Add Cruise Day Approaches post

Signed-off-by: Jeremy T. Bouse <[email protected]>

content/blog/cruise-approaches/index.md

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+---
+title: "Cruise Day Approaches"
+date: 2024-04-02T20:41:02-04:00
+draft: false
+description: 
+noindex: false
+featured: true
+pinned: false
+# comments: false
+series:
+ - Cruising
+categories:
+ - Travel
+tags:
+  - POTA
+  - MSC
+  - cruising
+  - operating
+  - overseas
+# menu:
+#   main:
+#     weight: 100
+#     params:
+#       icon:
+#         vendor: bs
+#         name: book
+#         color: '#e24d0e'
+authors:
+  - jbouse
+---
+
+Cruise embarkation day is fast approaching! So let us talk about the plan, assuming no issues are encountered with [MSC Cruises][MSC].
+
+<!--more-->
+
+## The cruise itself
+
+So we will be embarking aboard the MSC Seashore on April 7th and returning on the 14th. This will be our second [MSC] cruise since we began cruising back in 2018 and the first time I will be attempting to cruise with my radio equipment. At this point, I have made every effort to reach out to [MSC] and secure written approval to bring my radio onboard the ship. As I've said in my previous posts on this series, I am not looking to operate while at sea and instead looking to only operate [POTA] while we are at our ports of call along the route. I began reaching out via email back in January, progressing to phone call atempts in February, and finally received a single call from a [MSC] representative in early March that had no further follow-up. I have spoken with some YouTube content creators who have dealt with [MSC] while bringing their drone aboard to use while at port, which were favorable so I have every hope that the same will be the case for me.
+
+I have copies of all documentation in the case holding my actual radio and another copy in my laptop bag that I will have with me. This documentation includes my FCC license (KQ4AFY), my Cayman Islands license (ZF2JE) from [OfReg][OFREG] and my Bahamas license (KQ4AFY/C6A) from [URCA] along with a copy of the FCC Public Notice DA 16-1048 that is required under [CEPT]. This along with my US passport should be all I need to be legal to operate from the ship, Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.
+
+## Nassau, Bahamas
+
+![BS-0025: Nassau, Bahamas](/images/POTA-Bahamas.png)
+
+Our itinerary has us scheduled to be into port in Nassau by 10:00 on Monday, April 8th. I am estimating about an hour to get off the ship and make it to [BS-0025] and get ready to activate. I have already signed up with the [Bahamas National Trust][BNT] for an annual membership to support their efforts in maintaining the parks and it also provides free entry to all parks as well. If I had not purchased the membership the park does have a $12 fee to enter according to the website. The membership is good for a year and good at all Bahamas parks so I am looking at it as I did purchasing my Florida State Parks annual family pass. We are scheduled to depart by 18:00 so I will look to be completed and back to the terminal by around 17:00.
+
+Initially I had thought about trying to also activate [BS-0023] and [BS-0022], but I have found out recently that [BS-0023] is currently closed and I am unsure about transportation necessary to reach [BS-0022] and return in time. None of these parks have been activated yet so I was looking forward to the first activator.
+
+## George Town, Cayman Islands
+
+![KY-0010: George Town, Cayman Islands](/images/POTA-CaymanIslands.png)
+
+We are scheduled to arrive in George Town by 08:00 on Thursday, April 11th. George Town is a tender port, which means that we will not dock at the port terminal and have to take a smaller boat to the terminal. Again, I am expecting at least an hour to get ashore as past experience has proven that tender passage can be organized chaos. Luckily for me [KY-0010] is within a short walking distance from the port terminal. We have a scheduled departure of 16:00, so I will give myself at least an hour to get back to the terminal and catch a tender back aboard the ship.
+
+I have been in touch with [ZF1PB] who is involved with [CARS], so I will be trying to make contact with him while I'm ashore. He has informed me of the local repeater so I will try to reach out using my HT when I get within range. Perhaps if he has transportation I will be able to get to a few of the other nearby parks like [KY-0003], [KY-0009] or [KY-0004] which are not too far from port. Maybe even [KY-0001] which is not far from the [CARS] club ham shack, which I have heard has a pretty extensive antenna array.
+
+## The Band Plan
+
+I have listed preliminary activation schedules on the [POTA] website already. Given the time of day I will be on the island I believe it will be highly unlikely that I will do any work on 40-80m. So I am planning to target 10-20m depending on propagation on the bands when I arrive and get set up to operate. I will begin with working digital over FT8 or FT4 in an attempt to secure the QSOs necessary for a successful activation as quickly as possible. If I have time I will attempt to switch my setup to SSB and find a frequency free to work.
+
+While my cell phone has data service on the islands, I am uncertain if I will have it while at the parks themselves. To account for this and be able to spot myself I have gotten everything configured to use [SOTAmat] which I can send out over FT8 and let the skimmers spot me.
+
+I will attempt to check my Winlink mailbox while I'm at the parks and if I have cell phone data service I will have my Hamshack Hotline extension and my OpenSpot 4 PRO hotspot connected to the D-STAR reflector.
+
+I am also beta testing [PoLo][POLO] as a portable logbook using my mobile phone. While operating SSB I may simply utilize this to log rather than reconfigure my laptop from WSJT-X handling rig control to Amateur Contact Log handling it on the fly. I will then just simply export the ADIF log from [PoLo][POLO] and import it into AC Log before I upload my logs to [POTA], [LoTW] and [QRZ]. I have already registered my callsigns with all three and have my [LoTW] callsign certificates issued.
+
+## 73
+
+If everything goes as planned, upon my return home I will get all my logs finalized and uploaded. I will be trying to get some good photos of my activation set up at each park so that I can put together a custom digital QSL card that I will then send out to all my QSOs if they have an email address available on [QRZ]. I will also put together a final post on this series with my takeaways and advice based on how it all worked, or didn't. I hope to have this only be the first cruise trip I am able to take with my radio. While the XYL doesn't want it to be all future cruises, I do hope to be able to take it along and get the chance to activate parks that I will only be able to operate within while traveling.
+
+73, and I'll catch you down in the log!
+
+[MSC]: https://www.msccruisesusa.com/ "MSC Cruises"
+[POTA]: https://pota.app/ "Parks on the Air"
+[OFREG]: https://www.ofreg.ky/ "Utility Regulation and Competition Office of the Cayman Islands"
+[URCA]: https://www.urcabahamas.bs/ "Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority"
+[CEPT]: https://www.arrl.org/cept "European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations"
+[ZF1PB]: https://www.qrz.com/db/ZF1PB "ZF1PB: Phil Bodden"
+[CARS]: https://caymanhams.org/ "Cayman Amateur Radio Society"
+[BNT]: https://bnt.bs/ "Bahamas National Trust"
+[KY-0010]: https://pota.app/#/park/KY-0010 "Heroes Square/Centennial Park National Historic Site"
+[KY-0003]: https://pota.app/#/park/KY-0003 "Dart Family Recreation Site"
+[KY-0009]: https://pota.app/#/park/KY-0009 "Consuelo's Beach National Historic Site"
+[KY-0004]: https://pota.app/#/park/KY-0004 "Airport Recreation Park"
+[KY-0001]: https://pota.app/#/park/KY-0001 "Pedro St. James Castle"
+[BS-0025]: https://pota.app/#/park/BS-0025 "The Retreat Garden National Park"
+[BS-0023]: https://pota.app/#/park/BS-0023 "Harrold and Wilson Ponds National Park"
+[BS-0022]: https://pota.app/#/park/BS-0022 "Bonefish Pond National Park"
+[SOTAmat]: https://sotamat.com/ "Summits-On-The-Air. Automated"
+[POLO]: https://ham2k.com/apps/polo/ "Ham2k: Portable Logger"
+[LoTW]: https://lotw.arrl.org/ "The ARRL Logbook of The World"
+[QRZ]: https://logbook.qrz.com/ "QRZ Logbook"