[ADXA] New Member Standings info for John, KT4AC

Thu Mar 19 11:15:09 EDT 2020

No drowsiness here but the travelogue may have caused a little jealousy in
me. Getting back into the country just before the door slammed would have
made me nervous though. So welcome back to entity 291.

Yes on Viking ... we had a Viking Mediterranean cruise scheduled a few
years ago, starting at Barcelona. So we took off and a big transformer in
the brand new ship faulted. Reminded me of ANO. Viking did treat us well.
We spent the whole time docked in Barcelona and saw a bit of NE Spain and
Andorra.

73-

Nick, WA5BDU

On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 4:33 PM <patw5vy at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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 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
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> ADXA mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/adxa
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:ADXA at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> ADXA mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/adxa
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:ADXA at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/adxa/attachments/20200319/803aeef6/attachment-0001.html>