The 1999 Flight of the Bumblebees

The 1999 Flight of the Bumblebees took place on July, 25, 1999. This is a four hour contest sponsored by the Adventure Radio Society. The contest is built around the outdoors. This year over 100 individuals hike, biked, or found some other means of human transportation to get to their operating positions.

I headed over to Deleware for the contest. This being summer of course it was hot. The temperatures were in the upper 90's for the contest and the heat index was unprintable. Leaving from rural southern Maryland it made a pleasant Sunday drive. Of course such a trip also brings out the county hunter in me. So the mobile rig went into the car to give out some of the MD and DE counties enroute to the site. I was even able to give one fellow his list county in DE. If he so chooses I even get an award for that one, never mind that there are only three counties in the state.

After a 120 mile drive I arrive at the planned destination of Lum's Pond State Park in New Castle county Deleware. Explorations of the park indicated a good hiking trail around the lake. So I parked in the boat launch area. Hiking the trail revealed not good spot in the woods so I headed for the park campground to find a nice shady spot at one of the campsites and a picnic table to set up the station. The antenna went up without any problems and in less that 30 minutes the first QSO was in the log. The equipment for the contest was a Wilderness Sierra Rig with a dipole that could be adjusted for 40, 20, and 15 meters. Four hours and some 25+ QSO's later the contest was over. For most of the time I had a camper for company who was just amazed at what could be done with so little. And there was the interruption when I had to go over to a neighboring campsite and put at the campfire that some camper had not done properly before he left.

This is one fun little contest and to top it off it has some unusual awards. Two of which are most outrageous trip and most beutiful site. I'm already planning for next years adventure.