QSL card in the Spotlight: VO1/OZ1AA Thomas Andersen, Cycling the Globe

Last edited: 10.11.2017

In 2010, Dane Thomas Andersen left Copenhagen by bicycle for an epic journey, a cycle touring expedition around the world known as "Cycling the Globe". 6 years later Andersen was back in Denmark, he'd completed his adventurous journey around the world, and in 2200 days had covered a total of 58,201 km through 58 countries!

Thomas Andersen cycling in the Andes on the border of Argentina and Chile. In the background the Lanin vulcano (Photo from the Cycling the Globe Facebook page).

Thomas Andersen also happens to be an avid ham radio operator, holding callsign OZ1AA, and during the trip has been active on the ham bands from the shacks of fellow radio amateurs around the world, old friends as well as newly met along the way.

On  September 20th, 2015, Thomas had just (on September 18th, if I'm not mistaken) reached the easternmost point of North America at Cape Spear, Newfoundland, had been on the road for more than 1800 days, had covered 43,712 km, and was staying with fellow radio amateur Gus VO1MP at his home in St.John's, Newfoundland. St. John's is the easternmost city of North America and well known to radio aficionados for Signal Hill where in 1901 Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic radio signal (the Morse Code transmission originating from his Poldhu Wireless Station in Cornwall, UK). And I was lucky that day to catch Thomas on the air operating from Gus VO1MP's QTH and to QSO him on 20m CW. It was one of my most memorable QSOs and it resulted in the wonderful QSL card shown in this blog post. The VO1 prefix was added ofcourse to denote the QTH in Newfoundland, Canada.

Thomas Andersen (middle) at Cape Spear. Gus VO1MP on the right (Photo from the Cycling the Globe Facebook page).

Cape Spear literally was the end of the road for Thomas on this part of the trip. Next destination would be Africa.

More information can be found on Thomas' qrz.com page, or on www.cyclingtheglobe.com, as well as Twitter and Facebook.

I learned that there's also an amateur radio station located inside Cabot Tower on Signal Hill with the callsign VO1AA, and I wonder if it could have also been this location where Thomas has been active from on 20m CW when I QSOed him (1).

Newfoundland is IOTA NA-027.

You can listen to a recording of my QSO with Thomas below.



Addendum 10.11.2017
(1) Thomas informed me by e-mail that the contact was indeed made from the QTH of Gus VO1MP, not from Cabot Tower.


See also:

http://www.cyclingtheglobe.com
https://twitter.com/CyclingTheGlobe
https://www.facebook.com/CyclingTheGlobe/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s,_Newfoundland_and_Labrador
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Hill,_St._John%27s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabot_Tower_(St._John%27s)