Se Ke Seromamowa Sa Botswana

The Commonwealth Broadcasting Association

One of the legacies of Botswana's pre-independence status as a protectorate - which incidentally led it for a time to be the only country in the world whose administrative capital was OUTSIDE its boundaries, at Mafeking - is a close relationship with the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Broadcasting Association links many parastatal and government TV and radio stations and provides an opportunity for the smaller countries to talk directly to larger organisations such as the BBC. When the biennial CBA conference was held off the coast of Africa in Mauritius in 1978, I jumped at the chance to attend.

I'd just like to make it clear that ten days in a luxury hotel as a VIP guest of the Mauritius Government can be very hard work. . .

The conference took place at La Pirogue Hotel, Mauritius. Each delegate had an individual chalet and this is a view of the hotel beach.

An invitation to the State Dinner at the national Assembly House in Port Louis. We were guests of the President of Mauritius, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam.

. . . it's very tiring attending all the official dinners . . .

Somehow I found time to present a paper about solar power. I can't honestly say it was a technical marvel but it seemed to be of interest at the time. . .

The Engineering Committee in session

Even though I knew the conference had generated quite a bit of interest, I was somewhat startled to find my picture in Broadcast Management/Engineering's international magazine "World Broadcast News" a month or so later. The same issue carried comment about the 1979 World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC-79) and major articles about television in Brunei and Hong Kong. It also reported our proposals for larger Radio Botswana transmitters in a separate article.

Later papers I wrote for the CBA included one (click here) on using cheap shortwave sets to send news hundreds of miles back to Gaborone (because the telephones were so poor) and a project ("SMARTIE - Simple Microcomputer And Radio Terminal Interface Equipment") linking BBC microcomputers to Sony push-button radios for reception logging. It was subsequently published in "Wireless World".