[Elecraft] KX3/KX2 Cruiseship Operation

[Fred Jensen]

2005, Ft. Lauderdale-->6Y-->P4-->HP-->TI-->XE [x3]-->Los Angeles.  
Bought the KX1 to take on the trip 15 day trip.

I wrote to Princess Lines with the radio specs and photos.  Answer by 
telephone was "Absolutely not!  It might interfere with operation of the 
ship and you could start a fire."  On the principle that "the Captain 
runs the ship," I took the rig, contacted the Purser's office after we 
were aboard, and a very young junior officer came and looked at my 
radio.  Once he knew the power and frequencies, he said, "You have 
permission to operate your amateur radio set but not in public spaces, 
and do not remove any paint," and wrote this in my log.

This confined me to the "balcony" outside our stateroom, which would 
more properly be called a "shelf," maybe 4 m x 1.3 m or so. I had chosen 
to take my 8 m wire+counterpoise made by peeling the braid back on RG-58 
since the MP-1 knockoff I have looks suspiciously like a pipe bomb on 
the x-ray.  Stringing 8 meters of wire in a 2 meter square hole in 3 cm 
thick steel proved to be a challenge.  Doing so in a configuration that 
would actually radiate was an order of magnitude harder.  It did work, I 
managed about a dozen Q's with So. Americans [the ship was between me 
and NA all the way].  I've never taken a radio on a cruise again.

I used a 4S1P LiFePO4 battery with no way to charge it, but I didn't 
come close to depleting it.  15 days on the Big White Boat was about 5 
days too many.  The Canal was great.  YMMV

73,

Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County

On 9/21/2017 12:29 PM, Doug Turnbull wrote:
> Dear OMs and YLs,
>       This talk of cruise ship operation piqued my interest.    Do you have
> to get permission from the ships captain to operate?   I believe this is in
> the license manual.    How does one go about doing so?    If I could bring
> my AlexLoop and KX2 aboard a cruise ship this would give a great new reason
> to talk to the good XYL about a Mediterranean cruise.    I just wonder how
> one gets the okay on a big cruise ship with thousands of passengers.   I
> would be hesitant to even take a KX2 on board a large ship without prior
> permission.
>
>        Surely one does not need to leave the antenna out on the deck area
> when not in use.    The AlexLoop is so discrete that from your own balcony
> it should be possible though you would have to keep the antenna clear of all
> the metal surroundings so this might well be problematic.
>
>                         73 Doug EI2CN
>
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