Ham Friendly Hotel - used by many contest operations, including the "Voo Doo Group", C56TTY in 1999, and C56T in 1998, and C56CL.
Senegambia Hotel: Tel - +220 462717 /8/9 (Manager is Mr John Mendy)All the above operations used this hotel, which is on Kololi Beach, just south of Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. The hotel is prepared for amateur radio operations, with certain rooms recommended for the best signal reception and for rigging antennas into the 20 acres of extensive garden.
The rooms you should ask for are A25, C28 or D28 as these are away from other buildings and there are trees to hang wire antennas off.
The hotel grounds front onto the beach, though the grounds are quite large and the rooms I talk about are about two minutes walk to the waters edge. There's plenty of trees to hang antennas from. I experienced big signals from both EU and NA and lots of long path contacts with JA, VK, ZL.
The hotel electrician is Mr. Sheikh Tijan Gaye who is used to radio amateurs operating from the Senegambia. He can also arrange a guy called "Electric" to climb the tall palm trees to rig the wire antennas.
License: As of January 2000, the contact person at GAMTEL in Banjul is Mr Mr Sita D Ceesay Tel - +220 229296, who is a Cambridge graduate and is the Manager, Technical Audit Branch. Mr. Ceesay will issue a C56 callsign if you produce a copy of your radio license, your passport and two photographs. The fee has to be paid in Gambian Dalasis and the exact fee is 50.6 including tax, which works out at 3 UKP or about $5 USD. Just about any callsign combination is possible.
Information on the G3VMW operation can be found on: http://www.dxtech.co.uk/index.htm
Thanks to G3VMW and G4IRN for the above information.
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