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The operations in Mozambique were challenging to say the least! We had to drive from Nkotakota along Lake Malawi to Lilongwe (the capital) to drop some team members off at the Airport before leaving to Mozambique. We only arrived at the border crossing into Mozambique at 19:15 local time - Just in time to be 15 minutes late as it is not a 24 hours crossing. We had to sleep next to our vehicles right next to the road. The next morning we were at the border just as they were supposed to open at 07:00 but the officials only arrived at 07:45 and we were only in Mozambique with all the paper work completed by around 09:30. We drove the first 200 - 250 km into Mozambique on a very decent gravel road and it was not too bad to reach a town called Malema within about 5 hours of crossing the border. We had memories of this exact same road and distance asking 17 hours of our travel time during a previous trip in Feb/March 2006. We had high hopes that this time we would make it in good time? To our disgust we then hit the worst part of any "road" I think i have ever traveled on. Most of the time we were "bundu bashing" next to the road because of the deep trenches in the section that was supposed to be the road? We only arrived at Nampula in the early hours of the next morning due to our effective speed over the last 300 km of this road coming down to a mere 15 - 35 km/h. On this photo you can see what the "road" on the left is looking like? The location we were camping at was on the grounds of a local church right next to the local military academy's barracks. We expected to be safe from hooligans etc. Unfortunately after 3 days the local beaurocracy decided we were a threat to their national security and we had to relocate. In the process theu also confiscated my license and I only received it back 4 days later as we were again packing up to move on. Fortunately during the little time we had available before our trouble started I managed a total of 43 QSO's on 2m and 1 on 70cm with HB9Q. The C91JE log is attached. Here is a photo of the station's antenna as operated from Nampula the 2 of 2M9SSB's are mounted on the fibreglass boom with the 2 of 432M12EME's in between. To the right is the 20m dipole for SSB and Pactor 3 winlink/airmail operation and of course our 10GHz sattelite dish for CNN, BBC and sport via PAS 7:
The next leg of our trip took us to Montepuez a further 400 km north of Nampula. There we had better luck with the authorities - but we had trouble with local bandits (12 & 13 year old kids) stealing our equipment and damaging our tents. We managed to catch the culprits but were anyhow relieved of several sleeping bags and some electronic equipment. Because the conditions really deteriorated and a problem with our mains supply at this location only 14 QSO's on 2m was completed. The log is attached. The moon was easily visible but degradation was terrible.
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