Hello EMErs, Day 2 in Panama started out well, Monday here. My wife and I are still on New England time, and while Panama is only one hour difference in time zones, we are used to starting out day before 6am. It should be noted that breakfast time here generally starts at about 10:30am. The rental is on the banking district so we walked to a panadera (bread store) to have breakfast, however they only had some leftover bread. We did buy one piece for $0.20 and walked further to another store to have empanadas (pastries filled with meat and cheese), served hot, made from flakey pie crust. I get these at home since my wife is Colombian, they are always good. After breakfast I planned schemes to help with the EME situation and dismantled the equipment on the balcony. My wife was very helpful with this and it went much faster with two people. We then walked around the town again waiting for the building administration to open so we could get the key to the heliport. The building administrator was quite interested in what we were doing and of course wanted to make it "safe". What could possibly go wrong at the top of a high rise building 30 stories up with no railings, it makes me a bit sick to my stomach just thinking about it, let alone setting things up. We finally agreed upon a good place to operate and hauled the equipment up. One of the difficulties has been power. Finding outlets is difficult, I am very glad I brought long thick extension cords because I have needed over 100' of power cable to get to the operating position. After running the new power cords and taping everything down, I started reassembling the station, it went together quickly. Nothing seems easy in the heat though, 34C and so much humidity, I was afraid I would short out the equipment with sweat droplets! After setting up and connecting all the cables, it was lunchtime (our lunch) so we went to have lunch before moonrise. This was a huge mistake! As we were eating lunch, it started raining, then raining more until you could not see in front of you because of the thick rain. It did not matter if we walked or ran, we would be soaked. We waited for a break and ran back to the room, only to see the skies open up even harder and the lightning begin. There was a huge bolt and crack directly in front of the condo, you could see the "impact" on the ocean water. My wife wanted to go check on the radio setup, and for good reason, when we got to the top floor, even though the radio equipment was covered by a concrete overhang and shelter, it was all soaked through completely. This made my heart sink. I did have the for sight to disconnect all power, but the water was everywhere. Once again, I disconnected everything and took it in to dry off. The radio was soaked inside water was dripping out. I opened the cases and used my wife's hair dryer to dry all the equipment out. Even still, the radio would come on but did not have a display. After about an hour I was able to get the radio dry enough to operate correctly. Moonrise was approaching so it was time to get things connected again. But the sequencer was always keying the transmitter. After a few minutes of trouble shooting, I can only guess that somehow that large bolt of lightning found its way into the fourth channel of the sequencer. This is ok, I have a spare channel and switched to the extra channel for the radio. All was operational. About that time, John, K1OR texted me asking when I was starting. "now" was the answer and a few sequences later, I could see the screen was filled with traces. It was on now for sure! that was the last time I called CQ for quite a few hours to work though all of the calling stations. Below is an unofficial list of worked and heard stations. If you are not on the list, and think you should be, please send me an email, I will double check. If we didn't work, please don't give up, there are other opportunities to work, I'm here all week, but will be switching to 70cm Wednesday or possibly Thursday depending on the number of 2m callers. Thank you all for making this a success, I really do hope to work as many of you as possible. 73 from Panama, Paul HP/KG7HF 211300 1 -24 1.3 336 3 * HP/KG7HF DF7KF 211500 4 -23 2.7 135 3 * HP/KG7HF OK1RD 211900 0 -28 3.1 153 19 * HP/KG7HF ES6RQ 213100 6 -25 2.9 -108 3 * HP/KG7HF DM1CG 213900 3 -20 3.7 -363 3 * HP/KG7HF HB9Q 213900 0 -27 2.9 -188 2 * HP/KG7HF I2FAK 215100 3 -23 3.4 634 3 * HP/KG7HF EA2AGZ 215300 7 -21 2.9 92 3 * HP/KG7HF OK7XX 215500 1 -25 2.7 -161 3 * HP/KG7HF DF2ZC 215500 2 -25 3.2 -511 4 * HP/KG7HF SM7GVF 220500 0 -27 1.8 -51 3 * HP/KG7HF PA2CHR 220900 2 -25 2.8 35 3 * HP/KG7HF DF2ZC 220900 0 -28 2.5 906 21 * HP/KG7HF PA0JMV 221900 0 -26 1.2 409 3 * HP/KG7HF SP4K 222300 1 -25 3.0 -237 1 * HP/KG7HF F6BKI 222300 0 -27 1.9 -143 29 * HP/KG7HF PE1L 224300 4 -20 2.8 833 3 * HP/KG7HF DL8YHR 224700 1 -26 2.5 8 2 * HP/KG7HF K7MAC 224700 0 -26 2.8 393 1 * HP/KG7HF IK1UWL 224700 0 -28 2.6 -132 2 * HP/KG7HF I3MEK 225700 4 -25 2.4 398 3 * HP/KG7HF KD3UY 225700 3 -26 0.1 178 3 * HP/KG7HF K6MYC 231300 1 -29 2.7 -234 5 * HP/KG7HF IK1UWL 231700 0 -26 3.7 293 3 * HP/KG7HF DL8GP 232300 0 -24 2.7 546 3 * HP/KG7HF K5QE 232500 0 -28 2.7 -318 3 * HP/KG7HF K1OR 233500 0 -28 1.4 423 3 * HP/KG7HF G4FUF 233700 2 -27 3.4 132 3 * HP/KG7HF K9MRI 233900 1 -27 2.8 -40 3 * HP/KG7HF WA3QPX 234900 3 -23 3.0 -32 3 * HP/KG7HF K1CA 000300 2 -25 3.4 -229 3 * HP/KG7HF WA4NJP For OK2KKW web page copied from message: http://mailman.pe1itr.com/pipermail/moon-net/attachments/20140708/d5265ce0/attachment-0001.html