Ken has been a Ham radio operator for about 30 years now, long before he ever considered the cruising life. At one point, he had a “Ham shack” where he had his radio equipment set up, and antennas carefully disguised (and sometimes not so carefully disguised) so that he could talk to people around the corner or around the world. This has been his hobby for a while. He built his first radio when he was 12. I'll get around to getting my Ham licence one of these days - I need to be in Canada to get my Canadian licence.

Now that we are on the boat, he has once again started to get back into the “DX” thing, which is Ham speak for trying to contact distance stations. He has contacted all corners of the United States, got Ireland and Bulgaria, and we heard Bangkok the other night, too. Ken’s “VE0SH” call sign can confuse some people into thinking he is “merely” a Canadian station, but the “VE0” actually means Canadian maritime mobile. There aren’t too many of them out there. The “SH” in the call sign is for Silverheels. When Hams start picking up on him as a maritime mobile on a boat in the Caribbean, this can garner a little attention. However, never has there been so much attention as the other night in Montserrat.

The “DX” night started out slowly on the 17m band, but then Ken got into a conversation with one guy out near Seattle. After that, there was a pile up of hams trying to contact Ken. The “VP2M” addition (for Montserrat) to his call sign, in addition to him being a maritime mobile, made him a hot commodity in the world of Ham radio operators. By the time he packed it in at about 10:00 pm (we were getting up early the next day to head to Guadeloupe so he had to cut it short) he had made contact with 22 Hams in the U.S. and one in Brazil (where were the Canadians?).

The neatest and most gratifying “QSO” (contact or conversation) was with Chad (WE9V) in Wisconsin. Chad is a regular reader of this blog, and has hopes to get a boat and come down here one day. Chad, I hope your daughter forgave you for the late night trying to get us! It is just so cool to make contact with someone in two different ways. We could have ratchet-jawed with him a lot longer except for the pile up and his daughter waiting for him.

The funny thing is, we aren’t particularly successful on the maritime SSB frequencies that are popular with cruisers, but we boom on the other frequencies (maybe that is just as well). However, Ken has had fun participating in the “Friendly Net”, an Eastern Caribbean net that goes in the morning, and is just casual chatting – VERY Caribbean!

If any of you are Hams, Ken is often found on 17m after about 2300 Zulu (18.150 – 18.168). Just cast an ear for VE0SH. Or drop us a line and we can schedule something. Right now we are in FG if you need the country! And just so you know, it is an ICOM 802, opened up for Ham, with an Icom autotuner and a length of stainless rigging wire insulated with weed whacker monofilament for the antenna. All grounded to copper sheeting that I soldered together in the hull (Ken keeps insisting that I mention that bit).

Best 73’s de VE0SH (Ken) and the XYL (Lynn)