[ADXA] New Member Standings info for John, KT4AC

Wed Mar 18 17:33:39 EDT 2020

Joel et al,

Thanks for the welcome home wishes. 

WARNING…..Travelogue follows….may cause drowsiness! 

Our original itinerary was to fly to Oslo, Norway to spend a few days before taking the train over the mountains to Bergen to catch a Viking “Search for the Northern Lights” cruise.  We had a great time in Oslo despite the winter weather.  One afternoon the sun was out and temp was about 28F.  At five o’clock we noticed lots of folks sitting out on patios at bars having a beer/wine.  The bar provided blankets for the outside chairs!  I couldn’t talk my XYL, Sunnye, into doing that.  We did have dinner one night at the harbor sitting outside.  The train trip to Bergen was about six hours and traveled through mountains about 4500ft high.  Lots of snow.  We saw a guy on cross-country skis pulling a sled.  He was being pulled by a Husky!  In places the drifts by the tracks were about twice the height of the train.  Had a couple of days in Bergen and saw most of the highlights.  Bergen was the center of trade for the Baltic region and Northern EU during the 13th-15th century. The Hanseatic League, led by a group of German traders, was based there.  The composer Grieg was from Bergen and his influence is everywhere.  We went on a tour of his home and were treated to a piano recital of his works in a recital hall that had a glass wall looking out to a Fjord.  We boarded the Viking Star and sailed on Wednesday the 11th at noon.  We were headed to Narvik which is above the Artic circle at 68deg N.  On our second day at sea the Captain announced that Norway had just closed all ports to cruise ships.  The Viking owner instructed him to reverse course and head to our final destination near London.  Part of the trip up and down the western coast was in the “inside passage” between the barrier islands and the mainland. Many of these small islands have settlements on them and we saw lots of fish farm “cages” in sheltered waters.  At times we were exposed to the Norwegian Sea and did some rockin’ and rollin’!   We were lucky that the North Sea was pretty calm as we made our way down to London.  Viking’s handling of the situation was First Class.  They arranged private coach transportation from the Tilbury port, on the Thames about 40 miles east of London, to Heathrow in West London.  They asked us to cancel our existing airline reservations and make new ones.  They are refunding 100% of our cruise and comping our return airfare.  We were lucky and caught an American Airways 777 from Heathrow to DFW on Sunday morning.  AA stopped all long haul international routes effective Monday.  We are in the Global Entry/Trusted Traveler program and had no issues getting through Customs at DFW…15 minutes and done.  Got home about midnight Sunday after travelling for about 28 hrs.  Long drive from LIT to Hot Springs! The trip was an attempt to see some of Norway and the Northern Lights.  I’ve seen them when I was in the Navy in Scotland in the late 60’s….not spectacular because it was late summer and it never gets very dark in Scotland in the summer.   

I didn’t take a radio…Viking doesn’t support/allow amateur radio on board and I knew from past trips and we would be pretty busy with tours, etc.  I did take a FunCube Pro+ dongle and a 10ft piece of wire.  I did some listening on my Laptop using SDR# in Oslo and on the Ship.  40M is a mess in EU at night!  It’s cool hearing all the strong EU signals on 20M.  Thought I heard K5UR once but not sure…he was kinda weak!

Sunnye and I are self isolating for a couple of weeks.  We waded through the masses in Heathrow and shared a 10 hour plane ride with a couple hundred folks.  So far so good.   It’s nice to be back.

73,

Pat

From: w5zn at w5zn.org <w5zn at w5zn.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2020 3:38 PM
To: patw5vy at gmail.com
Cc: adxa at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [ADXA] New Member Standings info for John, KT4AC

WELCOME BACK to the USA Pat !!!!!

For those of you who noticed Pat was absent from our 1st Quarterly Meeting in Russellville, he was on a previously scheduled cruise in Europe. Since I had not heard from him the past week I was concerned he was COVID-19 QUARANTINED in some desolate, remote and exoticly most needed DX location without a radio!!

Glad you're back with us Pat!

ZN

On 2020-03-17 14:26, patw5vy at gmail.com <mailto:patw5vy at gmail.com>  wrote:

John, KT4AC, has provided new Member Standings info.  John has added six to his Digital count and 13 to his Desoto Challenge quest. He also added five new ones on 17M.  Nice going at the rock bottom of the solar cycle John.  

Stay safe and go ahead and self-isolate in your radio room!

73,

Pat, W5VY

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