Introduction

Hi

In this blog I will post my radio experiences while in W.Africa and my attempts at gaining a 3C ham radio license in the West Africa nation of Equatorial Guinea.

As the name might miss lead some, this country has NO land mass that carries any part of the equator. It's primarily north of the equator or slightly south ( Annobon  Isle ). UTC+1

A 3C license is a pricey license when compared to my  USA/FCC license. At over 240.00 usd, it's very pricey when you compare it to our  meer 18usd for a 10 year FCC license.

A good thing tho;


"this make the number of licensed operators small and exotic. And this location is always a hit within the DX community"


E.Guinea or in my shorthand " EG ";  is in the ITU DX  zone of 47.   Sao Tome, another rare and smaller African country, is also in this same zone.

EG ranks #18 within the 50+ African nations & only due to oil exploration. But it probably have less than 100 license operators if that, and  probably way less active operators if I had to guess.

The government is very restrictive and shy about radio transmissions, And mainly  due to the  past president activities and the recent failed coup d'etat back in 2004 iirc.

After my custom encounter at Malalbo International, I'm very much surprised that my radio was not confiscated, myself beaten and thrown in jail (just kidding on the last parts  ) . 

Out of my  4  baggage containing a laptop, tablet and other electrical devices, only the  ham radio was  scrutnize  . At one point,  the custom official called  it a "tactical radio".  Only after I quickly briefed &  corrected them, but they still poke and pushed buttons on it to make sure it was not alive. When and only after a capitan came over,  did they start to calm down.  I  was given the signal to go ahead & I was on my way out the door.

I was very much relieved when my sponsor shuttled me out of the front doors of the airport, and only after our Toyota Hilux was a few kilometer away from the Airport, did I start feeling safe & relaxed.  At any moment, I was awaiting for a change of heart and feared a few official or Nacional Policia would chasing me down and  confiscating my unit or even that late night knock on  the door at my habitat.

I only could fear the worst;  if I had brought my icom7200 and the attention that thing would have made :)


About me;

I'm a American  Extra-Class license operator, who's  working for a small IT Network/Security consulting group. We are consulting on various projects ranging from ;  DSLbroadband, ITSecurity, GSM/celluar, Wifi and IT-networking.

You can find more about them here;

http://innovatechge.com/

and follow my other life here;

http://socpuppet.blogspot.com/

I mainly operate the  Digital modes ( PSK  / Olivia / MSFK  /Contestia  / RTTY ), but for this trip. I brought my reliable ten-tec 4020 QRP rig. I'm also attempting to conduct a some what of an informal bake-off between a few End-Feed Antennaes.

I will mainly work 20meters, so anybody  that plans to work me,  must be in in the 14.000-14.023mhz range since this is where my Antennaes  are currently tuned at.  I did bring my antennae analyzer ( funny how they didn't even notice that thing at customs, or if they did it was not an eye-catcher   :) )
So maybe I might re-tune one ant to be on 40meters at some later date.

I'm a straight-key operator, but I do have some considered problem copying,  so go slow on me. I plan to spend my 1st year here do nothing but CW, & to get better and more proficient at it.

I will proactively post my  schedule when available, and when my internet  access is working, but most likely I will work the Sat/Sun portions of the week.

Stay tune, & more is to come from kf3lix here in E.Guinea. Soon I hope to say & if I'm lucky; "that I  have a 3C??? callsign" .

For now stay tune and 73s

KF3LIX
Ken Felix