I certainly didn't expect success with that message.  During the first few hours I reduced power to about 0.8 to prevent corona due to low humidity.  By about 0400 UT the humidity increased enough to allow a bit over 1 amp.

Thanks Markus for the message idea :)  The idiom is familiar to me and I'm fairly sure I remember our landlord using it in 1969 while my wife and I lived in Morlautern near Kaiserslautern.  Our landlord and his wife were just a few years older than us and we became very good friends.  We kept in touch and had planned to visit them but sad to say we waited to long.  His wife died a few years ago.  Very fond memories and lots of photos of the little town and countryside.  The house is still there: