Sunday, July 30, 2017

Flight of The Bumblebees 2107: A Fun Packed Four Hours!

The Flight of the Bumblees is sponsored by the Adventure Radio Society each July. This year brought the most QRP operators I can remember together. At least 122 Bumblebee registered. Even with the Solar Cycle in the pits, twenty meters was buzzing with QRP stations.

The dipole. It was double this size for 40 meters.

The N6BT Bravo 7K right on the salt water
I chose St. Andrews State Park this year. I have a favorite picnic table directly on the South shore of Grand Lagoon. I parked the N6BT Bravo 7K vertical setup for twenty meters directly on the shore. This gave me a shot over salt water for most of North America. This year I also had the weather going for me. It was partly sunny and hot but the breeze across the water made it tolerable. I also had the assistance of my friend Dennis WA6QKN.

Dennis WA6QKN
I ran the Elecraft KX2 at 5 watts. I used the QRPWorks SideKar with a mini keyboard to generate the CW macros for the KX3. I also used the AlexMic I just received.  It had the volume we needed as the boat traffic was very noisy.

Elecraft KX2 and accessories
I actually called CQ for most of the time. It was more productive than my usual hunt and pounce. This was my best FOBB yet. Here is a summary.

20 meters: 29 BB out of 50 contacts
40 meters: 8 BB out of 11 contacts
Total: 37 BB and 61 Contacts

I had contacts from Panama City ARC members including Bob WB4BLX, Jim K4LIX and Jim KW4UT. Dennis WA6QKN had as much fun as I did. He was assisting with setup, tear down and looking up BBs as we went. The vertical was potent of 20 meters. We switched to a 40 meter half wave dipole for 40 meters.  So it all came together I am thankful for many great contacts including friends Larry W2LJ, Steve KF5RY and Jim K0RGI. Suzy was a good buddy and had fun too.

Dennis WA6QKN and Suzy

Suzy