My ship has finished the shipyard period and will make the overnight run from Charleston (FM02) to Jacksonville (EM90) this weekend to load up for the return to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. With a bit of luck and good timing, I should be QRV from wet grid FM01 the evening on Sunday, 26 June. The ship's captain is willing to make the detour to reasonably maximize the time available, so just like with DM02 back in March, it all comes down to how tight the ship's schedule has to be kept. (We've got a different captain from before, but the current one is even more ham radio-friendly.)
Right now, it looks good. If it sticks, the target time frame that we'd be in FM01 would be roughly 26/2200Z to 27/0200Z. I'll look to be on the following passes: AO7 - 26/2128Z AO51 - 26/2143Z AO7 - 26/2319Z (until it switches to Mode A late in the pass) VO52 - 27/0032Z VO52 - 27/0208Z If we wind up having to stay with the originally plotted course, we'd still be passing through FM01, but the in-grid time would likely be less than an hour, and probably not include a sat pass. I'll be signing off the ship next Thursday (30 June) when my XYL and favorite driver Cori will pick me up at Jax. The only bad part of signing off the ship is that I won't be on board for the return trip across the Atlantic and midway across the Indian Ocean. The comms officer taking my place until I come back to the ship in November isn't a ham unfortunately, so there won't be any wet grids activated during that crossing. I'll be home in EM70 for a few days, and then we have to make a bee-line drive out to Arizona (ETA 11 July). Once we wrap up necessary business there, we'll take our time and hit all the AZ and NM grids (and counties on CW & SSB for the HF county hunters) before returning to Florida. By the way, I returned to ship about three weeks ago and have answered all QSL requests for my Pacific crossing trip that were received by the time I left the home QTH. If anyone needs confirmations, pse e-mail me via my home address (claryco @ aol.com), and I'll be glad to send out the cards. (E-mails sent to my shipboard address are fine for the next few days, but I won't have access to it after next Thursday until I get back to the ship later this year.) 73, Jim, ND9M / VQ9JC _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
