Crete & SV9CVY

I just returned from a very relaxing holiday on Crete with my wife and my two youngest kids. The picture below is taken in the beautiful Samaria gorge close to the South-West coast of Crete.

Enno, Marenne, Marja and Jard taking a break in the shade in the Samaria gorge

During the time we had a car I tried to visit Mike, SV9CVY. As I had no phone number of him available I located his QTH with the naked eye and drove to him. This is not difficult as he has a very impressive antenna set-up. In the next pictures you can see his 2 Opti-Beam antennas and a 4 ele Ultrabeam antenna with extra 6m elements.

SV9CVY's OB17-4 (foreground) and OB804020 (background)

SV9CVY's OB804020 and 4ele Ultrabeam

It’s skating time in The Netherlands …

As the sunspots are still refusing to pop up, you’d better visit the local lake for a skate ride … Temperatures have been below 0 deg C for a fair number of days in a row. So there is plenty of natural ice on ponds, lakes, etc. Here is my wife, Marja,  in action on the Hatertse Vennen close to Nijmegen.

Marja ice skating at the Hatertse Vennen (30-dec-2008)

Jazz up the mind …

Phew, made it to the holidays. Being fed up with almost everything, I am glad to escape it all and go with my family to Greece. Lesbos and Samos will likely give us room to breathe fresh air and re-gain energy. Relaxing on the beaches and enjoying the good Greek food is certainly something to look forward to.

Downloaded tons of great jazz music from the fantastic Bending Corners podcast website, so my MP3 player will have to work overtime …