CQWW SSB 2014 fail

I wanted to take part in CQWW SSB this year, as usual in the SOSB QRP category. This year I chose the 10m band as propagation was looking good, and I was planning to install another antenna especially for this purpose.

Unfotunately, the weather defeated me in a big way. The vertical  was already damaged for some time and I didn’t get around to fix it as the 41m long OCFD was working just as good. My plan was to fix the vertical and to install a 10m tuned horizontal dipole aimed at Europe and NA in the evening before the contest, but it was cold and it was still raining. So, I decided to do it during the contest when Asia propagation starts to fade away and NA doesn’t kick in yet; after all, the weather forecast was better, I will need a break anyway at a certain point, and I had the OCFD that was enough to work the stronger stations.

Well, I can definetely say now that I won’t ever trust again the weather forecast. On Saturday morning the wind was really strong, so strong in fact that it broke one arm of my OCFD, an antenna that was holding in all kinds of weather for 3 years. This happened about 30 minutes into the contest, I tried to use the vertical but no luck, I could hear fine but my 5W wasn’t making it through. Got up on the building trying to fix it, but the wind was so strong it almost sent me flying off the roof (and I’m a BIG guy). Still hoping, I decided to take a break until the wind settles, and now it comes the big “screw you” from Mother Nature: not only the wind doesn’t stop, but it starts raining and that quickly turns into SNOWING ! Imagine that, less than a week before it was clear sky and 21C outside, and it’s below-zero and it’s snowing exactly when I needed to do antenna work the most. Sad thing is, one day before the forecast said 8C and 10% chance of rain for Saturday, and when I write this, 2 days later, the sky is clear and there are 6C outside

I guess this was a real lesson, but hopefully until CQWPX SSB 2015 comes I’ll have the triband Yagi up and I won’t need to worry about these issues anymore. Anyway, timely preparations are very important.