[amsat-bb] Satellite operation from the Queen Mary - 15 December 2018

Hi!

I will be part of a day of satellite operating from a deck on the RMS Queen Mary, docked at Long Beach in southern California, on Saturday 15 December 2018. Operations will be portable, almost like a Field Day, and should include FM, SSB, and possibly packet. All operations from the Queen Mary will be as W6RO, the call sign for the wireless room on the ship operated by the Associated Radio Amateurs of Long Beach. Depending on staffing in the W6RO wireless room, there may also be HF activity during the satellite operation.

Amateur radio has a long history on the Queen Mary, including a special- event station GB5QM that operated as the ship made its final voyage from England to Long Beach in 1967, and in almost 4 decades with the W6RO operations from Long Beach. More about the history of amateur radio on the Queen Mary is available at:

https://queenmary.com/history/amateur-radio/ http://aralb.org/club-station-w6ro/

I had the pleasure of working AO-7 from W6RO in March 2016. An article covering this quick operation appeared in the AMSAT Journal, and is available from the "Articles" folder in my Dropbox space:

http://dropbox.wd9ewk.net/

as well as an AMSAT-BB posting after that activation:

http://amsat.org/pipermail/amsat-bb/2016-March/057636.html

QSLing for the W6RO satellite activation will be handled per the procedure on W6RO's QRZ page:

http://www.qrz.com/db/W6RO

with one exception: no QSO numbers will be given during the satellite operation. Satellite QSOs from W6RO will be done in the normal manner, with an exchange of call signs and grid locators. W6RO is located in grid DM03. W6RO does not use Logbook of the World, so all QSL requests will need to be mailed directly to the W6RO address in QRZ.

Thanks to Endaf Buckley N6UTC, the Associated Radio Amateurs of Long Beach and the ARALB's W6RO Wireless Room Manager (David Akins N6HHR), and the Queen Mary management for their work in arranging this event. I look forward to another opportunity to work satellites from the Queen Mary.

73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK or http://twitter.com/WD9EWK