For the big contests each year we make the effort to go portable to a site near Dover on top of the White Cliffs of Dover overlooking the English Channel. The video below was taken from the stack of 4x28elements 70cms antennas we’ve been using for some years.
We always have an eye on the weather especially wind which of course we get our fair share of. You can see the monthly wind strengths and direction here:
and for the next 7 days it might do something like this:
These are nautical forecasts hence the wave height. We’ve got to be really careful when the wind is from the East through to South. Being on top of the cliffs means we’re in the wind compression zone which can see winds 50% stronger than forecast over the open water.
Another major factor is lightning. We see quite a few storms track up the channel bringing lightning very close to the site. Much of the rest of Kent can be totally unaffected at least it seems that way. It’s quite common for one of the PCs to be displaying real-time lightning data such as that below: