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I arrived in the island of Sao Tomé on Monday, January 14, 2002 from Lisboa, Portugal (flight TP 2161). At the airport I was welcomed by a man that Luis S92LB had sent out for me. My first stop in the city of Sao Tomé was this very place - the house of Luis (photograph on the right). Luis is not really active on air in spite of numerous antennas on the roof. I stayed 2 weeks in another house a mile away. There, I had a simple random wire antenna running to a tree from my window. I was on air daily using the callsign S92JHF. I do not collect any QSL cards but will send my card to anyone who needs it. Please send you QSL Request by e-mail to s92jhf@qsl.net

On the left, far away, behind the palm trees, hardly visible, the Voice Of America transmitting site. Approximately 1 Megawatt of RF is fed to the antennas. This is the closest I came to these antennas. I don't want to be zapped by the RF! They won't let you use your 1 Watt cellphone aboard an aircraft or in a bank office. This site is equivalent to one million cellphones, or more. I am not oversensistive to RF yet and don't want to become. However, I know a few amateur radio operators who had to quit this hobby because of overexposure to radio frequency energy. This is quite serious.

The VOA transmitting site makes this island very hostile for serious amateur radio activity. Intermodulation and harmonics make reception of weak signals difficult. Anyone with amateur radio interest, planning to visit Sao Tome should take this into consideration and bring bandpass filters and good quality equipment.