Equipment
Photo CameraBecause we needed to make good pictures as well, we have a Canon EOS 400D Camera with a Sigma 18 – 200 mm objective with us. Thanks to this all-in-one lens we can make wide angle pictures as well as pictures with a reasonable zoom, without having to change the objective. Everything of course sharp as a knife and at a resolution of 10 Mega pixel.
Internet terminal
To be able to posts messages on our website we have, thanks to 2xplore-IT,
a satellite internet terminal with us. This BGAN Explorer 500 uses the
Inmarsat Satellite network and gives us besides the possibility to stream
with a guaranteed speed of 512 Kb/s via a handset to make calls from everywhere
on this planet.
Laptops
To convert our video material into short films, we have to use a powerful
laptop. And because things sometimes break down in Africa, it is smart
to have a backup as well. That’s why we have two Medion laptops
with AMD Turion 64 x 2 TL-50 processors with us. To be able to type simple
messages we also have a simple Dell laptop with us. For storage we have
three external hard disk drives with a total capacity of 1050 Gb.
Intercom
By using the Porto phones on the three motor bikes and the one in the
car we can, in theory, communicate up to a distance of 5 kilometres. However,
the system worked very badly on the motor bikes. The practical range is
not more than one kilometre and it is very hard to hear anything above
80 km/h. After the first month the system on two of three motor bikes
seized to work, after which we didn’t use it anymore.
Satellite Phones
We have two Thuraya satellite phones with us to use in case of emergency
when there would be no ordinary gsm network. Spraakmaker Telecom rented
us the phones.