Whatho Cliftonaires,

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Just a note to thank all those who tried to contact us on the wireless whilst the memsahib and I were on our nautical meanderings. I did hear and work (just) both Colin G0UJK and Steve M0BPQ.? Our biggest problem was extremely fast and deep QSB. Signals would swing from fully readable to non-existent in a matter of minutes. Also the most useful band of 17m was not available to us due very high levels of ship generated QRM. We strongly suspect the source of this wideband noise was the aft galley that served the Verandah Grill (open air restaurant ) on deck 12 adjacent to where our antenna was situated.

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To keep a low profile and not to spread alarm and despondency among our fellow passengers Suzanne and I try and discreetly run out the 62ft of RG58 between deck 12 and our operating position on deck 11. This normally carried out while the ship is still in the English Channel or the Bay of Biscay as most passengers find the weather and sea conditions unfriendly enough to prevent them venturing out on deck. We now are well-practised at routing the cable, deploying the counterpoises and fixing the antenna. So we were a little concerned after deploying the feeder we found we had a fault and the antenna analyser was showing an open circuit. The weather was worsening so we delayed replacing the feeder with our fall-back two sections of cable until the following day. Up next morning before the majority had emerged we quickly removed some 40 cable ties.(white to match the railing) and re-run two lengths now joined to give 62ft with the SO239 coupler bound with self-amalgamating tape. While we so engaged when Simon, the ships Safety Officer (A Master Mariner two grades below the Captain) came to see how we were getting on. He asked if we needed any help, we politely declined explaining we had a faulty cable but all should be well. Fortunately we are very well accepted and liked by the crew on board who are more than willing to render assistance should we need it.

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It was somewhat disappointing that conditions were not in our favour especially when I know that Colin G0UJK made every effort via the SDR system to locate me and when he did we struggled. Radio is quite amazing, we had? over 450 QSO in the log, a good number were surprising good in duration and quality both in CW and SSB from the middle of the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. One section of my log shows a ZS1, then VE6,to KH7, and to top it all a VK4 all quality QSOs in SSB, two of the stations were running a basic 100w to wire antennas.

I also noted that we worked a number of stations in the mid-western USA? many of whom had returned to hobby after several years absence, many of whom were running very basic stations or QRP and I was their first ‘maritime mobile’ since being first licenced. We? also worked several stations in the UK at odd times when conditions gave a true ‘arm-chair copy’. Strangely working the same station on the same frequency at a similar time the following day? the contact would only last a few minutes before the band dropped out. This was likely due to the fact we had travelled some 450miles in 24hrs and conditions were different? There were many times when I would call CQ to an apparent ‘dead band’ and suddenly I would get a single response with 59+ reports both ways on both 12m and 15m, during these short openings I worked into Ghana, Namibia, Brazil, Iraq and Western coast of Canada……….Then the band would then die.

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Strange business this radio!

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I would like to thank Lawrie G4FAA for circulating my MM Group e-mails to the Clifton Reflector for the benefit of all.

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The MM group (addressed to Suzanne and then BCC) has a number of non-Clifton members including individuals who I have worked on previous nautical meanderings. Hence we felt it was a more effective option than using the G3GHN reflector. Also we? experienced some difficulty gaining access to BT mail via the ship’s satellite link. We found it beneficial to stay ’logged-in’ to our one main e-mail address to avoid several hours anguish as we struggled to re-connect and of course we were using the BT account for other purposes than the /MM Group.

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During the trip I received some reports that my trusty KX3, now in its 8^th year of service, was off frequency by some 0.6Khz HF on some bands. I tried to compensate by using the XIT control but this was not very satisfactory as ‘shift’ in the frequency display is rather distracting on keying up. Hopefully this annoying but minor fault will be rectified before our next /MM ops.

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As a result of our activities on board we handed out in excess of 350 information leaflets. These explained who we were and what we were doing (with the Captain’s permission) to both those who were genuinely interested, as well as those who had ‘concerns’ that we would affect the ship’s navigation and communication systems………….We are certain that the more sceptical among them were never convinced and blamed us for the short falls in the ship’s WiFi………We endeavoured to act as ambassadors for the hobby and we feel we succeeded with most.

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We have taken the opportunity to attached some photos showing our operating position, the G-whip antenna, the bespoke marine grade stainless tip-over antenna bracket. also a copy of our information hand-out (this in draft size, we cut four from an A4 sheet).

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You may be interested to know that our ‘packing list’ for both the radio and our cycling activities ran into over 200 separate items before we even considered what we were going to wear!

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As we embark in the UK we did not have a luggage weight limit. Our total luggage was in excess of 110kgs (four large suit cases (two with bikes, spares, tool kits and cabling) , two wheeled flight bags, two back-packs, a Peli-case (KX3+gel cells) and a fishing rod case (G-whip antenna).

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Once again many thanks to all those who tried to contact us, and may we take this belated opportunity to wish all Clifton members a very healthy, happy and peaceful 2023.

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73 de Tony es Suzanne.

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