Sunday, July 29, 2007

No Bees flying in Central NJ

Today was the annual "Flight of the Bumblebees" QRP contest. Unfortunately, there were no Bumblebees flying in Central NJ, either the real or Amateur Radio varieties.

The day started out hot and sticky. While going to Church this morning, stepping out of doors felt more like stepping in to a sauna, than stepping outside. Then, around Noon time, the skies exploded. A line of severe thunderstorms crept its way through our area. There was plenty of spectacular ground to cloud lightning, nickel sized hail, and the rain bucketed down at rates of 2 - 3 inches per hour. Local highways; such as Route 18, through the New Brunswick area were flooded and unpassable to local traffic.

Both Amateur Radio stations, portable and permanent remained unplugged from their respective antennas for the entire day. The thunderstorms abated around 3:30 PM or so; but it continued raining until around 6:00 PM, long after the finish of the contest.

So, as the famous Brooklyn Dodger fans would say ..... "Wait 'til next year!"

73 de Larry W2LJ

No comments:

Post a Comment