This year, for the first time, I was able to operate in the Adventure Radio Society's annual Flight of the Bumblebees contest as one of the bumblebees. I was signed up as BB# 233. My original plan was to ride my bike to Charlestown Park, just outside of Phoenixville. The weather forecast looked pretty grim, however, so I drove to the park and walked a short distance to an unused picnic pavillion.

This was the first outing for a brand new Hendricks PFR-3a that I had completed just the day before. I used a 26 foot wire antenna that I hoisted up into a nearby tree. I laid out one 33-foot and three 16-foot counterpoise wires. The PFR-3a's built-in tuner had some trouble matching this antenna on 40 meters, as did a standalone BLT. Eventually, I wound up using my trusty homebrew Z-match to do the job on both 40 and 20 meters.

After spending some time fiddling with antennas and equipment, I finally got on the air. I started on 40 meters and worked a few stations, including my old friend, Carter N3AO in Virginia. I switched over to 20 meters and quickly worked a very loud N4BP. As I was finishing up that QSO, a storm was moving in and the wind started picking up. When I heard some thunder and saw a flash of lightning, I decided to wrap things up for the day.

My day didn't go exactly as I had planned but I had some fun being out there. Oh well... There's always next year, I guess.

73, Craig WB3GCK



NAME:  Craig LaBarge
CALLSIGN: WB3GCK (BB# 223)
LOCATION: Charlestown Park, Charlestown Township, PA
TOTAL NUMBER OF CONTACTS: 5
TOTAL NUMBER OF BUMBLEBEES:  5
SCORE:  5 x (5 x 3) = 75

LOG:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BAND	DATE		UTC		CALL		RST-S	RST-R	S-P-C	NR
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
40	07/28/13	1745		KS8M/BB		559	559	OH	BB# 80
40			1749		N3AO/BB		569	559	VA	BB# 24	
40			1805		WA4GIR/BB	589	589	NC	BB# 400
40			1812		WA1ZCQ/BB	559	559	MA	BB# 112
20	07/28/13	1820		N4BP/BB		599	599	FL	BB# 82
 
		    
		

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WB3GCK operating picnic table portable

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Homebrew Z-match, PFR-3a, NorCal keyer and NorCal paddles

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