Wife and I just got back from a cruise to French Polynesia that first made
three stops in Hawaii. In March, I asked our travel agent if I could use my
ham radio on Holland America ships, so he checked and said I could.

I had first bought an MFJ-9420 but it didn't seem to be doing the job. The
tuning wandered a bit and other stations said my audio sounded muddy, etc.
Two days before the cruise, I returned the 9420 to HRO and upgraded to a
Yeasu FT-817ND. I made sure the new radio would go on the air but never
really got to play with it. The 9420 and 817 are both nominally 5W PEP on
SSB.

In the process of learning various requirements for maritime mobile, I found
advice that the ship's master also needs to give his permission, so I sent
him a note about me and my gear. He said Yes, too.

I carried my 20m Hamstick & counterpoise but I also packed a bunch of wire,
cable, fittings and ferrites for making dipoles. As things turned out, I
could never really use the Hamstick much because the wind over the deck was
so strong, the Hamstick wouldn't stand up. Tying it meant either having it
on the open deck, where I could trip people or having it near the rail,
which detuned it. Dipoles to the rescue.

First, I tried 10m, on the theory that when it's working, it's wonderful.
However, the sun was not cooperating and 10 was quiet. Although I had a
great match between 28.300 and 28.500, I heard nothing but a few chirps and
squawks, probably from onboard. (I verified the absence of bungles by
tuning 15 MHz; WWV/WWVH blasted in.)

Next, I hung a premade 20m dipole on deck 12 amidships about 100 feet above
the waterline and the world came streaming in. I put my RigExperst AA-54 on
it and tuned it for resonance near midband. I knew I'd have a guaranteed
QSO or two on the Pacific Seafarers' Net (http://www.pacseanet.com/)at 0300Z
on 14.300. All the stations in Hawaii could hear me as well as most of the
stations along the West Coast. I volunteered as a relay station for the net
and was used several times. They understood I could not join the net every
day. They are a great bunch, by the way.

Making a dipole a little longer than necessary is standard practice; it can
always be trimmed to resonance and you're good. But, what of a temporary
dipole that never goes in exactly the same place twice? After I discovered
that I needed to regain some lost element length, I abandoned the trimming
process, altogether. I added back some length to both dipole elements and
all future "trimming" was done by simply rolling the ends into tight little
circles and securing them with tape, effectively shortening the elements.
Yes, I considered making the dipole elements easily adjustable by attaching
telescoping whip elements at the ends. Too bad I forgot to pack them. :-(

When 20m was really good, I was able to work Hawaii, California and New
Zealand all during the same session. One time, Ed, ZL4IR, said he had me
5-9 and asked if I could reduce power from the nominal 5 watts. I said Yes
and I hit POWER once and announced "LOW THREE." He responded that I was
fine, so then LOW TWO and finally LOW ONE, which I said was 1 watt. He
reported me as 5-7. He was on South Island, which my ancient Garmin GPS-III
told me was about 2800 miles away. Not bad for 1 watt. Oh, but there's
mo LOW ONE isn't 1 watt. It's a half watt. I was jazzed! (If I hadn't
had the experience, myself, I would throw the B-S flag on this story.)

Best QSO distance: Polynesia to "Mike" in Maine, logged as N1RPP but might
be N1RPH. It's about 5005 miles from where I was to the center of the state
of Maine. I haven't taken the time to exactly geo-locate him. He had local
noise, so it took some work to get him my callsign.

Lessons learned:
With a structure nearby, get a dipole as nearly perpendicular as possible to
that structure. Also, a continuous flat surface is better than a broken
surface, like a bulkhead with a window in it.
Supporting a dipole with antenna rope seemed better than just stretching it
out, self-supporting. I will probably re-do my home dipoles.
The FT-817ND is a wonderful radio. I have just scratched the surface of its
capabilities. More fun to come.
There are more hams on a cruise ship than you'd guess and they're ready to
talk.

"Sal"
(really KD6VKW)