I went out in search of some polar bears this afternoon. The Polar Bear Moonlight Madness Event (PBMME), sponsored by the Polar Bear QRP Ops group, is a very informal QRP field event. It occurs monthly from October through March on the Saturday closest to a full moon.
For this month’s event, I traveled to Towpath Park near Pottstown, PA on the banks of the Schuylkill River. This was my first time operating from this park, so I did a little exploring when I arrived. I set up my KX3 and AlexLoop on a picnic table underneath a little pavilion.
Polar Bears generally hang out near the traditional QRP calling frequencies so I started out on 14.060 MHz. I called CQ for a while with no takers. I was about to change bands when I got a call from OK1DVM. Miro had a very nice signal and gave me a 559. I moved down the band a bit and worked PF30EUDXF, a special event station in the Netherlands. At least I was making it into Europe.
I didn’t work any bears down on 40 meters but I did work a couple of stations in the New York QSO Party. Thirty meters seemed to be open but I had no takers there. Back on 20 meters, I worked a station in the Iowa QSO Party before calling it quits.
Sadly, I didn’t work any of my Polar Bear friends today but it was nice to be out on this beautiful Fall day. Hopefully, I’ll be able to give it another shot next month.
72, Craig WB3GCK
Polar Bear #7
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 