Okay, Happy Sunday to everybody. Appreciate you guys being here tonight, and Radio Tube in the house. My wife is in the chat and several others of you are in the chat there, so thank you for joining us tonight Sunday Night Live stream. Ham Radio two point zero special shout out to the folks in Green text and the chat Ham Radio Crusader in there earlier. Thanks Freddy, Andy A zero A MS in there, k Q four h x Q, Mike, saw, Phil Todd. Let's see who else, Michael, KD eight G
I J I think I'm reading that right. Randall's in there, Jody's in there. M netics huh v E five s a ar hm netics so whatever that means. So thanks for being there, guys, Brian to see you in there, K E eight O VP, appreciate you guys being here tonight. And oh there's a couple of Andy's. Yeah, they can't hear you right now, Frank, there's there's a couple of Andy. Yeah, there's Andy Kelly from the UK, and then there's A A zero A m Andy. He's in there often as well.
So that is yep, that's the that's where it's at but okay, so let me let me in fact, let me just let me just bring Frank on real quick. Hi.
Hi, how you doing good?
Man?
Doing good? I wonder and and I know I should have asked beforehand. I wonder how the pre sales are and those mugs are going. Man, you know what people hit me up? I ordered?
Yeah I will. I'll pull that up real quick, because yes, I've I've had I've had several of them sold. And let me make this transition over here right there. Okay, there we go. So Tank Radio Coffee mug pre order. It's a pretty cool looking mugg. It kind of looks like that Yazu.
Mugl I kind of like it because the unique style of it and everything, and it's not just like hey it's a coffee mug. Oh you beat me to it. I just found it. Oh sure, yeah man, Yeah, this coffee mugs is to help support me and Tank Radio and I. The is only only only a limited order, so you have to pre order it. After I close the pre orders, no more mugs are going to be sold and I'm going to fulfill them. So get your mug.
Now, get it now, Get the mug now. Okay, yep, sweet okay, Uh yeah, Jody says, I changed channel names like I changed underwear, trying to show politicians how it's done. There we go right there.
Yes, yes, politicians should be changed.
Yes, often and frequently. That's right. Really, you're not gonna be frank on now. It's gonna bring Frank cok. Just kind of kind of ignoring him for as long as I could, but you know, you know how that goes. Okay, So I'm stalling a little bit because I traded texts with Chris yesterday to confirm our live stream today and he's like, yep, we're all good, all good, all good. And then I sent him the zoom link earlier and told him what time he knew what time it was.
I told him what time it was, and uh, he hasn't He hasn't joined yet. So we're just gonna sit here in gab until he till he joined.
I am kind of ashamed. You've been talking about this book. Josh Ham radio Craft course has been talking about this book. Mike has formerly known as I'm forgetting his other channel. Now I have radio stuff. Now he's Tube, but his former I like to call the former. That's fun all been talking about this book and I have not done anything with it yet. I should have put it in my audio. It is audio.
You can't get it in an audio. Yes, uh huh, I mean I read him, but yes, you can do that.
Because I I only listened to audiobooks because y'all know how I read.
Yeah, well yeah, yeah, let's see all Star Ooh.
Brian asked, will Sapphire be on the next mug? That is a great idea. That's an idea, Sapphire mug the tank radio mug to a beautiful blue Oh all right, we're gonna pin that, and I'm writing it down. I'm writing it down because I'm looking for new ideas, because I like limited time orders because it's unique. And then you'd be like, oh, I've been it's a fan way back in the day. I got the mug and the whiskey glass and the coin. Ah. I'm just I like those little little calls. That's cool, all right.
So a couple of people are talking about my All Star Yeah no, my All Star system. Here's here's all the people that are connected to it right now? Uh in in in five h y h ron he was, I was training some emails with him earlier in the week. He keeped up about a half hour ago. I have not been on it for a week and a half because I've been in Alaska. We took it. My wife and I flew to Anchorage a week ago last Wednesday, and we were in fact, there's kJ five e h
N right there Solina, Texas. So yeah, but let's see who was it that just said that. Arthur is saying W six h R who he's on there often he's like, can you have can you reboot it? Having an issue connected? We've still have we still have the connection issues that we have not addressed yet because well, because I've done some traveling, I have some live streams already planned and we were gonna upgrade to all Start two dot ZHO, but but.
Hold on, hold on all.
Star three dot oh is now available. They just came out with I've been trading emails with a guy that's that's writing some ASL, some of the ASL developers, and we're gonna get him and Charlie Freddy Mac Charlie Mack Freddy Mack crusader him ready to crusader in the chat. We're gonna get them on probably Kyle two and we're gonna talk about upgrading the system to All Star three dot. Oh, I just got to find a Sunday to do that where I don't have a guest that's on that's not
showing up on time. So so we'll see, we'll see what happens with that. But yeah, so some sometimes, uh sometimes I still have to reboot it, although I've got people who just connected to it in the last few minutes. But I'll go ahead and reboot it if because I know that I know that Arthur's in there often and uh yeah, so let me just do that now. I'm just gonna log in right now and reboot this.
Sweet sweet hand rate of tectonics. Bill Man said that the guy that reads him on audible does a great job. Bill. We're gonna miss you at the Yellowstone Trip, but stay safe.
Okay, So, everybody who's connected to the over right now, the all Star hub is number for three one three six. I am gonna reboot it real fast. A lot of you have auto connect on and that's cool. Appreciate you guys being connected so regularly, and but I do still have some of that issue going on where the All Star system will disallow some people, but not everybody to connect. It'll disallow connections at random sometimes. So but yeah, that's.
The door check's kind of calling you out about the activation.
Yeah, well that's I was gonna. I was gonna I was gonna talk about that anyway. So what we did is we went to so long story short, let me get back to the right template here. We flew to Anchorage a week ago last Wednesday. We spent the night
in Anchorage. We were supposed to fly out in the morning or no, like at one or two in the afternoon, and we eat which got in our American Airlines app we got a notification saying, would you like a three hundred dollars voucher to delay your flight by like two hours? And we're like sure, so we both took that. Uh So, we took the voucher, got got a credit for a ticket later on, and then we arrived. So we arrived two or three hours later. We arrived that evening in Anchorage.
Of course, they're like four hours behind US. Alaskan time is no, I'm sorry, three hours behind US. Alaskan time is one hour behind California time. So uh so we got there that night. We pretty much just went to the Airbnb or the hotel we're saying that, went to bed, got up the next morning, tooled around Anchorage for a little bit, found a cool smoke shop there, got a couple of cigars, and got rented a car and drove
to it. Drove south to Seward, Alaska, which is where the ship leaves, and it and it and we spent the night in Seward on Thursday, got up Friday, turned the car in, went to the ship and took a seven day cruise throughout ports in Alaska.
Oh my god, that sounds amazing.
Yeah, it was fun. It was a good trip. It was a good trip. It was in the forties. It was between like forty five and sixty five the whole day, the whole time, and most of the time it was in the fifties, not even up over sixty and it wasn't too cold, but but it was. It was fun. It was good. So we stopped at two different national park well the national for there's one called I can't remember the names of them.
Now.
There was a national forest we saw and it was huge. While we were driving from Anchorage down to Seward, we were driving in a national forest for probably one third of that one quarter to one third of that trip. So had I had a mobile HF antenna, I could have put it on the rental car and been doing mobile HF on FT eight, or me even calling CQ with the microphone. So I didn't know that. I didn't know that the route we were gonna go it was
going to go through National Forest. I could have been in the National Forest making QSO's the whole time, but I didn't know that. So all I brought was my infed halfway and we stopped inside of the National Forest and set up one day, and I was hearing stations on twenty meters FT eight, but I was I called CQ for probably twenty to twenty five minutes and and got zero people coming back to me. Later on that night,
I was putting. I was talking in discord and Kyle said, he's like, man, I didn't see you on Hamblert PSK report or anything. I'm like, yeah, I was like, I think we were in a valley between some mountains, and I just wouldn't getting only had ten watts, had the IC seven O five with the external battery, So I had ten watts on FT eight and just and those guys that were down in Hamvention the last well two months ago in May, who were from Alaska. He's like, yeah,
the propagation up there's weird. Sometimes you just can't activate. So that kind of that kind of bothered me a little bit when I heard that, but I'm like, I'm gonna try it anyway. So we tried that one day and I just really couldn't get out. And then the next we went to another national park, a free national park.
And.
Set up there, which I was inside of another national forest, so that was really kind of a twofer, and set up there and and I couldn't even hear anything there, Like I like, I let the radio run for ten minutes and I couldn't. I could on twenty meter ft eight and like not even calling CQ, just monitoring fourteen seven four, and I couldn't even hear. I was not hearing anything. So I tried calling CQ for like ten minutes. I'm like, no, it's it's it's a wash. It's no good.
So notick, two unsuccessful activations didn't make even a single contact.
Oh man.
Uh, So I told her, I said, we need to go back and spend a week in Anchorage because I really liked Anchorage a lot. I like Seward a lot. She didn't like Seward that much. She said it was too small. You know, there's nothing to do here, like sword.
Is the one and the top right top of the last.
No, it's no, it's down south.
Okay, I'm about sorry, three to four hours geometry.
Yeah, it's about three to four hours south of Anchorage. So uh so we did that and yeah, so I'm just like, you know what, we don't have to go back to Alaska because mm hm, just because. But but I'd like to go and stay in instead of being on a schedule of where we had to We had to drive from Anchorage to Sewer one day, drive and get on a boat and Sewer the next night, you
know that kind of thing. So I was like, let's just go spend a week of five days, five six days in Anchorage and go around to different places and
different parks. There's a huge National forest that's out there, and a couple of them really and it should be uh, it should be doable because I'm just dedicated a whole day just gona say, I'm just gonna go to this park in the morning and sit down and activate take a hundred wats with me this time, I'd take my FT eight ninety one or some kind of go kit, some kind of bigger great kit with me.
My family's paying with an idea to go to Florida. And what would be the pros and cons of taking a radio that is less watt is versus the whole hundred watt radio because you said you had some issues not using one hundred watts.
But it's pack smaller, right, Oh yeah, definitely pack smaller. M yep, yep, I don't. I mean to me, it's always good. You always got more potential making contacts with with more power. But you know, it depends on what you're trying to do, what you're trying to Uh. You know when somebody talked about say, don't didn't you try any c W? I don't know. I don't know CW well enough to try to activate a park with it. I can bumble my way through c W maybe maybe, but I don't. I can't. I don't know it well
enough yet. I'm still studying, still trying to learn. I want to get with I want to get with Long Island c W Club and take one of their courses. Mm hmm but or join one of their zoom sessions or however they do that because they do those all the time.
Mm hmm.
But I wanted yeah, but I just don't. I don't. Eventually, yes, eventually I would like to do that, but today there's just not not passed. So I took FT eight on purpose. I wanted to do sideband, but then after those two guys at hamvention were like, yeah, the propagation. If there's weird, sometimes you can't activ it. I'm like, you know, FT eight is a low noise mode, load noise of low signal load noise mode, not a low power mode, low noise,
low signal mode. So I'm like, I would have better time, better chances of activating FT eight then activating sideband, especially if it's sideband QRP. So that's what I tried, and like I said, I was that first day. I was hearing all kinds of stations on twenty meters and I just couldn't get out. And I might have gotten out if I had one hundred watts, I might have been able to do that, but don't know. So the purpose
of the trip was not to active. I would like to take a trip up there for the purpose of activating a park.
It was a side quest. It was the main point. It was for you to get away and have some vacation time with yeah.
Right right. And we had a great It was a great It was a great trip. It was a great experience. I love Alaska. It was really I've always wanted to go on Alaskan cruise. It was. We stopped in like four different ports I think it was, and went into port each day and did we did a we we took a helicopter one day and we took a helicopter up to the top of the mountain outside of which one was that I think that was Scat Was it Skagway? No, I can't remember. We stopped in Skagway the next day.
I can't remember which one it was we stopped, Oh it was it was Juneo, the capitol, Juno, Okay, And so we go into Juno. We took a helicopter ride to the top of one of the mountains in Juno and there's this dog sled team that goes up there and trains dogs, and they took us around in a dog sled and I talked to them. Yeah, and I got video of the whole thing. So we're putting that
on the channel soon. And I talked to them about because they got these wall tents up there, built on platforms, and I'm like, okay, so how do you And they're like, yeah, we stay up here for about four and a half months. And I'm like, okay, sort of a half months, that's what they said. And it's completely off grid. Well it's complete, it's completely off grid. But I did see a starlink dish, so I'm like, so, how's it is. They're like, oh, yeah, we got starlink. Man, it's great.
So what do they do for power? Do they do? They have? This? This part just intrigues me so much.
Yeah, that was the that was the thing I wanted to talk to him about the most. It was they they have. There's some generators there. I didn't see any solar panels, but and it was really cloudy the time we were up there, so I don't know how much snow and rain and cloud cover they get. It may not be worth it to even take a solar panel up there. I mean, you're gonna get something from a solar panel because the sun is out, but it's clouding the whole time. It's gonna be less efficent, far less
efficient than you know, somewhere where the sun shiny. But but that I saw some propane bottles and some gasoline power generators and that kind of thing. They said that they weren't really allowed to put space propane space heaters in their tent because because of fire fire safety issues, and I'm like, okay, what about like yeah, so yeah,
it's it's I don't know. I just think that'd be cool to stay up there, plant a plan, a DX commander or maybe a X beam, I don't know, and stay up there for four months and work with the dogs and do live streams through their starlink and do some ham radio, get a special event call sign and just call CQ for four months. I just think that'd be fun. So they said they got like two hundred applications a year for people to go up there, and
they had like forty people there. So it's like, okay, yeah, I told himly I was gonna try it, but I don't know, we'll see.
Well they do they have visitors like come up and spend a week or two with them. I don't know.
Not to do the question four.
Months camp, But that that sounded an amazing good question. Yeah, but that would really put my battery backup seapat machine to the test. Because of I can do three nights, three and a half nights on my twenty amp hour. Then the augmented a solar, I can go almost it, definitely, but you know I need solar the entire time I'm there to help recharge the battery. It sounds like they're also they're running maybe some generators.
Yeah, they definitely had some gasoline power generators up there. I don't know, I don't I wasn't there long enough to get an in depth analysis. Say how does this all this work? But or how would you use when? And they said, you know, most of the time, like there wasn't anything running when we were there. We were there at like, I don't know, eleven, twelve o'clock in the morning, something like that. M hm, eleven in the morning to noon somewhere in there, and there was nothing.
There was no generator noise, there was nothing running. I asked them about running radios, and one of the guys told me he said, he said, we used to have a radio here and it was hard to communicate with it because every time it would get knocked out of tune, you wouldn't be able to communicate with it. And I'm like, what do you mean by that?
Is that the knob and they don't know what frequency.
To go back to or That's kind of what I gathered from that. But at the same time, I I he he he almost talked like it was knocking the antenna out of tune, and I'm like, I didn't get clarification what he meant by that, and I asked him to explain. He's like, well, I just he goes operator. So I'm like, okay, Well that it wouldn't be that wouldn't be that hard and you could definitely put I mean, your top of a freaking mountain with fifteen minute helicopter
ride down to the valley below. They said that, and everything up there was brought in by helicopter. So they helicopter all this stuff in and helicopter all out at the end of season.
But to be honest, though, they're probably using commercial bands because it can't be the hand radio bands if it's use for their operation, so it had to be commercial. So and that just this opens up even more.
Now, I know. Yeah, but I'm thinking, like, you know, a ten or even a ten to fifteen foot push up poll or tripod with a VHF and ten on it. You ought to be able to reach out a long way with that because you're up so high. You're already up way high. So I wouldn't think there'd be any trouble contacting the valley down below. But I mean, I don't know, but chef would be fun. It'd be really fun to try a chap.
Yes, so I answered someone about a Jordan asked about the battery c PAP. I put the link in the chat to the series of videos I did for building that system. It's a great system, I thought. I saw another good question. It's gone keep going, keep going.
Okay, all right, So Tongus National Force that was the one that was in Where was that one that was the one outside of Ketcha Can in Ketcha Can, I think, yeah, Tongas. Now, in fact, they said that that's the largest national forest in the United States. It basically covered the entire freaking city of Ketchi Can. So now I didn't try to act. That wasn't the one I tried to activate, but that
was one of the ones that I was in. There was nowhere to really set up there and I don't know it's that's but that could be could be the one that I try next time, but it but that's outside of Ketcha Can. So that's about I don't know. It's several hours south of Anchorage and those those port towns, the Skagway, Ketcha Can, Juno, and uh another place called Icy straight Point where the four stops we made and Icy straight Point we didn't really get off the boat
there was you could. There wasn't anything there really you could. You could walk off the boat to like a shuttle and they would take you into a town that's like twenty minutes away or something like that, and it was just kind of like a It was kind of like a tourist town because there's nothing in that area except for stuff they built for the cruise ships. The other the other port stops were actual cities that had stuff
to do and whatnot. I think Skagway was probably my favorite, but Ketcha Cam was really Ketcha Cam was really cool as well. Skagway had a brewery that Skagway Brewing that was that was pretty good. So there was some cool stuff up there, but it was u it was It was definitely a good experience. I would love to go back.
I wouldn't mind. I don't know how how long it would take to drive from Anchorage, if you rent a car and drive from Anchorage to Skagway and Ketcha can I didn't really look at that you could do that. And I know a couple of people that have talked about driving from Seattle through Canada to Alaska and just driving through Alaska, there were a lot of RVs.
It sounds so much fun.
I know in in Anchorage and Skagway and Juno, there were a lot of people driving r vs, and I got the I got the impression that they were rented some of them, not all of them. Some of them are rented RVs you could tell had their name on the side or something like that, or maybe they all had the same logo and the same size, the same color. I'm like, you see those three RVs that are all
exactly the same, those are got to be rented. So it's one of those things where people drive with r V pulling up motor coaches, motor homes are bumper pool RV's fifth wheels, that kind of thing. Vans, van life stuff kind of yeah, that van life would be big I would think so, Yeah, I would think so. But we'll see Colin.
Thanks for the two months.
Good yeah calling and calling and VK, thanks for being here, buddy.
Yep, yah zipline did y'all zip line?
We did not zipline this time. We zipline when we were in big Ben last April. I think it was so Yeah, she said, we thought about doing the zipline icy straight, but we'd already we spent money on that helicopter ride, and then we spent money on a train ride in June No Skagway. A train ride in Skagway, like a four hour train ride that kind of looped around the town, went up the mountain and came back down.
It was really cool, really cool train ride. I got some a little bit of video on that as well, so that was fun too. But yeah, sadly did not
get to activate. I don't know, I wish that. I wish that I would have been able to do that, but I was kind of like I was reminded why I didn't like FT eight or I'm sorry why I didn't like QRP, And if I would have had a one hundred watt radio, I would have had better chances of activating, but I still may have not been able to because I couldn't even hear anything at that second place we stopped. So I don't know. I don't know.
We'll see, but I have a wow wild hog and Ham says, I have a neighbor that is in Alaska now put his fifth wheel from Texas. Sheesh, Wow, that would be a fun drive. See, I would enjoy that. I think that would be a fun drive. I think that would be a I think that would be a fun drive. So we'll see. Well, maybe one day I'll be able to do that. If you guys know Brent W seven b R. Whiskey seven Back Roads, he's in
the chat sometimes. I haven't seen him time. He lives up in Wyoming, and uh he has one of those earth crawlers. Wow, he's talked. I can't remember if he's told me he's talked about doing that trip from Wyoming up to Alaska. Of course, Wyoming's a lot closer to the northern border than we are here down here in Texas.
Yes, Don plus is the thing we were talking about C plus plus today being the next grist thing for amateur radio, and how we're going to use that. Bressed up and do some awesome things.
Sure we are, Yeah, but but but I I would like I would. I think it would be a fun drive to do. That'd be it. You'd have to dedicate like a whole frigging month to do that, because it would take you a week to get up there, maybe eight or nine days, depending on how you timed it out. You could do it faster than that if you wanted to. But if you want to enjoy the ride and stop at certain places along the route, which is how I like to do it. I like to enjoy the ride trip or the road the road trip.
Brother, that'll be a monstrous trip, man. Yeah, and it will be a lot. It will be a lot. Yeah, drive the whole way, and I would love to do it. I just need the time and the money and the know how to fix something because if it breaks when you're up there in the middle of.
Nowhere, Yeah, yeah, true. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's true. Uh let's see, hold on, would it take a zillion dollars in fuel to drive that thing to Alaska? Probably? Yeah? Probably so. Uh if you are ever near the area, I don't know which where. Who's who Jordan's talking to? Okay? Rick Jason, which cruise line did you take and what's
your opinion of it? So we were on celebrity cruises and it was the Celebrity Summit ship is one of their older ships, I think, and it was it was a good we we had a we we did a but prior to COVID so I think like twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen, we did a celebrity cruise in the Mediterranean. We did a Mediterranean cruise. That's the first and only
time we've ever done that, and it was fun. We've taken three or four Caribbean cruises on Carnival and then we've done Celebrity in the Mediterranean, now Celebrity in Alaska. That's the ones we've been on. And all of the people who said, all of the people who said somebody was talking about how it was Royal Caribbean or Princess or one of those that said that are very very anti Ham Radio won't let you bring them on the boat. They did not look at me twice. I had my
seven oh five. In fact, I have a video I'm working on about why I chose the seven oh five And I haven't seen Ray Noback in the chat yet. So I'm just gonna go ahead and say this. I did not want to take my seven oh five, not because it's not a good radio. It's an excellent radio. It is the easiest radio to use for FT eight if you want to do plug and play FT eight. In my opinion, one of the easiest radio is to
use great radio. But I didn't want to take it because it's also one of the bulkiest QRP radios that's out there, and it's got the big screen on it, and I didn't want to get it damaged. It was fine the whole time, it's no problem. But twenty two hundred miles for Seattle to Anchorage. Mike says, oh, well, that's that's how long. That's how far it is from uh Dallas delle Passo. So that doesn't sound like any much to me, the Mike. But I'm kidding. It's not
that far, not quite. It's only like twenty one hundred miles anyway. Uh uh So, So I got I'm working on a video about why I chose that radio, what other radios I looked at, what I did and that
kind of thing, but but they did not. I had it packed in one of those max pedition water bottle bags, which I think is what Kyle keeps his ends like a It's like a round zipper bag with molly on the outside of it, and uh, and it's padded, so you just put your I put my seven o five down the bottom, had another small bag with my small coaxe and my infant halfwave in it, and my the power cable for the seven o five put in that bag in the top, and then I put my Denco
battery in the front, so I had a six ampower Dnco battery with it. All of that together, the TSA looked at coming back. They wanted to look at it going out there. They didn't. They didn't look at it at all. Coming back. They wanted to look at it. I put that through the scanner on the ship and they're like, okay, see you. They didn't. They didn't care at all.
I bet they just get that it is some other form of random electronics.
And yeah, I think I think they put that thing about if you go to look at their website and it says it says no ham radio is allowed on the ship. I think they put that on there so that if you're caught doing something like if you set up a big contenna or a dipoler on the on the upper deck, and you're doing they say, no, you can't do that. It says on our website, you can't do that. We're gonna confiscate that and take it from you until the boats of them and you get it back.
So I think that I think that's why they do that, because they did not pay one iota of attention to my radio that was packed into it and packed nicely in my bag. When we went on the ship. They were much more concerned about me bringing alcohol on. They didn't want me to bring alcohol on at all. Here's a business idea for someone in Seward Alaska. I was ready, here's a business idea because we looked at this. Okay, go onto Amazon and type in clandestine or secret or
sneak on liquor bottles. Okay, and there's people selling empty shampoo bottles or shampoo look like bottles or hand cream bottles or something like that that you put liquor in and put it in your bag and you can carry it onto a cruise ship. None of but nobody, none of the shops in Seward Alaska had that. And I told the lady. I went in and I had forgotten my cigar cutter. I swear up and down. I got a cigar cutter cutter in my bag, but I took
my cigars. It took some matches, and I went into a couple of liquor stores and asked for cigar cutter in several different places. The lady and Seward I went in there. I was like, hey, and they didn't really have a good I was gonna buy a small bottle of whiskey. They didn't really have much that was that looked good anyway. But I'm like, here's an idea. You should be selling secret clan steine bottles, liquor bottles disguised as shampoo bottles or whatever for the people coming into
this town. Do you know, cruise ship.
You can't really do that because you need all the liquor labeling correctly, but you could sell the bottles and then sell the liquor and be like, what you.
Do, Well, they already sell the liquor, They already sell the liquor bottles, and just have the bottles empty, don't fill them. No, you sell the bottles in like a two or three pack like they were on Amazon.
Not to be honest, less of a cruises I went to. Some people are bragging, right, this is you know the secret stash I got on their shipped through. Yeah, come on, alcoholic, you really need to do that because you're there. Spend spend somebody, spend some time enjoy having the drinks made for you. If you get that, that that all you can drink past.
Know that they're gonna be those those well, all of their drinks were watered down. Everything was watered down. So those drinkages are not worth it for two reasons. Number one, they make you buy it for every day, including the days you're at port, which if you do excursions or get off the ship, you're not on the ship drinking alcohol, but you still have to pay the same amount. And number two, they make you buy it for every adult
in your stateroom. Emily didn't want it. She drank like two drinks the whole week.
Yea, I had every adult because they don't want you to share.
Right, Yeah, so I can't buy it in her not buy it, or she can't buy it and I not buy it. So they make you buy it for every adult and for every day. And I'm like, that's not worth it. It's just not worth it. I'm sorry, It's just I don't want to feel like I have to drink all this alcohol to get my money's worth out of this alcohol package. I actually have been drinking, believe it or not, I've been drinking less than less alcohol this year. I had I had a maximum of one
drink every day on the boat. I think one day I had two drinks and that one day I had zero drinks. So I just and I'm talking about I didn't they didn't have any good beer. They're not gonna they had pors like but I think they had Stella Artois. It's all right, what's that.
I'm just locking the the Oh okay, the exposure it kept going out. Now it's getting.
Annoyed, okay. So yeah, So I just I mean, and it was like I ordered the when we first got on there, I ordered a They had Old Forester eighty six proof and one hundred proof. So I got an Old Forester single shot, neat of the eighty six proof, and it was eighteen dollars. And I'm like, that's depending where you go, that may or may not be a
little bit high. I mean, that's higher than you I would probably pay nine or ten dollars for that here in Texas, but I know some places in probably like California and New York that's probably about what it is there, or maybe some fancy, fancy restaurants where everything's expensive that might be in wherever part of the country that might
be how much it is there. So it was it was eighteen dollars for one single neat shot not a shot, but you know, it's a neat pore of old Forester eighty six, and you know, so I'm just like, eh, And they didn't have any good beers. I didn't. I didn't drink any beer. They'll sell you a bucket of like bud light, and I'm like, yeah.
That's I've seen on ships, especially Carnival guys County number thirteen, number fourteen, trying to hit that twenty. I'm like, you're ridiculous, and you're wasted and it's only noon.
I'm like, exactly, yeah.
Get away from me. Yeah, talking about drinking and everything. How was smoking on the ship?
It was fine?
It was fine. Did you have like a designated area? Was there a cigar lounge?
There was not a cigar lounge. There was so I think We've been on four or five cruises, three Caribbean, Mediterranean in this one, I think five. We might have been on four Caribbean. I can't remember. Out of all those ships, four or five ships I've been on in my life, one of them had an actual cigar lounge. And from what Emily read, most of them aren't doing that anymore because pulled out. They feel like it's Carnival several years back had done a boat. I got a
text from somebody had done a boat. It wouldn't him come on Carnival years back had done a boat.
Oh, hold on, Carnival, I think you're going the Carnival did a cruise ship that was no smoking own, no smoking in the entire cruise ship, and that ship itself did not sell well enough and they reverted it after like three sailings.
Correct. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
Yeah, hold on, Uh, I was just filling time here. Yeah, and that that's very interesting, especially the smoking in the the the casinos is very allowable, even though they don't allow cigars or pipe backo, which I don't understand because it smells so much better.
I know cigars too, so so there was uh yeah, I lost my train of thought. Sorry. So, yeah, so we we were and I remember this because I was laughing. We were standing in line at so on the cruise, they have a they have all these things where they tried to nickel and din nickel and dimed to death, but they have they have a concierge's table on the cruise where you can buy future future cruise options. Oh, get one hundred dollars in credit, or get this discount
off of a future cruise. So I remember being on that ship, one of the cardinalships, I don't remember which one it was, and the lady in front of us was talking to them, to them about a no smoking ship and Carnival, and the lady at the car behind the counter, the Carnival lady, she was like, yeah, we tried that. We're closing it down because we just couldn't sell any tickets. And the lady at the and the customer lady, she was like, what, you can't sell any
tickets on a non smoking ship. She was totally floored that people actually liked to smoke. And I'm like, this is what's wrong with America, right, no smoking, the making you wear seat belts and banning smoking and restaurants is where everything started to go downhill. That's my opinion. Will we'll get off on that topic on another day, but that's my opinion.
But they're not smoking, but it's.
It's you know, so uh and she couldn't belave. Yeah, So they tried that and it failed. But I guess the cigar room just basically took up too much room on the ship room.
And you know, you buy a cigar and you might have a drink, and you're gonna be there to two to three hours. It's not a large money making thing for that floor. They could probably put a storefront in there and sell much more merchandise.
Well that, and they they could put a they could put like a and they had like a piano in the cigar lounge, so there was a guy in there playing piano some times. And they had a bar, of course, I mean, you know, you have a bar, but the but most of the ships I'm on where they smoke cigars, they have a lounge. They have like a table and chairs in a specific area outside, usually on one of the top decks, and that's where it was. It was called the masked bar on this on this show. So
we'd go outside and they had they had. You could tell because it was the only tables on the well this place in one other place were the only tables on the whole ship that actually had ash trays, so you could tell what it was. And I walked up to the guy and I'm like, hey, dude, do you had I never found my cigar cutter. And I walked up to the guy at the massbar the first day I was there, I was like, do you have a
cigar cutter? He's like sure, So he let me borrow a cigar cut and every day I went back to him, he would he would let me borrow a cigar cutter. I cut my cigar the way I wanted, and I'd buy a drink from him, maybe a coke, maybe, maybe buy a soda from him or a Sometimes i'd buy an alcoholic drink, but usually it was just like so it.
Was an actual bar area, so it wasn't just like two or three chairs in a corner, because that's what war was. Royal was like, here's your smoking section, and it was like the smallest table possible with two chairs, and people will just come up there with their cigarette and just yeah and just like down it and leave and no one was hanging around.
How, No, that's not that's not how this one was. This one had decent sized tabe four or five tables at one large table and then two or three little tables, comfortable chairs around it, a seat of like a like a booth type bench, curved bench on one side, and it was next to the bar on the upper deck right above the pool, so you got to see the pool and you got to see outside over the side of the ship up here. It was a very nice area.
This one, This one was was great. The thing, uh, the thing that Charlie, are you going are you coming to? Uh you're coming to the Hamfest but not to Yellowstone, I think, is that correct, Charlie. So this was so the one that the last one we were on I think it was the Benedrainian Cruise. Now see, I I saw one other guy on this ship smoking cigar, and I didn't see him till like the second last day. I would go up. I'd smoke a cigar. Not every day, I smoked a cigar once a day for like four
days on this ship. And uh, and the guy that was the guy I saw like on the last day second or last day. I told him. I was like, dude, you're the only one. He's like, Oh, there's a guy that goes downstairs in the other spot that I've seen him times, but there's not many people. The last boat I was on had a smoking section was kind of off to the side somewhere kind of like what you were talking about, but the tables weren't that small, and
he was there. There was two or three guys there, like every time I went over there, and I got in the smoking cigars, not just cigarette people with smoking cigars, and I talked to them. We kind of kind of hit it off and just kind of talked about stuff. But yeah, I didn't really find anyone like this on like that on distrip.
On a carnival, I felt their smoking lounge area had like a couple of couches and nice tables in the middle and individual chairs on the outside, and it was a social gathering area and I really just kind of hung out there and there were a number of people smoking cigars throughout the day and got to know them and a couple of I got this from Steve, He's like, bring extra cigars because you know someone's going to say I don't have a cigar, and you give them a cigar.
They have the grink package and they'll give you a drink or two. And that's what I did. Man, that's a great I think about the box and guys like, oh man, I forgot my cigars. I didn't feel like buy them out of the crappy store. I was like, I got it, and I gave it to him. He's like, cool, what are you drinking? I said, straight, whiskey. He's like all right, And every time I saw him whiskey and I gave him a cigar.
Oh my gosh, that's a great idea. I should have thought about that. I totally should have thought about that. But yeah, they have a and they have a liquor store, a duty free liquor store on the boat. And they had the big bottle of Buffalo Trace, the one leader bottle, Like usually you and I get the seven fifty, right, Yeah, they had the one leader bottle of Buffalo Trace for thirty six dollars. That's cheap, but you buy it and they hold it for you until you get off the boat, yeah,
and let you take it home. And I'm like, I'm not doing that because I'd have to check a freaking bag. We don't check bags when we travel, and they will because they won't let you take a bottle of liquor liquid thing on a plane unless it's in a checked bag. So I'm like, I'm not But that guy he sold but that liquor store on the boat sold cigars and he had a six pack, yeah, six pack of different girk girkh sampler six pack for forty five dollars. So I'm like, that's like just a little bit over seven
dollars a stick. That's not bad. That's not bad. Okay. I didn't buy it, but I was like, okay, that's cool. And they would let you take the cigars, so you can buy cigars on the boat. Excuse me? How old are they?
Yeah?
How Yeah, I don't know. I mean that's the that's the chance you take by buying cigars at any liquor store. You don't know how how often they rotate out their stock, how well they maintain their humidor that kind of thing.
But that tick says taking never travels without his hammador.
Well, that's true, that's true.
That is true always with me. The troubles that come with that, though, is when you put it in your check to luggage and you get your bag after the you gotta have something like a butter knife to wedge it in there, and probably lit open because all the air escapes and it's under pressure.
I put I took five or six cigars, and I bought three new cigars in Anchorage when we when we found that smoke shop there. I put them all in a brand new thick knit like an eight mil ziploc bag with one of those one of those humid humids, yeah, the bubble pack. And that's all I took. I didn't even take a humidor. I just put that in my clothes bag and and and forgot about it. It's like that's all there was, all right,