Italian visit at the ship

Benvenuto Aboard: An Italian Radio Amateur Visits the SS Rotterdam

With a warm “Benvenuto” — that was all the Italian we knew — Onno, PA3BUD, and Jan, PA2JCB, welcomed Marco Carminati aboard. Marco is an associate professor in the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan. He was in Rotterdam from Sunday to Wednesday for a conference and had emailed to ask whether he could visit the SS Rotterdam and make a few radio contacts.

When Onno asked about his background as a radio amateur, Marco emailed quite a collection of documents. He lives in Milan and is a licensed radio amateur with the call sign IW2OCB.

After the formalities and an explanation of how to use the Skanti, Marco made several QSOs, naturally including contacts with Italian stations. The 20-metre band was reasonably open: his first contact using PI4HAL was with IT9ECY, Nick in Sicily. He then made a second QSO with Nick, this time using his own call sign. Both contacts appeared immediately on Nick’s QRZ page. That confirmed them — if any confirmation was still needed!
Marco made more contacts and will send us a list of the stations he worked.
He left the PC alone and wrote everything down on paper.
Time flew by. After a warm farewell and an invitation to visit him in Milan, Onno took him to the water taxi. It was time to get back to the conference.

A lovely intermezzo! And yes, that’s Italian too. Hi!