Contesting is really a hard job ...
The IARU VHF Contest report 2006 (by DL6AUI and DL2AKT) :
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DL0GTH's mixed pickles contest weekend:
- Saturday: Good weather, but technical
problems 
Just one band does not mean that the
effort is less. There is no real difference if just 144 MHz is used
in September or all bands up to 47 GHz are operated. We loaded the
vans on Friday with equipment we could install within six hours...  Again, the weather forecast was correct. Dry and relative (to previous weeks) warm weather on Saturday but strong storm and a lot of rain on Sunday. We watched the rain scatter radar on Internet and hoped for some improvement on Sunday. However, as usual new rain was "built" just in the Thuringian forrest. It did not stop raining until we left the Schneekopf. Rain and storm together is really not fun.  It looked like that all the work to prepare for the contest would pay off. At 13UTC all equipment was up and running, including a new PA home made by DK4RC. But after two hours of contesting, we lost RF output of the TRX. Problem was hard to identify, but finally found (DSP in/out problem) and fixed after 20 minutes. (30 QSO lost?). If something starts to get wrong, Murphy will find ways to create more problems. Some minutes later, a tube PA stopped service with a big bang. Because replacement of fuses did not work (because not just the fuses were the problem), we decided to replace it by a 600W MOSFET PA. This problems caused the next 30 QSO lost and perhaps some more during the contest because of reduced power. 
 After sunrise we realized that the two M2 antennas did not point to the same direction any more (dammed storm!). Even, it was not easy and a bit risky, we decided to correct the problem. Successful.
We were quite happy that no more
problems occurred till end of the contest. Taking the conditions
into account, we finally are satisfied with the results achieved.
Because the storm and the rain did not
decrease, it took us much longer to disassemble the antennas. After
2:45h we finished and tried to take a final photograph.
We are looking forward to the IARU
UHF/SHF Contest in October, hoping for better weather and conds.
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