**late post**
YES: ‘no’. I don’t participate. So this is for the archives.
As I type this, the contest is 1/3rd over. And it is one of my favorites. I think this is the first in fifteen or more years that I skip this EUHFC contest. Sucks bigtime.
Main reason is WX. In the past this has been OK for this contest, as far as I can remember. Hence my constant participation. Forecast for today is showers, lightning and thunderstorms with chance of gusts. Not really the sort of WX I want to crank up my tower and load it with wires.
Yesterday (Friday) was very windy and rainy too and I had to do an emergency repair. The transformer feeding the pool filter pump with 12Vac caused a dead short making the circuit breaker… well: break the circuit. By the time I fixed this by connecting everything from my various junk boxes, it was raining again.
Amazing I had a 230-12V transformer on hand at 60VA (5A secondary). And a brand new waterproof box big enough to house it. And a fuseholder. And a 5A fuse. The pump draws 4.65A or so.
This morning, the weather was quite OK but another emergency repair drew my attention: “Honey the kitchen tap is swiveling when I want to turn it, it became wobbly”. So guess how I spent my Saturday morning…
Since I decided not to set up the antennas and just not participate in EUHFC, I went to do some welding. I can’t weld inside as I don’t have a workshop that is big thus safe enough for indoor welding. As usual I put up my welding stuff on the terrace and had to haul it inside for a shower. I did this three times: everything in, everything out. Then I just quit. The last shower was too much.
I was matching up parts for another project but a thunderstorm (with gusts and lightning) made my leaky old barn drip so I just quit. Once inside I noticed I had the kitchen and terrace door open. The wind blew the rain inside. So I had to get a mop and make the floor dry…
Tomorrow is supposed to be a windy day too… The forecast was right for today, so it’s good I left the tower down.
Let’s hope for quiet weather next week for WAE CW. I prefer EUHFC because the rates are high while WAE CW is a slow and usually boring contest. We’re all in that one for the QTC!