Monday, June 29, 2015

(next) Sao Tome y Principle

As you read earlier " I  gave up on  E.Guinea and any ham radio operations  attempt ".

The organization that manages the radio spectrum is light years away from  any structured or organized methods for obtaining a ham radio license to operate in  this country.  Without inside contacts, this by far is not a ham friendly  country. The posts that you might find on google searach that says otherwise is a bunch of lies.

The best you have in the W.Central Africa area,  would be traveling to Cameroon or SaoTome. I will be traveling to Sao Tome in  late  may or june in hope of  doing some  QRP radio from Sao Tome.

Sao Tome is like the smallest African Nation on the Atlantic side of Africa. It's approx  220km due  south of Bioko Island and enroute to the Equatorial Guinea island of Annonbon. You can easily fly to this country via Punto Azul airlines which is a South African Badge airlines that's pretty much a safe and friendly airline that operates to various limited destinations in Africa. Their planes are  the safe &  low accident Brazilian made Embraer Jet-145. Don't expect to carry a lot of gear , or suitcases. Space is limited for both underneath and over heard storage is limited. They pretty much limit you to one carry on at 23k/g

http://fly-puntoazul.com/en/middle-campaigns/sao-tome-more-info

The cost is approx $350.00 usd   ( 140K CFA ), hotels will be around 80-120usd per night.

HAM operator  license are  easy to obtain at approx 53.00usd. Be prepared to speak Portuguese or use some translations. Per  a local ham contact who referred me to a  few Italians operators, I was able to start dialog with native on the main island.


Stay tune more will come.

73s from kf3lix
Ken Felix