Ham radio SaoTome y Principe by kf3lix

I just spent 1 week in  the beautiful African  Island Nation of SaoTome y Principe.

1st this is an excellent African island country.Very clean, service orientated and  full of professionalism, which is rare in West.Central Africa. This cost when compared to other african nations is rather cheaper and quality is that of what you will find in EU.

You can use  either the EURO or the local currency Dorbras.

BTW:  I DID NOT operate ham radio on this trip due to logistic issues and the fact I  travel from Ecuatorial Guinea to STP. ( please review my  earlier post about radios and in  the nervous country of  Ecuatorial Guinea )

I spent most of my time in the city of  Sao Tome @ Omali lodge  and outside  of Nieves @Mcumbli ).  These areas are suitable for a simple dipole or ENF antenae . You can search on tripadvisor for review of these 2  lodging areas.

To apply for a license you can travel to the top of the hill by the medical section and the telephone/communication authority for licensing will required the following items from you.

   1: a letter stating your request
   2: details of the equipment and band
   3: copy of your  existing ham license
   4: passport/visado #

I believe it's best to write the letter in  Portuguese. Most of the hotel staff speaks  English and a little Spanish or French. I found myself using all 4 linguas  during my stay. If you speak a little Spanish most of the locals will understand.

To get to the  Telephone/Communication authority take the road from the Aeroport up the hill ( going  eastbound ) and before the right turn to Market CKydo, you will find a road. Take that road and veer to the right and you will see the Authority  Office. It's probably 1 km off the main road.

Here's a map and a picture of the building in the City of Sao Tome

note: The office is upstairs and the lady is very nice, but you will probably need a translator.


I flew Ceiba airlines from Equatorial Guinea, but flights exists from  Lisbon and Madrid to the  STP. You will need a entry-visa  mostly likely for entry into this country.

Here's some more scenes from  STP;

If you need tour services, you can contact  Fernando Braganca "fernando79.br  @  hotmail.com"or  " fernandobr939     @  gmail.com";  Skype: FERNANDO.BR9


For any rental cars , you needs can be meet via tortuga car rentals. They offer affordable cars from 45-65 euros a day and any international or foreign license is okay for operations in this country.

http://www.tortuga-car-rental.com/

Be advise;

• roads outside of the city can be in  bad to very bad shape
• yery little road signs
• I don't recall one stop-light in this country
• police present is lite  and practically none
• crime ( violent ) is practically none
• this is a tourista built nation

So I've gave up on any Ham Radio Opportunities in  E,guinea

Stay tune, more will come from kf3lix

(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

Andorid App for HPSDR

I'm posting this link just in case you where like me & struggling to find the apk

John Melton Apk

http://g0orx.blogspot.com/
http://svn.tapr.org/repos_sdr_hpsdr/trunk/N6LYT/ghpsdr3/branches/android/aHPSDR/

kf3lix
Ken Felix

SDR anan-10

I'm planning a trip to Sao Tome and was hoping to operate for the 3-4 days from that Island nation that's part of the Cameron Line.  I recently purchased a Apache-Labs ANAN-10.

My 1st impression was; " wow !".

Now my biggest complaint over  this radio, we have no distributors in the USA, even tho the USA leads the market with the numbers of ham radio operators. I ened up  purchasing the  radio from these guys;

Waters & Stanton Ltd
Spa House
22 Main Road
Hockley, Essex
SS5 4QS. UK

http://www.apache-labs.co.uk/

They are quick to  reply to your emails , but slow on providing shipping status or order updates. From the time I made purchased, and got the custom clearing document from  fedex, it was maybe  6 days.

For SDR interface, I'm using Power SDR and windows7. Be advise the  link on apache-lab website for PowerSDR never loaded for me. So what I did was to find the builds  that have "W5WC" and tried the latest version  and build #21 from the SVN source.

 http://svn.tapr.org/repos_sdr_hpsdr/trunk/W5WC/PowerSDR_Installers/Archive/

I'm also running  virtual-audio-cables with FLDigi. Most likely I will play with  PSK31 , RTTY or Olivia with this QRP rig.

The firmware for my radio seems to be the most updated version and I had zero interoperability between  PowerSDR or cuSDR32/64 and my new rig.

I did have to play with RX gain to get clean traces on FLDigi and it looks like the noise-blanker  filter can severely retard the signal for digital modes. The panadapter is great for finding transmission above the floor and you can quickly pan and zoom into a frequency of interest.

Stay tune, more will come from kf3lix

3C ham license is not going to happen

I stop pursing the 3C ham radio operator license in this country. The biggest problem in Africa and let me specify Equatorial Guinea, they are mismanaged on all levels and have no formal application process.

The Bioko business center was also of no help. They where quick initially in responding but was of no help. The website can be found at the following link   http://biokoonline.com/

I researched  countries like nearby Nigeria, Cameroon , and also  Ethiopia & S.Africa, they have both a legit & formal license applications & with  good information on how to operate in their countries. Eqt.Guinea does not nor to seem to have anything formalized. This same problems exist within other sectors  in this country btw.

Oretl is suppose to handle all radio/tv licensing and you can find information on their website at this link but many luck and help with getting anybody to respond
http://www.ortel-guineaecuatorial.org/

I will leave you with some photos from the islands of  Bioko an Annonbon Equatorial Guinea

So 73's for now but kf3lix is not going to be sending any QSL from Malabo Equatorial Guinea

Why End Feed Antenna ?

End feed  half-wave Antenna are pretty much smaller than a dipole  and can be mount in a variety of positions, where  as a dipole are  usually strung horizonal. Yes you can mount a dipole vertically, V or inverted V, but typically they are mounted  horizontally and support by both ends.

• In a EFA, you typically require one end secure at the feedline and the other end secured or even left hanging

• End are typically smaller in size than a normal  dipole of the same  band 

• Also these antenna are easier to  erect for a emergency or SHTF event ( smaller and more compact for carry )

• They are compact and lite to carry  and do not require a construction of a ground plane as required by a vertical 

For QRP operations, a EFA is a hard item to beat :)


Here's a few links to help you understand EFA. The 1st link is a must if you want to get the down and dirty


http://www.aa5tb.com/efha.html

http://www.earchi.org/

http://www.parelectronics.com/end-fedz.php



EARC has a few good EFAs that are quite affordable, but none where immediately available , required a tuner or didn't meet my initial needs. I probably will add one to my collection at some later date.

If interested, you can contact  Charles  at  "chanebuth  AT yahoo.com" for more information and availability of the antennaes that they do offer.

73s

Kf3lix

My Radiowavz EFA initial Review

In this review we will look at the   3band  EFA antenna available from  http://www.radiowavz.com. Cost is aprox 99 usd.

It cost more than the trail-friendly EFA that I reviewed earlier,  but it's made of a higher grade of materials and way more durable. You could leave this antenna positioned as a permanent outside installation.

The antenna is made of durable PVC and if I had to guess ( my eyes can't read the wire labels ) it's 14awg black multi-strand wiring. All components seems to properly selected and position and great  thought was used in making this  EFA. The components are also weather-proofed to some degree to ensure reliability.

The antenna boast a simple pvc end-insulators;

Right out the box, I was able to  tune this antenna on 20m and within a SWR of 1.2 @ 14.007mhz with minor adjustments. And without any fear of breakage from pulling, installing or handling.

The antennae will require a S0239 adapter if your gear uses BNC. This is my only complaint that they don't seem to offer multi-interfaces  for this antennae

This EFA is not as small or compact as  the Par Trail-Friendly but it's still lite weight and small. It will fit into a laptop or  grocery bag with ease.

I look forward with many QSO on this antenna assembly in the near future. I even plan on buying another one also.  This EFA can't be compared equally to  Par Trial-friendly due to the construction but for a meer 20usd more, I believe it's a better deal.

•  If you truly need a  carry in the pocket antenna and w/less-weight down to the ounces, than the Trail-Friendly would be a must

•  If you need something of more durable construction , than I would reccomend this radiowavz

Time will tell by the true radiation pattern that exhibits between the 2  units that I have, and the number or QSO and quality of RST reports.


The antenna seems to be of quality, but I had some issues purchasing.

I purchased this gear on sept 6 and it didn't ship till over 2 weeks. After repetitive contacts that went unanswered via email and phone, I had to call the number on my credit card statement  & leave a message.

Even then, they didn't reach out to  me till almost 3 days later and after the UPS track was sent. So it seem like my  order had processing errors.

For now 73s from Malabo E.Guinea, I hope to have some status on my license soon and possible on the air in the next few weeks.

kf3lix
Ken Felix