Since I had chance to get a J5 callsign, we accepted HA3AUI Peter's invitation into Senegal and Bissau Guinea at the end of March, 2006. Me and my XYL started int he evening hours at 9th May. The first stop was Milan. We had only half an hour to change thus we were in a big hurry. Luckily we had already knew the route from our journey of 2005. Therefore we succeeded catching the flight but our luggage containing the antennas failed. Of course we got aware of only in Dakar that those were left in Milan. Peter was waiting for u sin Dakar.
The next stop after 8 hours of waiting and a single hour of flight was Ziguichor where we changed to Peter's jeep. We were facing additional 60 kilometres of driving. Of course, need not to say, almost all of that was dirt-road. We arrived to Cap Sikiring, our accommodation site at 10th May.
Here we did set-up our radio station that was fairly incomplete. The antenna was making it's endless circles on the luggage conveyor belt in Milan. However I was able to start traffic by means of a 40m dipole as 6W/HA7TM.
Meanwhiles Peter kept on telephoning regarding my licence but unfortunately sumething had come up. First the licence manager's wife delivered a baby, next a relative of him has died or he was simply busy. Finally, at 16th, we learned to know that I got the J5UTM callsign. We were enthusiastic and we started for out final 16 km journey bearing J5. We had an IC-706 and a mobile whip antenna on top of the jeep - the half world was calling me so the pile-up was huge.
Meanwhile our luggage has arrived so we had been able to mount our four band Dunax vertical on top of a bread-tree. Unfortunately only 3.500 QSOs have been established, since our vacation was over after 3 days of operation from J5. However I also made 5.500 QSOs from Senegal.
Unfortunately the excursion into Gambia was postponed. We started back to Budapest at noon, 19th May. Since my licence J5UTM is valid for 5 years period, I see chance to make another expedition too.
