The Flight of the Bumblebees is an event sponsered by the Adventure Radio Society that encourages outdoor operating. The Bees are registered stations that hike, bike, boat, etc to their sites. This was a four hour event on Sunday July 30 (1700 to 2100 UTC). I bumbled up to the Patapsco state park to the west of Baltimore, Maryland. I used my Elecraft K2 with a folded dipole (made of 3 lengths of 40ft inexpensive RS twinlead). | |
The bands were as follows: 10m was dead/empty; 15m was disappointing; 20m was
crowded with many QRPers, but not open to the west coast; 40m was in good shape
but with few stations.
The weather was supposed to remain cloudy with a 40% chance of rain. I heard static bursts on all bands (worst on 40m) but that was just a nuisance. The real fun began when the rain started and the thunder was louder than the static bursts in the headphones. A plastic bag protected the rig during the initial rain, but I gave up when the thunder seemed to get close. I got to operate about 2 hours. |
UTC Freq Call Report RST Sent Notes ----- ------ --------- ------------ -------- ------------------------ 17:12 14.060 W9SUL/BB 55n MN nr 26 55n 17:16 14.060 N7SR/BB 57n MN nr 86 55n 17:24 21.060 W0YSE/BB 44n UT nr 95 53n CQ 17:28 14.063 W0CH/BB 55n MO nr 61 55n 17:30 14.063 NK9G/BB 55n WI nr 76 5nn CQ 17:32 14.063 KQ0I 55n IA 5W 55n CQ 17:35 14.063 N0UR/BB 57n MN nr 33 55n CQ 17:38 14.063 WD9IFF 57n IL 5W 55n CQ 17:50 14.059 N9AW/BB 55n WI nr 68 55n 17:58 14.061 KB9UUY/BB 5nn IL nr 87 55n 18:02 14.062 K7TQ/BB 55n ID nr 17 55n 18:10 14.064 WD0K/BB ? 55n MN nr 3 55n CQ/Not on Bee roster 18:13 14.064 KA9TXE 57n IL 5W 55n CQ 18:23 14.063 AK7Y/BB 55n AZ nr 22 55n 18:38 7.040 AA3UR 55n PA 2W 55n CQ 18:44 7.040 K4JSI 55n MD 5W 55n CQ 18:46 7.040 WA1GWH 44n NY 1W 33n CQ 18:48 7.040 NA3V 57n PA 5W 57n CQ 18:51 7.040 W2BEW 57n NY 5W 55n CQ with bee on sock! 18:53 7.041 K2JT 57n NJ 2W 55n CQ with bee & light rain 19:07 7.041 K8MP 56n OH 5W 57n CQ in Rain 19:09 7.041 VE3JC/M/BB 57n ON nr 36 57n CQ in Rain 19:12 7.041 N3FZX 55n MD 5W 55n CQ in Rain & Thunder! Band QSO's Points ---- ----- ------ 15m 1 2 20m 13 26 40m 8 8 Number of Bees worked: 11 Score: (2 + 26 + 8) x (11 x 3) = 1188