston.
19:49 just made it creeping over the brow of the bridge and a good signal at last, So the red herring wasnt! South it is. Bat-turn in the road and were on University Boulevard.
The next few transmissions all pointed straight ahead towards Ruddington Bradmore, Bunny and then Costock
20:04 and half way through his transmission the fox goes dead! Oh-oh maybe his radio has failed we wonder, and slow down waiting for the transmission to resume.
After a minute we wonder if the fault might be at our end and so stop to check the aerial and preamp. Sure enough with some wiggling of wires and switching on and off of the preamplifier we were hearing things again, no obvious fault, would it return?
20:09 as we approach Rempstone the signal is at last beginning to veer to the left, at the crossroads its definite and so we turn toward Wymeswold. Signal still not very strong though, has our fault returned?
20:14 Suddenly everyone is in the area, we pass Ian and Adrian within a few hundred yards of each other and as we exit Wymeswold the signal has swung behind.
20:19 And we are driving round and round the village trying to home in on the still very weak signal, considering we must be on top of the fox.
20: 24 and there is only one place left to check, we see Ian come sliding out of the extremely muddy track that we suspected. Taking it steady as we dont have the ground clearance of Ians 4x4, we turn the corner and there is Tim sat watching the telly! 20:31 we clock in. Adrian arrived directly behind and as we both exit the track Mike and Geoff brave the mudbath.
Ian had indeed beaten the lot of us on our home ground so well done to him, Mike and Ron were in the area despite having forgotten their attenuator, so well done to them too. A good hunt to finish the seasonthanks Tim.
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