06/27/2007 | KC "Fair is foul. Foul is fair."

translation: Good news is bad. Bad news is good. (I think that is what Willy Shakespeare was trying to say).

The good news: Saturday's forecast, "low humidity, remote possibility of rain, high in the 80's"

Bad news: we failed enginerring 101. Our tower raising scheme failed and we went to plan B, taking off two sections of tower.

More bad news: the tent like shelter did not come with instructions and it seemed to be missing some poles.

More good news: Going to plan C we commodeered a second shelter from the local high school track coach.

Continued bad news: running way behind there was no way we were going to start on time.

Bad turned good: Had we been on schedule with setting up the tower, then the shelter, our equipment would have been the victim of a Texas-size downpour. And moving into the the "barn" was better -- not only drier, but it had a whole lot less fog during the wee hours of Sunday morning, than the outside world.

Bottom lines: 1) flexibiliy is a valuable lesson to learn 2) we more than doubled last year's number of contacts 3) never put faith in any weather forecast, even when there has been hours of morning sunshine.

We operated from Lindenwood University's SkyWay Farm, where the local relief is near 1000 feet above sea level. (a really good thing, since our county is in the Mississppi River Valley with a local relief of a few 100 feet). Lindenwood has been a great host site for three years now.

We found 40 mtr SSB the best ever and want to thank all who contacted us there...pileups are great. We heard little to no 10 mtr activity, and absolutely nothing was heard on 6 meters, which was another plan we thought would turn out good.

listen for us next year -- -- K0MHP