Field Day: the good and the bad news

And what about the ugly? That’s how the bad looks. Read along.

Today the results came out. Turns out I am Numero Uno in the 12 hours subcategory. I think I did not even operate the full twelve hours. I have a pretty low error percentage, in fact the best of all. That’s what I aim for: logging accuracy.

So far for the good. Too bad that the stupid WX made me quit early. That’s the bad.

This afternoon I had to take some parts out of my plastic field day container. I was shocked to see that it was very wet inside. The rain and thunderstorm during field day didn’t affect this box? And it was dry when I put everything in it. The container was sealed and put under a shelf in the garage so it can’t be from recent showers. Yet everything was wet and a musty rotten smell penetrated my nostrils. Some ropes even had mold on them. There you have it: the ugly!

Then it hit me. When I put everything away, it was seemingly dry but in fact it wasn’t. Many lengths of rope had soaked up all the water. Afterwards it evaporated in the sealed container only to condensate right away. This caused the nasty smell and the mold stains on some items. That did not happen last year because it was dry and warm. This year it was wet from the rain at night and the fog Sunday morning.

Lesson learned: before storing the container for another year, let the ropes dry a for couple of days.

I have been thinking about doing SSB field day, but OT1A has failed to answer my request so far ☺