Any Ham-Radio Cruisers?

[elc32955]

Very nice, wish I could have joined y'all on the Magic. I'm going out on the Norwegian Epic on 2/23 out of Miami, turns out Norwegian has an absolute ban on amateur radio operations aboard on grounds of potential "interference" with shipboard systems. Not withstanding the hundreds of low-grade FRS/GMRS portables running around the ship at all hours of the day... :D

 

I think I'm gonna take my two old Nextel i580's along on this trip and try them out in "direct talk" mode, this uses 10 iDEN channels for direct unit-to-unit comms, no cell site needed. They're definitely QRP at best but from some experimenting it seems to have pretty good penetration on ships for at least short distances, plus it's digital handshake comms so no one is going to be casually monitoring. Direct Talk works pretty good (especially from the observation deck of the Stratosphere in Vegas... lol!) and it was one of the more robust Nextel features, good especially for disaster recovery.

 

So how was the DX on the Magic trip and did anyone get any of the Cuban repeaters?

 

73's

 

Eric

KK4JOK

[W5LK]

In short, the Carnival Magic February 2013 "Ham Radio Cruise" was every ounce, a real success. We had 54 participants, which included approximately 5 XYL non amateurs. There were 3 folks who were forced to cancel at the last moment, due to health reasons... as well as at least 3 fellow amateurs aboard the Magic, who were non registrants among the 3500 fellow passengers.

 

Participation in radio operations was largely on a "first come, first served" basis... which generally worked very well. We often coordinated the efforts by using the simplex frequency 147.450 MHz, throughout the multiple deck levels of the ship.

 

For the most part, radio operations ran around the clock, generally following available propagation. Some operators kept PC logs, while others utilized a common logbook. To my knowledge, there is still no final tally of contacts... but appears there were well over 1000 contacts, which largely consisted of a mixture of brief "rag chews" and DX format contacts, yielding at least 45 nations worked.

 

During passage through the Florida Straits, I indeed was able to receive at least one Havana 2 meter repeater "full quieting", although owing to the mere 5 watts of my WOUXUN HT and limited skills with "Espanol", there was never a true 2-way exchange achieved... despite transmitting from well over 100' above the waterline, on the 12th deck, into a repeater in downtown Havana, atop a 35 story hotel.

 

As for the "future", it appears plans are already underway for a 2014 cruise to the western Caribbean.

 

73s - W5LK

[Pokyboat]

Hello WL5K, I am interested in finding out more about your experiance with "HAM" cruises. My wife and I cruise quite a bit and are trying to get my dad(KE8M) to cruise with us and feel that a "ham" cruise may convince him to go.

[minnesotamamafish]

Hello WL5K, I am interested in finding out more about your experiance with "HAM" cruises. My wife and I cruise quite a bit and are trying to get my dad(KE8M) to cruise with us and feel that a "ham" cruise may convince him to go.

 

Hi, Pokyboat! Just an fyi; I was searching for info on my upcoming cruise on google and this group came up. I am on the Carnival Magic Jan 19, 2014.

I can't look up the link right now, but if you google "Carnival Magic January 19 ham radio group" or something to that effect, you would hopefully find it.

If you can't find the info, post that here and I will get you the link.

I hope you get the info and that you can go with your father!

Best wishes.

[awaner19]

Just wondered if any hams have operated their home ham radio stations REMOTELY from aboard ship using the internet as a link?

I have the equipment necessary and plan to do so on our next cruise on 11/4/2012.

 

K3KHG

I Have operated Remote Hams software on my laptop using ships internet...I did it on the Carnival Freedom and the Carnival Dream and it works fairly well depending on satellite uplink and downlink speed available...if you operate when total internet usage shipwide is low...Like after midnight for example as most everyone is sleeping and not using their laptops .The connections work fair enough to make reliable connections and qso's ...Have Fun DE Art WB9DQT in Chicago,Il :D