[CQ-Contest] Do you have A/C in your shack?

[Mark - N5OT]

Wow.

In Oklahoma it can be hot and also humid. When it is not cold outside, 
N5OT is air conditioned and the thermostat set so the operator is 
comfortable.  Probably not super cost-effective but as a fraction of the 
overall electric bill at our place, essentially below the noise level.  
Unlike K6LL whose station is in the house, but has radically different 
A/C requirements, N5OT is in a separate building with a separate air 
conditioner, so I don't have any kind of overlap issues or separation 
issues.

A very interesting component to this conversation is that at PJ2T where 
a number of us reading this go to get away from the cold of winter 
sometimes, it has become kind of a joke, where great effort is put into 
all the club multi-op operations so that the distribution of burden is 
as fair as possible.  Therefore we have a pretty-much democratic kind of 
vote every single time there is a contest.   It is always put to a vote 
of all the operators who will be coming whether or not to use the air 
conditioner.  The vote is accompanied by a detailed description of how 
much electricity has been used to do this historically, the current cost 
of electricity (which down there is approximately 6-8x less trivial than 
in CONUS), a projection of the likely cost of running the air 
conditioner, what each operators' share of the cost will be, etc.

The joke part is to see how many milliseconds it will take before 
everyone votes YES.

73 - Mark N5OT


On 7/27/2021 9:22 AM, ve9aa at nbnet.nb.ca wrote:
> Keep in mind when reading the following, I am from the Maritimes and have lived
> all my life in VO2, VO1, VE1 and VE9....so I don't do the high temps well ;-)
>
> During the recent IARU contest I think this was the first time I  *ever*  really
> stopped operating due to heat/humidity.  I laid my head down "for a few minutes"
> and woke up 5.5hrs later. Oof !
>
> My el-cheapo thermometer on the desk next to my keyboard said it was 31.5*C
> (88.8*F)...I don't recall what the humidity was in the house,(probably a bit
> lower than outside)  but outside was up to 94% at 11pm according to Environment
> Canada.
>
> I QRT'd not long after midnight, shattered from the "heat".
>
> So....has anyone installed A/C in their shack? How did you like it? Run it every
> contest? Only in the summer?
>
> Y'day I bought a teeny-tiny window A/C unit ~5000btu (on sale at that) and will
> hopefully once installed, will try it out next contest,  assuming no QRM/RFI.
> Living way out in the country. I like a quiet RX.
>
> I think in my mid-late 50's, I am finally getting soft.
>
> In the winter, I just turn my shack heat off and sometimes even open a window.
> In the summer, I often operate LP or QRP....
> In the IARU, with HP SO2R it was pretty warm and my shack is very very small.
>
> What has been your experience with heat/humidity while operating? (doesn't have
> to have been in YOUR shack)
>
> Tnx !
>
> --
> Mike VE9AA
>
>   
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