FOBB '03 - Chasing Bees From Shining Rock Wilderness

For this year's ARS Bumblebee Contest I decided to return to one of my favorite remote sites, Shining Rock Wilderness. Shining Rock is located high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 30 miles southwest of Asheville, NC, and access to this area is provided via the Blue Ridge Parkway.

My dog Laddie and I arrived on site Saturday afternoon and selected an isolated spot about a mile east of Sam Knob. Our site was a high mountain meadow, with tall grass, blueberry bushes, and lots of wildflowers. Quite a few bumblebees were taking full advantage of the bounty. This is a beautiful place, with lovely vistas in all directions. Looking northward, one of the major peaks is Cold Mountain, and to the west, Sam Knob is pretty imposing, along with many other distant peaks. It was a delight to leave the 90 degree temperatures back home in favor of the 65 degrees up on the mountain. As a matter of fact, I wore a long sleeved fleece shirt until noon on Sunday!

This site was purposefully chosen in order to test one of Moxon's (HF Antennas for All Locations) theories on the RF focusing effect of various mountainous terrains. I was looking for a gentle foreground slope with a bowl shaped depression at the bottom of the slope. This slope needed to be westward in order to maximize potential contacts for the midwestern states on 40M and 20M.

The station consisted of an Argonaut V running 5W into a 20/40M inverted vee supported by a DK9SQ mast and fed with ladderline. The 40M legs were looking N/S and the 20M legs were looking E/W. A 1:1 balun, LDG autotuner, and Super CMOS II Keyer with Padlette paddles rounded out the station.

Just prior to the start of the contest, short QSOs with K7TQ and W5YA on 20M indicated that the band was in decent condition and that my station was at least making itself heard. At precisely 1PM EDT, many stations were heard calling "CQ BB," so I tossed my hat into the ring by sliding up frequency above the bedlam and calling CQ. This worked out pretty well, and it became apparent that for whatever reason most stations were hearing me better than I was hearing them. Many stations were varying between 559 and the noise level as rapid, deep QSB came into play. Most of the operators I worked understood what was going on, and we made a game of waiting out the ebb and flow in order to complete our exchanges.

20M never did go long. It was just as common to hear stations within a couple hundred miles as it was to hear W5's and W0's, but there were lots of stations in the contest, and that kept things interesting. When no new stations were heard on 20, I moved to 40M, where there weren't as many stations; Nevertheless, 40 proved to be valuable in terms of needed contacts. I was surprised to have WØCH, NFØR, NO5DL, N5ESE, and KØPC answer my CQs on 40. I attribute that success to the site selection as well as great midwestern ears. Afterwards, I jumped back and forth between 20 and 40M to try for a few more contacts.

A number of stations on 40M were honestly RST 599, including N4HAY, K8KFJ, WA9TPZ, N9NE, and NA8M. Big signals on 20M included WØCH, K9YT, N9NE, N9OH, and WA8RC. It was especially exciting to work K2TVY/QRP Mobile from FL who was running 1W and W5KDJ from TX with his 250mW.

15 and 10M were completely silent. I threw out a few QSOs on both bands every half hour or so with no response.
Looking back on the contest, I'm thankful for the favorable weather and the chance to revisit this special place. The Argonaut V is an able rig, but its battery hungry, and I don't plan to lug a large battery around the mountain next time. Despite the challenging band conditions, fellow QRP'ers were making themselves heard, and that's what it's all about. Thanks to ARS for sponsoring this event and to all the folks who hung in there to make it a fun time on the mountain.
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Paul Stroud, AA4XX, is an avid QRPer, contest operator and outdoorsman living in Raleigh, NC.