Radio St Helena, revisited

Just returned from Swakopmund in Namibia, where we hung out with our son, who flies tourists around that amazing country, from game lodge to game lodge. Namibia's population is about half of Cape Town's and the country is twice the size of Germany. The topography is spectacular, albeit phenomenally arid. Swakop is a civilised coastal town of less than 50k people. It's supposed to be the 'watering hole' Namibia, with crowds descending on the place over the summer holiday season. While the population certainly expanded, it was still remarkably genteel. You don't have the crowds you see in Hermanus and Plettenberg Bay, or the traffic jams. Our trip reminded me of another sojourn in Swakop nearly 30 years ago. I persuaded my wife to accompany me and we flew via Windhoek. My main goal was to hear St Helena Radio, then just a 1kW power AM transmitter on the island in the mid-Atlantic, target of many dxers over the years. I knew nothing about Swakop but found a place called the 'A-frame cottages' right on the edge of town. I managed to negotiate that we had one at one end of a row of about 6 or 7. Brazenly, I strung up a length of copper wire out from our cottage and down the entire row, about 100 metres. I spent many happy hours dxing at night. This was 1987, when electronic noise was still in its infancy, especially in an out of the way place like Swakop. One evening St Helena Radio came in: weak but clear as a bell. One thing I clearly remember was, after the news, a classified ads programme with someone offering a Morris Minor for sale. I sent a detailed reception report to the station which would have gone from Cape Town via the ship which left periodically to Jamestown. And in due course I received this excellent letter from Anthony Leo, station engineer. He mentions that I had picked them up in South Africa, when in fact I'd said South-West Africa but I guess many people didn't know the difference, or care, even though independence for Namibia was just around the corner. We visited the A-frames again on this trip and, looking at the rows of cottages, I can't believe I was able to get away with stringing that copper wire down the row. I wouldn't have managed it today, I'm sure.