FOBB

I hope everyone did well in the Flight of the Bumblebees yesterday. It was a spectacular day for it here in New Jersey. The humidity was low and there was plenty of sunshine and the temps didn't get much past the low 80s. I wish that I could have been on the air with all of you.

Marianne and I were at my cousin's house for her 50th birthday party. It was actually a "Christmas in July" party, but her children decided to make it a surprise birthday party. When we got the invitation, it didn't even cross my mind that it was the same day as FOBB. She lives a bit downstate from us and getting there wasn't too bad. We got caught up in Jersey Shore traffic heading home, and we didn't reach our house until just before 7:00 PM, even though we left my cousin's house around 5:00 PM. Such are Summer Sundays in New Jersey!

Once home and when I had a few moments, I scanned both Facebook and the e-mail reflectors and I didn't see much chatter - either from before, during or after the event. I saw that Mike KC2EGL and John K3WWP did rather well as did Rick NK9G.  Other than those two, I didn't see much. From their reports, I guess there was a decent amount of activity, which is a good thing. Rick mentioned that all the action seemed to be on 20 Meters and that he didn't hear anything on 40 Meters. John K3WWP mentioned in his online "diary" that he had a tough time making contacts on 40 Meters.

Which leads me to another small pet peeve, of which I must admit, I am as guilty as everyone else! When "we" participate in these QRP events, most of us, but by no means all of us, seem to concentrate on 20 Meters first and foremost. 40 Meters will see some activity, but it seems like 15 and 10 Meters are always a wasteland. As we climb towards the peak of Cycle 25, we should really try to get something going on those two bands. I know 80 Meters is pretty much useless for daytime events, unless you want to get contacts from your immediate area. But 15 and 10 Meters? I often think that those two bands are dead simply because there's no one there! Maybe ....... just maybe if we populated those bands during events like these, we'd be surprised by the propagation and the distance we could obtain.

Gene N5GW always posts before events like these that he's setting aside times where he checks the other bands. Maybe if we all agreed to try 15 and 10 Meters at the 30 minute mark of each hour of the event, we might actually bring those bands to life. It's just a thought, and worth a shot, anyway., IMHO.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!