Travels with High Frequency

By John Jacobs

Travels with High Frequency is a travelogue memoir of the people and places John Jacobs has visited while working as a radio engineer. All the stories are true and many are associated with geopolitical events or natural disasters where the UN and international aid agencies have used HF (short wave) radios. There is a small amount of technical content for those of whom it is of interest.

There is humour and sadness, pathos and bathos, irritation and fear as we see how different characters and Jacobs respond to stressful circumstances. Each of the 40 short chapters takes the reader by the hand and lets them ‘be there’ through his eyes, seeing and feeling the environment, engaging with aid workers, victims, government officials and many others.

Events covered include the Rwanda genocide, Serb attempted ethnic cleansing of Kosova, Libya during the Arab Spring, Afghanistan and Pakistan while the Taliban are active, South Sudan shortly after its establishment, and many more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398471375

John Jacobs

John Jacobs has been a traveller since the age of eight years. After dropping out of university he spent two and a half years backpacking around the world, working in an iron ore mine in Australia and a farm in Manitoba. Returning to England he gained a qualification as an electronic engineer. Often travelling to places in the throes of disaster or conflict to assist UN and aid organisations with their communications. He has been to more than 85 countries; always interested in people and with an eye for the humorous and bizarre. In this book, he recounts having been shot at in Zaire, enjoying generous hospitality in Kazakhstan, being propositioned in Liberia, working with Kosova Albanians after the attempted Serb ‘ethnic cleansing’, nearly freezing to death in Israel and visiting Libya during the Arab Spring. He is a subject matter expert in High Frequency radio communications and has written a technical handbook on the subject.

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Copyright Information ©

John Jacobs 2023

The right of John Jacobs to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of the author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398471368 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398471375 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

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Introduction

They say that if you can find a job doing something you love, you’ll never have to do a day’s work. I can testify to that statement being almost 100% true. There are inevitably bits of any job that are tedious and things in any organisation that are irksome. However, having fairly late in my career as an electronic engineer drifted into short-wave radio and finding that it was now used almost exclusively only in remote parts of the world where there is no telephone, I found that elusive love affair. High-frequency (HF) radio, as short wave is correctly known, combined my love of technology with my love of travel.

I have been fortunate to have travelled widely over the years. My desire to travel and explore this planet began with a family trip to Switzerland at the age of eight. A summer holiday while in the sixth form saw my friend and me hitchhike through France and Italy and across to Corfu. Having dropped out of university in the early ‘70s, I travelled around the world for two and a half years ’backpack class’. It took me first to wonderful, fragrant, enigmatic Istanbul, then across Asia. I worked in an iron ore plant in Australia. Planned to stay one month in New Zealand but fell in love with the country and stayed six months. Then I worked on a farm in Manitoba before returning to England and wondering, ‘What next?’ Electronics had been a hobby for some time, so I joined Rediffusion, the television hire company, as a repair technician, before going back to college and gaining a qualification. From that time on, most of my professional work was in one kind of severe environment or another, which took me to places as diverse as North Sea oil platforms and aid agencies working near Timbuktu.

Despite having travelled to more than 85 countries, I have never gotten over what the Swedes call Resfeber – that hot and complicated feeling of fear and excitement before a journey begins. Yes, travel has at times been hard. I got sick in India – who doesn’t? Got lost for three days trekking in Nepal and ran out of food. But despite the mishaps and aggravations, travels have been, for the most part, just the best adventures of my life. I feel so privileged to have met so many kind, caring, generous and hospitable people. They have expanded my world paradigm, challenged my philosophy, and stimulated my spirituality.

I only need to smell the fragrance of a large diesel engine or hear a jet engine spinning up for my pulse to quicken and my feet to itch. I fear that the bite of the travel bug is incurable.

Rwanda

1° 56’S 30° 3’E

It’s 1994 and it’s Rwanda, location of the latest tribal genocide, thankfully now abating. The French military have been in, the shooting has stopped, at least for the time being and I’ve been sent to sort out short distance communication in this ‘Land of a Thousand Hills’. It’s a long, cold flight, seated on the only row of seats behind the cockpit of this ageing Boeing 707. The old bird had served time on the passenger runs with Air France before being painted white and converted into a freighter. Behind me is a fabric wall separating me from a stack of blue UN tarpaulins and 30 tons of high-protein biscuits.

The trip hasn’t started well. The contrast between the lights and bustle of Schiphol passenger terminal and the grimy freight office hinted that this wasn’t to be a picnic project. I find a taxi to take me around to the freight side of the airport. The driver, a spotty youth, is eager to get me to my destination as quickly as possible. He doesn’t see the joke when I tell him we don’t need to reach takeoff speed unless the vehicle has wings. The speed alone doesn’t bother me except that only one hand is on the wheel and his right is casually engaged in picking his nose. He drops me off with a friendly ‘Totsiens’, but I don’t shake his hand.

The plane looks even more old and tired than me when I get on in Amsterdam. The first leg of the flight is uneventful, and the pilot and engineer are both friendly. As we land at Cairo to refuel, one of the reverse thrust scoops jams open and refuses to close. This looks like it’s going to be a problem until the flight engineer retrieves a stepladder from the belly of the plane. ‘Is a stepladder a normal part of Boeing’s list of things to carry on a flight?’

Up the ladder he goes with a can of oil in one hand and a rubber mallet in the other. A couple of minutes of ‘whackety whack’ and plenty of oil and the recalcitrant scoop slides gracefully back into place. I hold my breath on takeoff, praying that the scoop doesn’t decide to return to its active position and send us into a ground loop.

At Kigali Airport, a pickup arrives from the UN warehouse and a cheery Londoner hails me. Got any English newspapers, mate? I relinquish my papers and he points me to the arrivals area. As I walk across the tarmac, I’m curious about the splash marks here and there on the ground. On closer inspection, I can see they are small craters made by hand grenades. The building, too, shows signs of combat. Rows of bullet holes pierce the windows and pock mark the walls. In the arrivals hall, I’m the only passenger. The customs official takes a cursory look through my bag. He’s seen a lot of aid workers across his bench recently and assumes I’m just another one. There’s a flicker of interest as he sees the three-foot-long black cylindrical object in the bottom of my holdall. His brown eyes narrow in suspicion. "Qu’est-ce que c’est? (What’s that?)" he demands.

It’s a mobile antenna, I tell him.

Mobile what?

A mobile aerial, for car.

Satisfied it’s not a weapon, he chalks my bag and I pass through immigration to be met by the head of the UNICEF radio team. He’s an old Dane, and although a little taller than me, his white hair and rosy cheeks put me in mind of a garden gnome. His name is Per Helge. We talk as he threads the Land Cruiser through the Kigali traffic and I hear the tiredness in his voice. I’m retiring in three days, he tells me. Going back to Copenhagen. By the way, I need to tell you, we don’t want you here. Head office asked for you to be sent out because we reported problems, but your coming here makes us look bad.

I reassure him that I’m not here to make anyone look bad and we’ll sort out problems quietly between us. Just then, the HF radio in the car erupts into the long series of beeps that I recognise as a group call alert. What follows is just a conversation between the Kigali base and a station up country. Per Helge tells me, That always happens when someone calls the base. I don’t know why.

I ask him the identity number of the base radio and he tells me it’s 1200. I’m able to explain that numbers ending in 00 are special and alert every radio in the group.

Later that day, a notice goes out to the network that due to ‘operational reasons’, the identity of the base radio will be changed to 1201 at midnight that night.

The problem is quietly solved, and I have made a friend.

Kigali is a tense city. While I am there, Tutsi soldiers of the RPF guard all the main crossroads in town. Some of these can’t be more than 12 years old and they regard every musungu (white man) with suspicion. As I drive around visiting other aid agencies, I’m grateful for the map displayed in front of the UN building showing the location of the NGO offices and, more importantly, the location of known minefields. I pass areas where the stench of decomposition is a forceful reminder that in the course of three months more than 500,000 Rwandans, Hutus and Tutsis, were killed; some brutally hacked to death with machetes. The bodies were rolled in mats and stacked for collection and burial.

Functionally, the city is slowly coming back to life. Each day, the water supply is on for longer and each night more of the city has electricity. The UN radio communications team are a cheerful bunch of men in their late 20s and early 30s. They invite me to leave the newly re-opened Hotel des Milles Collines, where I’m sharing a room with a grumpy French journalist to live in their rented house. My bed is a mat and sleeping bag on the floor, but the atmosphere is congenial. Conversation and Primus beer flow freely in the evenings. I share wine gums from the stock I always carry on assignments. They’re the best sweets to travel with. They don’t melt like chocolate; they don’t go sticky and slimy like boiled sweets and they don’t pull fillings out like toffees. Nobody wants to lose a filling when out on a mission.

With the selective calling issue of the Kigali base radio fixed, the next job is to install a base station at one of the UNICEF stations ‘in the bush’. Sven, Richard and I load the Toyota pickup and head southwest for the post outside Kigoma. It’s a pleasant drive through the green hills, and we arrive in the early afternoon rain. Seeking shelter in the UN house, we’re greeted by a cheerful Ethiopian guy called Ari. When I tell him my middle name is Aryeh, he is overjoyed. That’s so good. We are brothers. I’m going to kill a sheep!

True to his word, Ari brings out the unfortunate animal from a shed and trusses its legs. I don’t stop to watch.

The antenna mast installation proves tricky. The ground of the grassy hillside is so soft that the mast sinks down into the earth. It takes quite a while to find a rock large enough to provide a footing for the mast. We perform the same trick for the end poles of the dipole antenna and up it goes. All is now stable, cables are run and test calls are made back to Kigali.

As evening falls, the various staff members return from their tasks and gather in the large main room. It really is a gathering of united nations. As well as the Swedes with me, there are a couple of Danes, an Italian and two Nigerians. The aroma of frying meat wafts through as Ari comes bustling in from the barbecue with a leg of sheep in one hand and a large knife in the other. Coming over to me, he thrusts the leg towards me and points with the knife to a well-done portion. Hold that, he instructs. I do as I am told and he promptly slices the portion off, leaving it in my hand as he goes to the next diner. Dinner was only bread, meat and lager but remains one of the most memorable and enjoyable I have ever eaten.

Zaire

1° 40’S 29° 12’E

Back in Kigali, the call comes in from the UNICEF office in Goma. Can you send that radio guy over here. We need some help. The hills block our radio.

This is the same problem that NGOs have all been having in Rwanda and the mountainous areas of Zaire. All radio waves, like light, travel in straight lines and so usually need a clear ‘line of sight’ between the transmitting station and the receiving one. Short wave, or HF frequencies, as they are known, are special. Transmitted upwards to the sky, they interact with the ionosphere and are bent back towards the earth at some distance.

Long-distance HF communication is reasonably straightforward, but short-distance communication to ‘hop over’ a mountain or a couple of large hills is difficult. It requires special antennas and also lower frequencies so as to return to earth at the correct short distance. Solving this problem is the raison d’être of my trip.

Erik, Nils and I load the Land Cruiser with a couple of special antennas, sleeping bag and toothbrush and with our driver, we head out of Kigali. The roads are good and we enjoy being away from the traffic and fumes of town. The scenery is stunning. Green mountains are smothered in lush vegetation. Although we are only a couple of degrees south of the equator, the temperature is around 27°C and isn’t oppressive. There are lots of wicker beehives here and there. Strange cylindrical baskets about three feet long, without any opening that I can discern as we drive past. There is no shortage of birds. I see a couple of red billed firefinches, familiar from my few days in Kigali. Erik is a birdwatcher and excitedly points out two different kinds of sunbirds. I manage to identify the guinea fowl that scuttles away as we pass through the occasional village.

We make good time to Gisenyi and approach the Zaire border in the late afternoon. There are a few vehicles in front of us and we see that the procedure is to take documents into a hut by the roadside. As we park up, Nils says to me, I haven’t got my passport with me. I forgot to bring it.

I’m horrified. You idiot. You knew we were going into a different country. Now we have a real problem. It’s too late to return to Kigali. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours and we’re not allowed to travel at night. We can take you back to Gisenyi. You can stop overnight and get a bush taxi back to Kigali in the morning.

No, I can’t do that. Gisenyi isn’t safe. There’s no secure accommodation.

Well, we can’t wait here at the border. Are the other two technicians coming over tomorrow?

Yes, but how will that help?

Get back in the car and hide under the seat. We’ll radio Sven when we get to Goma to bring your passport with him. That’ll get you into the country and you’ll have a passport to get out. You’ll just have to blag your way out of not having an entry stamp when you leave.

Erik and I join the queue into the little mud hut, where a bored official stamps our passports. Driving up to the frontier barrier, everybody holds up their passports and the guard sees that the number of documents tallies with the occupants of the vehicle and raises the barrier. We drive through, holding our breaths.

After a brief stop at the UNICEF office, we retire to the Lake Kivu hotel where the bar looks like an NGO conference venue. Almost everybody there is either an aid worker or a journalist. The unsmiling receptionist informs us that there are no rooms available, but this doesn’t faze our host, the UNICEF country director. She is a capable looking woman in her mid-30s, dressed in the NGO uniform of shirt with two breast pockets, jeans and boots. Relax, have a beer. I’ll sort out some beds. After ten minutes, she returns and introduces me to Jack from UNHCR. He’s got a spare bed in his room and he’s happy to share. Pretty soon, Nils and Erik are likewise billeted. So far, so good.

Were it not for the thought of the two radio installations I have to do today, I could be on holiday. As I sit in the Lake Kivu hotel dining room enjoying croissants and coffee, looking out over the eponymous lake, a peacock strolls in, pecking up the crumbs left by previous diners. The warm sun, already high at this latitude, streams through the French windows. It’s easy to forget for a few moments the horror of the genocide that has brought me here.

The first installation is easy. Nils is eager to compensate for his passport blunder of yesterday and together we get a 12-metre mast and its antenna up by mid-morning. I call Kigali base on the new ID of 1201 and get through first time.

The World Food Programme is taking the lead on harmonising call signs and frequencies to promote efficient use of the radio, but this is early days, and in any case I keep my own call sign, Charlie Oscar Delta, the first three letters of Codan, wherever I go so that people know when it’s the Codan engineer on the net. At the moment, the UNICEF office uses the call sign Charlie as it is the children’s organisation, Kilo as it is in Kigali and base to denote that it’s a fixed station, not in a vehicle.

Charlie Kilo base, this is Charlie Oscar Delta for radio check. How do you receive me?

Receiving you five by five, Charlie Oscar Delta.

I swallow my irritation about people who use the term five by five without understanding what it means and respond,

Roger that. Also receiving you loud and clear Charlie Kilo base. Charlie Oscar Delta out.

The UN guys get called into a meeting after lunch, so I’m standing on the flat roof of the sub-office on my own. I’ve put up a stub mast and am fiddling with an experimental antenna. I’m captivated by this view. A few miles away, overlooking the town is the Nyiragongo volcano. Impressive plumes of smoke and steam rise from it. As the afternoon wears on, the low clouds above the crater are lit from below by a deep red glow from the lava lake of this active volcano. It is an awesome sight and I probably spend more time than I should gazing