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Eritrea E3-LA, E3-MA
By Tom Bridges, W7LN
In the Spring of 1993, I traveled from my home, which was
then in Pretoria, South Africa, to Asmara, in the newly independent country
of Eritrea. I was planning to spend less than a week there on assignment
at the U.S. Embassy. I had taken a Transworld TW100 "fly away kit"
with me in case I had a chance to operate. I contacted one of the officials
at the embassy about my desire to obtain a license and he said he would
talk to his government contacts. The answer came back that since the country
was so new, there were many more important things to think about than
Amateur Radio licenses. One night I tossed the wire antenna out of the
window of the hotel to listen on the bands. To my surprise, there was
a DXpedition operating from Eritrea! Since my remaining time in the country
was so short, I did not pursue getting a license any further.
In the Spring of 2000, there was an opportunity for someone
to go to Asmara to install equipment at the embassy. Having recently read
that Eritrea was on the top ten wanted list of countries, I volunteered
to go TDY to do the work. Since I would have to hand carry my luggage
and tools, I was limited in what I could take with me. I put my Icom IC735,
power supply and ancient Vibroplex bug in my suitcase and packed clothes
all around them. I trusted that I woud be able to find some type of antenna
on site. My flight took me from Washington DC to Frankfurt, Jeddah, and
then Asmara. I arrived late on the night of 31 July and spent the next
few days working and looking for license information. On 4 August, one
of the local employees at the embassy told me about an office in the Ministry
of Transport and Communications which issues licenses. That afternoon
we went downtown and made arrangements for the license. It took a little
while to get all of the forms in order and have them validated by the
proper authorities. Finally they asked for the fee. Although it was far
more than I had paid in any other country I had been licensed in, this
was a chance of a lifetime to take Eritrea off the wanted list of many
Ham operators. After they had receipted my money, I was issued the call
E3-LA. The following day was Saturday and I found a B&W trap dipole,
which wasn't being used, strung between two poles, I connected my Icom
to the coax, found some AC power and a stepdown transformer, and turned
on the radio. I had previously priÿnted out some log sheets, so I
was ready to go. At first I answered a CQ or two and dazzled the stations
with my exotic call, but that didn't last long. Within minutes the pileups
began. Interestingly enough, the phone portions of the bands quickly faded
out, but not the CW portions. So the remainder of the day was devoted
to CW operations, primarily on 15 Meters. Nearly all of the contacts were
Europeans and Asians.
I don't operate on Sundays, but during the day Monday,
I received a telephone call from the Ministry. The official told me that
on Saturday, an Italian amateur had heard me operating, using a call that
had been issued to him. Upon checking their records, they agreed that
they had given me the wrong call letters, and asked me to return my license.
I said that I would like to keep it as evidence that at least for the
fifth of August, I was operating legally with that call. He agreed. Later
in the day I returned to the Ministry and was issued the next call in
sequence, E3-MA. I have since found that it, too, was a reissue.
During that week I operated ftom about 6 p.m. until the
band closed at about 9:30 p.m., and all day the following Saturday. On
Monday, the l4th, I operated as long as I could prior to leaving for the
airport. Just before my final QRT, I was surprised to work a station with
the strange call SV9/WW2LST/MM. I found out later about this ship, an
old World War II LST. I made contact with them just before they left on
their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the U.S.
Although I stood by many times to make contacts with North
American amateurs, I only worked three. All in all, I made 1,480 contacts
during my Eritrean operation. I was pleased with the courtesy of the stations
who were waiting to contact me. I found that my particular operating style
when there is a "pileup" is to call stations "by the numbers."
Although this doesn't enable me to make quite as many contacts and it
makes many stations wait, it does allow weak stations, who would otherwise
be overwhelmed by more powerful stations, to make the contact. Nevertheless,
there was only one incident of rudeness, which is very commendable, considering
the great desire of many operators to contact an E3 station.
Asmara is a very pleasant city and although there was a
border war with Ethiopia going on some distance away, the city was calm.
I found it to be more of a Mediterranean than African style city, probably
because it was the capital of the Italian colonies in Africa prior to
World War I. As such, there were lots of wonderful Italian restaurants
and architecture. At one time there was an American military communications
site in Asmara, so many of the local people speak some English. Currently
it isn't a big tourist destination, but there are some large, new, modern
hotels in town as well, as small, more "native" places to stay.
One night I went to an annual outdoor celebration featuring singing and
dancing by many tribal groups from Eritrea. It really added to my appreciation
of the varied cultures of the country. The August climate in Asmara was
very pleasant with a heavy, but brief rain nearly every day. All in all
it was a great experience and I was pleased to have the opportunity to
add another country to so many logbooks.
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