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June 1992: |
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| Republica Popular de ANGOLA |
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| Got to LUANDA on professional assignment
the first time in June 1992 with no license indication, the just hope to fix the matter
locally. In a country that was finding difficult to live peacefully for years, clearing
radio stuff from airport customs finally turned to be easier than expected, though a FT102
has never been best hand carried luggage to travel with! |
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| By this time,
country was celebrating its 1st anniversary of national peace, and preparing national
elections under UN supervision. QTH was in town centre, a 2 floor villa on a tiny garden
that could not accomodate large aerials. Martin, my portugese host, was feeling very
uncomfortable with this "radio stuff" at home that, according to him,
"could put him into serious trouble". In fact nothing of this nature ever
happened. |
| I had thought
LARA, the national Society, was the right contact to establish locally, but this soon
proved wrong as it was no or very little Hamradio activity at Luanda. Meantime days were
running fast, while listening to some D2EPV in daily QSO with Italy. Solution came from my
host that came back one day with particulars of the licensing authority: Direccao National
de Correios e Telecommunicacoes National. Was Martin trying to be helpful, or was he just
trying to cool me down? It worked anyhow! |
| PTT headoffice being at 9th floor with no lift working, those guys had learnt how
to teach me live Radiosport! A fact is that Luanda PTT officers were always nice and
receptive to my explanations, and cooperative on presentation of my CEPT license. On
22/06/92, after serious climbings to and fro Joao Manual Beirao's "sky high"
office, the magic paper was out as license N° 0001 for 14-21-28 Mhz only. GREAT !!! |
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It was time then to go "full
ahead" for the remaining 8 days, even though no DXpedition affair and still some work
to complete. As european food was hardly available in supermarkets (reason why I hate
"garupa" since then), luckily enough fiber fishing rods were! That's how a 2 x 8
meter inverted V double Zepp came up atop Martin's house terrass. |
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| FT102 into a F3LG type homebrew matching box was doing fine and traffic was
peculiar those days: regular powercuts, daily search of gen's gazoline, also regular
street riot AK47's firings at night, noise of which strong enough sometimes to feed into
the mike. 3000 QSOs were on the log when leaving Luanda by 1st July. |
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August 1992 |
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Another
professional visit took place 3 weeks later, and luckily this time with XYL. PTT National
Direction had quickly renewed the license on 31/07/92 for 45 days, now for 14, 18,
21, 24 and 28 Mhz. Taking into account limited capabilities of the same 2 x 8 meter
inverted double zepp and fiber fishing rod, this band allocation was good enough to keep
busy on again AOH basis or so. |
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| Same FT102 was this time driving an HL1K
(just flown back from Cocos Keeling and courtesy Paul F2YT) into my same antique homebrew
tinbox type matching unit that ultimately proved to handle the 500 W PA. With rig's usual
relay problems (FT102 owners know what it means), also burnt diodes and PA band switch,
Luanda so-called radio shops were no secret any more. Ultimately XYL hairdryer helped to
re-wire a TX relay. THE RULE: solder iron must always be second, after transceiver, in
DXer luggage. |
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Things were moving fast that year for D2 Hamradio. It is about this time
that we did eyeball with Jose D2EL on Isla de Cabo (too close to the main land for IOTA
qualification), also D2/OK. . . . running mainly CW from his embassy "shack"
with 1Kw into a HUGE fixed logper. Also Rudi DK7PE had passed by, operating on low bands
from Luanda Meridian Hotel. Same time, Chris D2SA and others were in process of settling
down in Angola. |
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