This Sunday, July 25, 2010, is the annual Flight of the Bumblebees (FOBB) event, sponsored by the Adventure Radio Society. FOBB is a fun four-hour contest for CW QRP backpackers held annually on the last Sunday in June from 1700 to 2100 UTC. Most of the participants are in the US, but anyone is welcome to join in.
In order to submit a score as a “bee” (an activator), you need to apply for a FOBB number, and unfortunately the deadline for doing that was earlier today (I should have thought about posting this information sooner). But anyway you don’t need to register in order to submit a score as a chaser, or to make QSOs with the bees just for fun.
I personally will be operating from a SOTA summit, and I bet some of the other bees will be doing the same. Scanning the roster, which currently has 225 bees, I recognize a few other SOTA regulars, including WG0AT, N7UN, and VA2SG, so chasers will probably have a busy day on Sunday.
On the air, bees will be signing with a /BB suffix to their usual call, so don’t be confused by that. We’re not beacons or bicycle mobile. Bees get points for QSOs with non-bees, so don’t be afraid to answer a CQ from a /BB. Exchange is RST, state/province/country, and bee number (or power, if you’re a chaser).
More information is on the ARS wiki:
http://adventure-radio.org/wiki/index.php?title=Flight_of_the_Bumblebees
73, Dave W2VV