5H3AP (English)


		Tanzania - 5H3AP - 5H3AP/3

	The way to Africa

By rather complicated circumstances we came to Tanzania as our holiday destination. The east coast of Africa was a new challenge.

Luckily Mike, 5H3EE, is living there since several years. Mike and I made almost at the same time our amateur radio license, and we both were members of the radio club in Strausberg for many years! He and his wife Zawadi, offered us their help in preparing the trip, and to be our hosts in Dar-Es-Salaam. With the support of Mike it became relatively easy to obtain a local call sign.

Once more, the well known French-Dutch consortium offered the most attractive flight. Either the route, the luggage limits and the price were scoring out any other operator. The only thing to complain is their service. As by earlier experiences, neither reaction on e-mails nor a working hotline. (I spent 25 minutes with good music in their waiting loop, then I gave up.) Obviously you can not have everything ...
At the end, it went well by getting 2 x 23kg of free luggage per person. That was far enough to transport my radio stuff AND the diving equipment of my wife.


	On 09. September 2008, at 04:45 (UTC+2 hours) we started from home, and same day at 22:30 local time (UTC+3 hours), we were picked up by Malique, Zawadi and Mike at Dar-Es-Salaam airport. How nice it is to meet a friend, back after more the 15 years!

Mike gave me the hint in advance, that we will be charged 50 US$ per person for the visa, at arrival. He used to pay that out of his one dollar notes¹ pile, that he collects from the QSL card requests. Very good idea, because I have also plenty of them and just very few chances to spend. To exchange them into grater notes is almost impossible in Germany, if your account is managed by an internet bank! My two packs of notes, 50 US$ each, were taken with some unhappy comments, but taken. The officer - however - were not in the mood to check them. What a luck that another tourist - a German too - were paying the fee with a 100-Dollar-Note. Within a second, he got one pile in return :-) Who do you think is counting the notes finally? Yes, you’re right!


	1: Later it turned out that 1-Dollar-Notes are only accepted if they issued after the 01.01.2003. For greater notes, the critical date is the 01.01.2001. Older notes are expected as to easy to fake, and got refused!


	Mike’s family left to us even their bed room and we enjoyed their unbelievable hospitality. Thank you so much again!

		I was told that my (preliminary) license were issued just 5 hours before our arrival. Only the remark that without that document, it could cause trouble to import the equipment, made the bureaucracy moving. I never thought that I would get the real one in my hands, but I failed! In August 2009 I got it, as you can see on the left.


	The big city

Dar-es-Salaam is the biggest city in Tanzania but not the capital! The capital is DODOMA, which is only known by a very few foreigners. “Dar“ - as locals calling the city - is a typical African place with a vibrant life. Most of the shops are operated by Indians. In terms of religions, an equalised ratio among Muslims, Christians and other religions can be identified. Dar is located at the sea site and big parks forming the shape.
Compared with other cities of such size that I have seen, it is quite clean and well organised. (What ever the definition of organised in Africa could mean.) We spent the first four day in Dar-Es-Salaam and had with Malique - the little boy - fun and entertainment all day long.

Only sporadically I used Mikes station for making some contacts. More time on the radio was planed for the second half of our stay. However, I made around 400 contacts, and managed to become the Africa winner during the Scandinavian Activity Contest. Between us: I made only 12 contacts to Scandinavian stations.
Mike has erected a simple multi band dipole @ 15m, on his plot. The antenna is doing just fine. Considering that Tanzania is a semi-rare country on the amateur radio map, there remains enough interest to keep the operator busy for hours.


	Animals in Africa

I strongly believe that nobody among the readers would understand if we were not going to visit some of the National parks in Tanzania during a four weeks trip. Yes, you are sooo right! Missing to see the wild living animals would be a scandal. But, such Safaries are really not cheap! To organize them without the help of a travel agency is almost impossible. You can do it somehow by your own, but then you should have a value of - at least - 6 digits on you US$ bank account. Even with local support it was not easy. After weeks of internet research we went lucky, by finding the page from “Paradies-Safaris“. The only provider we found, were our wishes intersected with their offers. To say it in advance: IT WAS ABSOLUTE GRANDIOSE!

Seven days in five different National parks. That was the program for a team of seven Germans (by chance), 1 Guide and a cook. We all together made our tour through the North of Tanzania. Each of those parks has its own character and special animals.

First stop at Arusha-NP brought us a special memory from a “Walking-Safari“. We could almost direct looking in the eyes of the giraffes (if they would stoop down). Our accommodation been located in the direct neighbourhood of the famous “Hatari-Lodge“ (you may know the movie with Hardy Krüger). In our tiny bungalows we got join to the nature. We met here the Buffalo as the first ambassador of the “Big Five”.

On the second day we moved to the Tarangire-NP. The landscape we saw is what you probably have seen in many animal movies about Africa. It was absolute impressing to see the endless long groups of Zebras, Gnus and even Elephants. We saw here our first three Lions. They were that far away that we needed to use our binoculars in order to find them. The night we spent in a tent lodge. Nature just behind the curtain, and an unbelievable view into a river valley, were all the animals went for water. That made to us a very special atmosphere.

Next destination on our program: Lake Manyara-NP. On the way we made a stop at the Mto wa Mbu station. Located in the middle of a Massai area, living here people from various tribes. Since the ground is very fertile, the community farming with bananas, vegetables and fruits. (You should note that the locals - the Massai - refuse to do farming at all, as they rely on animal husbandry only.)
Of course, crafting is another part of the community founding. Carving and painting are here the main elements. Our guide - one of the community chiefs - showed and explained us everything about banana production, and presented us the socialistic principles of the village. [Sounded still somehow familiar to mee...?] The offered banana beer was not in our interest anymore, after that loooong guidance!


	Just 60 km away from each other, offers the Lake Manyare-NP a complete different landscape, then the Tarangire-NP. A big lake surrounded by a wide stripe of forrest, forming an ideal environment for storks, flamingos, pelicans and - of course - hippos.

A special form of Lions, that you can find only here, living in the trees. That is very atypical for Lions. Obviously they have taken over such habit from the Leopards. Thanks to the attention of our driver JAMES, we could get one exemplar in front of the camera.

Last day of safari. We moved again, now to the very famous Ngorongoro-Crater. The crater, with an diameter of around 16 km, is on one hand a nice reservation for animals, but also a magnet for visitors. The high interest became in particular dangerous for the nature. Then, the government of the region restricted the access to 250.000 visitors per year. The crater is formed by an open, low level vegetation area. Nevertheless all that safari cars are scattered across the area. On some moments, if rare animals are close to the driving stripes, immediately you can see a bulk of cars, to watch the special scene. Our team were still searching to see a Rhino and a Leopard, in order to have all “Big Five“ together.

Then we were really lucky to see the Rhino. James saw two of them with his “special eyes”, but for us they were almost not visible even with the binocular. One moment in time James became nervous, turned the car and drove like in a Formula 1 race across the crater. He told us that he has seen a Rhino with his child. Unbelievable his experiences. Finally both animals crossed our way directly in front of our car. Not more then 10 meters away! Even James admitted that he has not seen Rhinos that close since more then 8 weeks...

Some readers may have heard the name Prof. Bernhard Grzimek. Prof. Grzimek was, all of his life, a flaming ambassador of the African wild living animals. He was one of the key driver, that wild life conservation became a subject of high importance in African countries, as it is today. Grzimek had a little farm inside the Ngorongoro-Crater, and when he died, the Tanzanian Government asked Germany to get a part of his ash.
The grave shown left contains, beside his ash, also the remains of his son Michael, who was killed in an airplain crash in Tanzania, 1959. Michael wrote a best-selling book called Serengeti shall not die, which appealed enormously to the public and was key in driving the creation of the Serengeti National Park.

Last day of safari, and we still have not seen any Leopard. True for us, but one of our team members got him. Britta, she was the only one who booked the camping option, saw one on the way to the camping place. Absolute proud and excited she showed us the pictures!


	Next afternoon was the moment to say “Good Bye” to our little gang. We shared with them 7 days full of impressions, exciting moments and memories. Hey guys, INCREDIBLE! Since the remaining fife went further to the Serengeti, we both started our trip return to Dar-Es-Salaam.


	Traveling in Africa

20. Sept. 2008 was the day for our return to Dar. With an air conditioned bus of “Dar Express“ we started to our 10-Hours-Tour. To sit in a comfortable chair might cheat your expectation, as soon as you find out that the bus has an in built video system! Such unique feature in Africa is assuring you to see at minimum one Nigerian soap opera.¹ My daughter and I got such experiences in Ghana already. Unfortunately we could not avoid to have it here too. My wife was neither aware about the - always similar - story board, nor with their artistic elements. Such are: to battle, to scream, to cry and to stumble. Such movies have ALWAYS TWO PARTS! New to me was this time, the introduction towards extreme loud screaming scenes (in fact all of them...) by dramaturgic important sounds. In our case drums were used. That assured us at least not to get frightened all the time!

¹Congenial women meets friendly, rich man. Woman gets handicapped/blind. Man merits lady nevertheless because of deep love. (Step-)Sister/(Step-)Mother are jealous, and claiming that the wife commit adultery. Wife is going repudiated and becoming poor. Girlfriend/Housemaid/Relatives prays for the innocent. Praying is answered and wife recovers wondrously. Most of the cases the handicap is jumping over to the Sister/Mother. (Sometimes they even die.) Happy end! Alternatively it can be also with exchange of the gender of any acting person... (Except for the couple - of course.)

Short stopover at Zawadi, Malique and Mike, to change our luggage from Safari into Diving/Radio oriented. For the next leg we will use a little aeroplane. We were a bit concerned about the luggage restriction to 15kg per person, including handluaggage! Such limit is neither for one hobby sufficient nor for the other. By throwing away all doubts, we assumed that we are not the first tourists facing such problem, and the airline is solving it at any time.


	Nobody complained about our 26 (!) kg during check-in. The plains can serve up to 14 passengers, towards Mafia Island. The luggage limit is a pure matter of safety. The decision, if your luggage is on the same flight then you, is taken by the pilot only and final. (Here no problem since we were only 8 persons on the aeroplane.)


	Paradise in Africa

	20 minutes drive away from Mafia Airport, arrival at the entrance of Mafia-Marine-Park. All three island hotels are located inside this park. An “entrance fee” of 10 US$ per person and night was to pay. Those money is going completely used for the conservation of the under water landscape. First of all a good thing, and secondly a good opportunity to spent another piles of one-dollar-notes...


	Few minutes later we entered our room and felt like on Hawaii rather like in Tanzania! Open view to “Chole Bay“, palm trees direct in front of the room, and bright sunshine made it to a perfect scenery. Now we entered into hobby holidays. My XYL made the first contact to the dive centre, and I checked the options on how to put my wire antennas between the threes.

The hotel manager gave us a short introduction and me a little surprise: “Due to some construction work on the island, this week is almost no permanent power supply. Don’t worry the hotel operates a generator who is running for several hours per day to allow cooking and to maintain the fridges. We relay on your understanding, that we have power available only between 07:00 – 10:30 and 17:30-23:00?“
OF COURSE - NO PROBLEM!
By experiences, I know on how to interpret the African definition of ...this week... In fact, it means at least this week. Following the spirit of the phrase, printed on the best selling T-shirt: “No hurry in Africa!“ How good my anticipation was, I got proven soon... Anyhow, I putted my wires in the air. The gardener helped me a lot by climbing up the palms and fixing the antennas there.


	22.09.2008, at 11:45 UTC first contact with 8Q7XR from the Maldives were loged by 5H3AP/3 on Mafia Island. I was lucky because the generator ran unexpected for 30 minutes to cool down the fridges. power came back 15:10 UTC and I could made my first contacts to Europe. The first was LY1CX from Lithuania on 14MHz.


	Radio in Africa

Mike warned me: At present, propagation is very bad, and particularly he was arguing that his receiver was broken, because he could hear only a very few stations on air. Using my radio changed nothing. Mike were breathing out, and I breathed deep in...! No change of conditions for all my stay along. Each “morning power” brought a couple of contacts on 14 MHz. Returning from breakfast gave sometimes a little chance to run few minutes on 18 MHz, until the generator were switched off.


	Once the generator set were switched on in the evening, Europe were reachable for a maximum of 2.5 hours. Dinner got always the higher priority vs. dead bands... Only at two evenings I could manage to work some Japanese at the late hours on 7 MHz. Very few contacts were made with the US and Brazil on 21 and 18 Mhz. As a consequence, a lot of time to read good books. Yes, no problem, because we are in holiday.

	First time ever, I had an interface with me allowing me to operate digital modes. Before I made just a very few experiences with Radio Tele Typing (RTTY). My stay on Mafia I considered as a good opportunity to train myself. I saw only in Ghana from Andy, 9G5GA, how to operate a RTTY-Pile-Up. Here I’m an absolute rookie. At the end of the trip I have not reasonable improved my capability. Obviously I need to find another training on another DX-pedition.

All hopes I had, that I could seriously attending in a big RTTY competition running at that time, failed completely.

Almost no one turned his antenna from Europe to the South!
If you try with 100W and a simple dipole to get attention, the enthusiasm is lost soon
Wow, I made 23 contacts. At least I became the winner in Tanzania, and # 3 in Africa, because Mike was at work...

Summary

During the 9 days on Mafia Island I made about 1200 QSOs, +450 from Dar es Salaam. Due to the timely restrictions on power supply, it was almost impossible to make contacts with North and South America. Even Asia are not represented much in my log.

Interesting to note that among all the European stations those from the Ukraine were by far the strongest. Followed by stations from Poland and Czech. On the opposite, I had only a short time window for contacts to more western locations, like Germany or France. A very few contacts could be made with UK.

Majority of contacts made on 14 MHz, likely because of the typical operation time slots. 18 Mhz could almost compete to it, with even better conditions towards Japan, at morning hours. I’m confident that on 10 MHz a lot of contacts would be possible too, but unfortunately my antennas were not supporting that frequency range. On other trips I used to have my R-7000 vertical available, but this time the diving equipment had higher priority!

Another interesting aspect that I could monitor was the variation of conditions day by day. On 22. and 23. Sept. only 14 MHz could be used for contacts outside of Africa. On 7 and 18 MHz I could reach few stations from neighbour countries only. On the contrary, next day 18 MHz were the only usable band. Another day later (25. Sept.) were the first day allowing good runs on 7 MHz, and on 26. Sept. finally all bands from 7 to 21 MHz became usable.
28.09. again a 17m-Day. The hope to become active on 40m again on the 29. lapsed completely. No remarkable signal on the band at all. The idea to make some good contacts on 3.5 MHz could not become true, because the propagation would not allow it before 00:00. That was when the hotel “sleeps” and therefore the generator were off. A pity.

HamCap von VE3NEA (Freeware) confirmed again that it is a very trusty and reliable tool.
All tool predictions could be proven as very precise. If contacts to Scandinavia were forecasted, whereas Germany got predicted as difficult, I could see it in my log exactly as such! On the other hand, a contact with Guam at 06:44 UTC on 15 MHz, were not surprising me much, because the tool marked that short time slot of possibility too. Last year in Ghana I made the same good experiences too alredy.

My IC-7000 survived the hard conditions in the same manner as his “old brother”, my ICOM IC-706MkII made it, all the years before. Same can be noted for both Kelemen dipoles, which I’m using more then 10 years already. Even the sharp palm leaves could not affect them!
100W output power are – logically – not the right weapon to generate big pile-ups or to defend a frequency in a contest, but still acceptable for CW operation. The “honor” to make the one (and only) SSB-QSO with me goes of course to Mike (5H3EE). Globally speaking, I kept my behaviour, not to take a microphone on tour. But, my small (PC) headset had one... and the micro controller for the digital modes is supporting that too.


	At the end: Another super holiday, brought an further set of experiences on DX-operations. As a conclusion I decided to go to Ghana again in November 2008. The story on that can be found here.


	Thanks again to all readers and QSO-Partners, for the time and the activities. I hope we meet us again soon in order to hear/read/contact each other.


		Statistics: 5H3AP(/3)

	EU	NA	AS	SA	AF	OC	ALL
QSOs	1413	20	165	4	28	9	1639
DXCC	41	2	17	2	12	4	78
CW	1336	20	157	4	18	7	1542
RTTY	77	-	8	-	9	2	97
SSB	-	-	-	-	1	-	1 (!)

	EU	NA	AS	SA	AF	OC	ALL
80m	-	-	-	-	2	-	2
40m	63	-	19	-	3	-	85
30m	85	-	3	-	1	-	89
20m	703	8	50	4	19	3	787
17m	302	9	75	-	2	4	392
15m	248	3	17	-	1	2	271
12m	12	-	1	-	-	-	13


	73, und best DX – de Arno 5H3AP and DL1CW, from Mafia-Island, a paradise in Tanzania.


	Rundgang

Tanzania - 5H3AP - 5H3AP/3

The way to Africa

Thank you so much again!

The big city

Animals in Africa

Traveling in Africa

Paradise in Africa

Radio in Africa

Statistics: 5H3AP(/3)