[CW] My book review and article about Kon Tiki

[James Hull]

DR’s email with the PDF including an article about the KON-TIKI reminded me that I had a copy of The Ra Expeditions by Thor Heyerdahl (published in 1971) sitting on my bookshelf.  Attached is a photo of Illustration #97 “Norman and the author at the receiver”.  While this recounts radio equipment aboard the Ra it may be instructive to those wishing to dig into the cause for the RF burns to the radio operators aboard the KON-TIKI.

But more aligned with this community (specifically, Morse Code / CW) is this passage found on page #181:

“Half an hour after midnight I was shaken awake by Carlo, who was leaning over me, holding a kerosene lantern.  With wide, anxious eyes he whispered that there were lights all along the horizon on the port bow.  We were being driven sidelong by a strong northwester, straight toward them.  I had gone to bed fully dressed and had only to tie on my life line before crawling out on deck.  A bitingly cold wind of moderate strength, and an overcast sky.  Through the pitch-black night I saw all the lights spread out along the horizon.  As Carlo said, they lay ahead of us in our line of drift.  Four were very large and another faint.  It had to be the Moroccan coast.  Carlo was up at the swaying masthead.  We seemed to be approaching fast.  The other three fit men turned out.  Now we would have to try to row our reed bundles to save ourselves from a tragic fate on the rocks.

Then Carlo and I thought we glimpsed a green light.  Another, and a red one too.  It was not land!  A scattered fleet of big fishing smacks was sailing straight toward us!  Blue with cold, the crew crawled back to bed.  Soon afterward three big, rolling vessels rumbled close past our bows.  A fourth lay broadside to us after stopping its engine so that Ra was heading straight for the pitching ship’s side.  I shone my flashlight on cabin wall and papyrus rolls and blinked “Ra OK, Ra OK.”  The big sea-fishing boat started up again and glided away, so slowly that we barely avoided a collision.  It sent some incomprehensible flashes from the masthead and gradually disappeared in the darkness.”

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Sent from my Glade Air Freshener



> On Dec 11, 2023, at 11:25 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea at arrl.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>  You might find this interesting.
> 
> 73 
> 
> DR 
> <CQ Oct 2023-n1ea.pdf>
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