Bumblebees in the Goat Shed
July 2015

I operated in the Flight of the Bumblebees today. It was a bust...
It was raining. The propagation was awful. But I still had fun.



I setup in the old goat shed (now a garden shed) because of the
rain. I used a Par Endfedz as a sloper with the KX3.

I sat on the wheelbarrow (next to the tea cup) with the KX3 on the generator wagon.



I started out on 20 meters. Pretty bleak. Carter N3AO (bee #17) and I had made a schedule. We could barely
hear each other. But squeaked by.

After a while I heard NK9G, bee #97. He was pretty strong and we made a fine exchange. It was 10 minutes
before the next QSO... K9FO in Illinois.

I thought I'd try 40 meters. Big mistake. No signals. So I called CQ... no answers. After 40 minutes I called it
quits and phoned my buddy Tim, W3ATB. He was on his way to a hilltop in New Hampton. I invited myself.

When I got there he was setting up. Signals! 20 meters was humming. Was it the location? Timing? Or just
Tim's superb setup? He was running an HB-1B and a Par Endfedz as a sloper. Anyway he was making QSOs!
Got more than I did too. I just sat and listened until he switched to 40 meters and Carter N3AO came booming
in again. Tim called him and made the QSO. "Would you kindly hand me that key?" (I couldn't stand it.)
I worked Carter a second time and handed the key back to Tim.

That was it for this bee. Not much honey in the shed... it was all up on the hill. Thanks to all for the contacts
and thanks to Richard KI6SN for organizing the event.