A Midway Peru Trip Update

Friday 13 Jan 2023

After our 46 hour flight including a lovely catch up with our good friend Rob Morton during our Sydney stopover at the International Airport, then another stopover in Houston, Texas, and then another in Lima – we were pretty tired when Isaac and I finally touched down in Cusco as sleep sitting almost vertical was hard to realise.  

But it didn’t stop there as we then found a political blockade between Cusco and Curahuasi.  Normally a 2.5 hour journey in a colectivo (shared passenger taxi) but in our case it took us some 12 hours.  By that time Isaac and I were REALLY tired! J

The extended journey to Curahuasi included a 5 hour delay getting our initial colectivo (due to road blockade) and then a 3 hour walk with our bags for 10km over and under about 20 blockages consisting of felled trees, earthen walls, rocks/boulders, hundreds of broken bottles, barbed wire and even in one place, a steel pole fence welded across the Panamericana highway from one bridge railing to another!  See photos below. Keep in mind in this part of Peru there usually no roads to bypass the Panamericana due to the mountainous terrain and economics.

One of numerous rock and boulder blockades.

A welded steel fence blockade midway across a bridge, from railing to railing.

 

One of many earthen blockades.

One of many about 5 or 6 felled tree blockades.

During our 10km “hike” past the blockades, one of our bags broke and a colectivo companion, René, carried this bag on his shoulders almost all the distance. What an angel provision he was for us in the thirst quenching heat. René was an ambulance driver of nearby township of Limatambo.

 

Here Isaac and I finally arrive at Diospi Suyana after some 58 hours of negligible travel sleep.

On the other side of all this mess, we caught another colectivo (at elevated price taking advantage of the situation), to finally arrive and be warmly greeted by Diospi Suyana including many familiar faces, not the least being Dr Martina John.  Dr Klaus is in Germany and would be back the following Saturday (i.e. tomorrow at the time of writing).

These blockades were placed by disgruntled Quechua rural communities due to extreme long term political corruption in Peru and worsening living standards.  The catalyst being the appointment of vice president, Dina Boluarte serving as the President of Peru on 7 December 2022 when the president elect, Pedro Castillo, was impeached and removed from office by the Congress of Peru after attempting a self-coup.  Without going into this situation any further, except to say Peru’s 5 former presidents are in gaol due to corruption, government in Peru is a mess and the poverty stricken Quechuas have had enough.

On our first travel recovery day in the afternoon, young and enthusiastic Centro de Medios (Broadcast centre) employee responsible for transmission operations, Mr David Hanco Conchacalla, knocks on our hospital apartment door unannounced (as it happens I was fast asleep).  He asked to take us through the many issues they were hoping I was going to address whilst here.  We obliged and after a few hours we find it was quite a list, and this did not include the remote FM site installations.  Albeit based on the current level of political protest becoming more violent as each day progressed, the likelihood of such travel now seems unlikely.  A full agenda in Curahuasi was a good thing.

A new relatively local Peruvian technician, Mr Victor Moreno, was to adjoin me for the duration of our visit.  He brings some 30 years of experience in the sector working for a number of Peru businesses.  He arrived at our hospital unit on the Sunday to go through the work for the next few hours before we had to leave for dinner.  We got on quite well despite my struggling Spanish.  Isaac was able to fill in some gaps for me more than once.  

We visited the two nearby Diospi transmission sites of Curahuasi and Abancay to assess the work required in those places from incomplete or faulty installations.  We found about half of the 30km Panamericana route from Curahuasi to the 4000m high Abancay pass where our FM transmitter site is located, was blocked down to one lane by rocks and trees. It was totally blocked earlier but now one lane was cleared to necessitate getting critical resources though to southern Peru.  

We also learned in some areas of Peru the protests are turning increasingly violent.  On just one night this week some 17 people were shot dead in the region of Puno (I was intending on going there to maintain our Puno FM site, but not now).  And as of this writing, some 50 people have been killed in these protests across all of Peru.  We will be exercising extreme caution and will amend our Diospi remote FM site visit plans accordingly.

Taken at the 4000m elevation Abancay Diospi FM transmitter site. L to R: me, Snr David Hanco, Isaac, Snr Sabino Cutipa & Snr Victor Moreno.

Snr Victor Moreno and me fitting a new cross-guide coupler on our satellite uplink antenna to enable testing of our telemetry problems.

 

Me in front of “my” Diospi hospital Satellite Uplink facility (photo by Isaac ☺).

Isaac and me fitting 4 new pieces of equipment to the Centro de Medios equipment rack, including an Orban "Optimod 6300" FM digital audio processor to greatly improve sound quality of the entire Diospi radio network.

As it happens, today is my 27^th wedding anniversary with my amazing and most beautiful bride, Sandi. We find ourselves some 14,825 km apart on this day, and looking forward to being reunited again in 2 weeks.  As anyone who knows her, she has an incredible heart, attitude and faithfulness toward God, family, people and life.  Without her support this trip to Peru would not have gotten past the idea stage.  And without her I would not be half the person I am today.

Feeling the heat on our wedding day in Timbertown, NSW 13 Jan 1996 ☺

 

Thank you for your support in what we are doing here in Peru to improve the lives of millions of impoverished and marginalised people.

Chris

Our Plans to Return to Peru and a 4th New FM Site

Saturday 31 Dec 2022

I am excited to advise that Isaac and I are off to Peru for our first short term (3 week) trip.  We are travelling from 4 Jan returning Fri 27 Jan 2023.  Isaac (19) is now studying engineering at Uni and he will be an invaluable help to me this trip.

Since our last blog post, the Cusco FM site (reaching nearly half a million people) has progressed and is now ready for installation of the transmission and satellite equipment in the coming weeks.  My work has granted me leave without pay and Isaac is on Uni holidays.  As such, the need is now and so we have taken the step of faith to go now.  In addition, Diospi Suyana have 2 Peruvian technical staff from the Centro de Medios for me to teach what I can during this period.

Since my last blog post, Diospi Suyana have acquired a 4^th new FM license – this one to reach Ayachucho.  It is a city of some 216,000 in 2022 and sits at an elevation of 2,761 metres.  I am again involved in the planning of this, including site design and ordering from my now established list of overseas suppliers.

This table shows the number of Diospi Suyana transmission sites existing and new:

Site Count	Actual Site Name	Estimated Population Coverage
1	Curahuasi (FM 103.7 MHz & TV Ch7)	30,000
2	Andahuaylas FM 96.1 MHz	120,000
3	Puerto Maldonado FM 107.7 MHz	200,000
4	Puno FM 103.7 MHz	200,000
5	Casabamba (Uripa/Chincheros) FM 104.7 MHz	50,000
6	Echarati FM 100.7 MHz	30,000
7	Sicuani FM 104.1 MHz	68,000
8	Abancay FM 92.7 MHz	78,000
9	Cusco FM 100.2 MHz	465,000
10	Urcos FM 100.9 MHz	286,000
11	Anta FM 90.9 MHz	396,000
12	Ayachucho FM	200,000
	TOTAL POPULATION	1,973,000

As you can see, when these new FM sites (as shown in yellow highlight) are up and running, we will be reaching some 2 million people 24 x 7 with Diospi Suyana radio delivering needed hope to Peru.

At a high level my work plan is as follows:

1.                   Fault find telemetry system interference issues with the main satellite uplink at the Centro de Medios in Curahuasi

2.                   Commission the new Cusco FM site including satellite telemetry

3.                   Travel to commission Sicuani FM site satellite telemetry and make various upgrades

4.                   Travel to commission Puno FM site satellite telemetry (incomplete from 2019)

5.                   Travel to commission Abancay satellite telemetry and make various upgrades

6.                   Survey for a suitable 4^th new FM site in Ayacucho as/if time permits

7.                   Visit other FM sites for repairs and upgrades as/if time permits (e.g. Casabamba and Puerto Maldonado).

You may be aware from the media there has been political turmoil in Peru due to the impeachment of their president Pedro Castillo on 8 December.  Following that there has been civil unrest in a number of areas, predominantly in the south.  This includes road blockades, the destruction of selected government infrastructure, closing of airports, looting and street protests.  However of more recent time I am assured by Diospi Suyana that this has largely settled down.  This could change at any time so please pray that we can travel to all the locations we need to and work in safety.

Blockade of the Pan-American Highway in Curahuasi.

Sandi is staying at home with the other 6 kids whilst Isaac and I are away.  Please pray for their safety and wellbeing.  Sandi is enjoying being closer to her family in Perth after some 30 years living in the east (my fault as we met in Port Macquarie and married in 1996 J).

We have about two thirds of the support we need and are believing in faith for the remaining support needed.  Having got our feet wet, we have confidence as our experience testifies God has a perfect track record!

 The Ayacucho region on the map of Peru.

The city of Ayacucho with central Plaza de Armes in the foreground.

Thank you for praying for us.  Sandi and I trust that you all had a blessed Christmas. Albeit we are aware some of you are facing very challenging family circumstances this year.  We are praying for you.

Blessings,  Chris

Our Welch Family Christmas sign which we made (thanks to Derek for the idea and the wood) one Saturday in December and then put to good use all 9 letters for this season’s family photo given the 9 of us ☺.

Web browser link to this post: https://welchesinperu.blogspot.com/2022/12/our-plans-to-return-to-peru-and-4th-new.html

Three new FM sites reaching Cusco and surrounds and our next steps

 Sunday 12 Jun 2022

This update is well overdue since my last post.  This has been a busy period for our family, moving city again to now settle in Western Australia.  We feel incredibly blessed to finally own a house again, giving needed stability for our kids (especially our teens and early twenties) and a base from which we can continue mission work in future with short term trips.  After Christmas holidays with Sandi’s family (who all live in WA) we moved in early January and since then I have been busy most weekends with a list of things to fix or change to suit our needs.  Including fixing a broken air conditioner and garden bore pump during a WA record heatwave J.

We have really enjoyed being close to Sandi’s family in WA and enjoying the benefits of some house permanency.  Being able to unpack all our boxes for the first time in 6 years is a luxury!

I last reported Sicuani FM 104.1 MHz in Peru went to air from 30 October 2021 albeit initially only with a temporary generator.  It now operates on mains power as the power lines with 13 poles and transformer were finished and finally connected to the state grid on 31 December, some 2 months later.  In the interim, one of the Centro de Medios staff, Isaac Panez, travelled the 5km from the city of Sicuani up the mountain road to the tower early morning every day to start the generator and sit with it until evening. 

Our Sicuani FM site pictured in early evening overlooking the city. Building works can be seen on the security guard hut at the front of the main compound

Some of the many avid Quechua Indian listeners of Diospi Suyana FM – these ladies of Sicuani called in this week (9 June) to say they are greatly encouraged and listen intently sometimes as late as 2am. Diospi receives 1000s of such support messages every month.

Then in March this year, much to our disappointment, the Intelsat satellite signal dropout problems that I referred to in my last post, returned again.  Recalling these issues plagued us from October through November 2021 and I had spent countless hours remotely supporting Diospi but the problem eluded us before it suddenly stopped.

I set to work again in March and expended a significant amount of time over the subsequent months (my evenings and weekends) trying to fix this with only remote network access and technical staff on the ground in Peru tying various solutions.  This included working with the Intelsat Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Miami.  Our work was hampered by a failure of the spectrum analyser test instrument that I supplied to Diospi Suyana back in 2016.  The faulty part was found to be a dead display power module in the analyser.  This was identified by the German hospital medical department technician, and was ordered from the factory of Rhode & Schwarz in Germany.  However it would take months to arrive due to supply delays.  The part arrived and it was fixed a few weeks ago on 19 May.

In the meantime back in March, we had to hire in another spectrum analyser and the services of its engineer owner, Mr Luis Condori, from Lima.  I enjoy working with Luis as he is a good radio engineer and speaks English well J.  We still could not identify the original problem as it was clear we needed a C-Band satellite test loop translator – a very specialised test instrument but such equipment is not in Peru (we looked far and wide in Lima to hire one, but no luck).  I hunted global markets online and found the right product for the right performance and price in the UK, which Diospi Suyana agreed to purchase.  I also found the needed transmission waveguide coupler components online and Diospi purchased that also. 

The Peak Communications C-Band test loop translator and waveguide coupler (above) will enable us to identify the source of the dropout problems in our iBUC equipment or on the Intelsat satellite.

This type of equipment is invariably built to order specification and given COVID supply delays, it will take 3 months to arrive.  So we wait patiently on that front.  In the meantime Luis and I found a work-around to somewhat reduce the occurrence of the satellite dropouts to tide us over.

So what’s next you ask?  Diospi Suyana moves ahead at pace with 3 new FM licenses have been purchased by Dr Klaus John from the government telecommunications regulator, MTC Peru.  These sites are Cusco 102.0 MHz, Urcos 100.9 MHz and Anta 90.9 MHz. 

Dr Klaus and Doris Manco set to work in the Diospi Hilux 4WD to locate suitable transmission sites for these which they provided to me by GPS coordinates so I could do preliminary checks with Google Earth 3D.  Once settled on and an agreement in principle was struck with the land owner to purchase the lot, I engaged SonSet Solutions in the US as previously, to do the computer FM coverage modelling and confirm the population reach.  Here is a summary table of the 3 new Diospi FM sites: 

Actual Site Name	Diospi Site ID	Altitude (metres)	Tower Height (metres)	FM Frequency (MHz)	Licensed FM Tx Power (W)	Population Calculated
Cusco	CUSC	3,956	36	102.0	500	463,362
Urcos	URCO	3,521	40	100.9	500	286,467
Anta	ANTA	3,872	36	90.9	500	395,970

The Urcos site was purchased early in the piece and has since been constructed to my site plan AutoCAD.  Now finished, it is void of equipment – see my comments below.  Regarding the Cusco site, there have been delays purchasing the identified lot of land from local owners.  And the Anta site awaits settlement. 

An example of our computer FM coverage prediction for Urcos (green = strong signal, yellow = weak but OK) provided by SonSet Solutions

Having completed preliminary design work to determine what we need, I set to work specifying all the detailed equipment lists with our suppliers in a bunch of countries;

1.  Italy for our FM transmitters, pre-installed equipment racks, antennas, RF feeder cable and connections (DB Broadcast)
2. USA for our satellite antennas, LNBs, cables and connectors (Viking Satcom)
3. Canada for our satellite audio receivers (IDC)
4. Germany for our satellite telemetry equipment (ND Satcom)
5. Australia for our RF lightning suppression (Novaris)
6. UK for our satellite test loop translator (Peak Communications)
7. USA for waveguide coupler (Sat BBC)

All of the equipment ordered by Diospi Suyana.  As for the previous two sites (Abancay and Sicuani), the DB Broadcast order includes my custom cabled and fully pre-installed equipment racks to enable a plug and play install on site in Peru.  All in all, I believe I have spent 100s of hours supporting Diospi Suyana since my last post.

Next steps… I am planning to return to Peru for a 3 week period this year to complete as much of the specialised satellite work that I can.  The schedule is still fluid due to slipping delivery schedules for the equipment (attributed to COVID and now the war in Ukraine causing various component supply delays) but now looking like November.  And if so, I could take Isaac (18) back with me as he would dearly like to go to assist me as he loves engineering stuff.  Our agenda would be to;

• fix the satellite dropout issues (using the new test loop translator instrument)
• commission into operation the 4 satellite telemetry equipment awaiting my return (Puno, Abancay, Sicuani and Urcos)
• general transmission maintenance where possible

The other thing we need to complete is the collection of remaining personal belongings from our Peru household which we left behind in April 2019 thinking we would soon be back (but COVID changed those plans).  Since then our good German mission friends, Jens and Damaris Hassfeld, have kept our many belongings in their house.  However their long term mission is ending this month and they will return to Germany to live with their four kids, and they must vacate their house in Curahuasi.  Damaris and Sandi have together spent many, many hours going through box after box and identifying what to sell, give or keep for me to collect later this year. 

We are always thankful for your prayers and are trusting that God is unfolding a way forward for our work to continue.  And so excited to be planning short term work trips to compliment Chris’ remote support from Australia.

Chris

Another site on the air in Peru – Sicuani FM. Another move for us. And Feliz Navidad!

I worked (remotely) with Diospi Suyana to launch our 8^th FM site to reach the city of Sicuani.  It’s a southern Peru city of some 60,000 people situated at an elevation of 3,549 metres.  

There were many, many obstacles to overcome with this site.  Firstly we had to choose a site on the opposite side of town to the other broadcast towers, as the rural community who managed this parcel of land would not allow Diospi Suyana to purchase our needed 12m x 12m lot.  This meant we needed to install our own 1km long power line with 13 poles (very expensive!) and we are still awaiting its connection to the Peru power grid (Electro Sur).  Sicuani is currently going to air using a temporary generator.

13 power poles and over 1km of line all installed by manual labour (no machines here!).

For this site we chose a 50 metre high tower (more expense) to increase the coverage and overcome some local obstacles.  From our computer desktop coverage prediction of the radio signal, we calculate a reach of over 120,000 people for Sicuani and surrounds.

Sicuani FM site with 50m tall tower during antenna installation.

 

Computer FM coverage prediction for Sicuani.

If not enough heartaches, just when we went to switch on Sicuani FM, we had satellite interference issues at the same time as some uplink equipment failures. I spent many nights and weekends from October through November assisting Diospi Suyana to help fix the problems remotely from my office in Canberra.  We attempted an internet feed for the radio program, but not surprisingly for Peru’s perpetually developing network, this proved frustratingly unreliable and satellite was the only option.

But perseverance and prayer prevailed and we are now on air!☺ This brings the total covered to over a million FM listeners for Diospi Suyana 24 x 7 x 365 days a year.  We believe this fulfils the original prophecy over Chris in LifeSource Christian Church back in 1996 (see our first blog here).

The second of one of my new design DB FM transmitter racks I had built for Diospi in Italy.

Life always has surprises just waiting around the corner for us. God's plans are always being revealed.

For our family, 2021 is to be known as our Canberra year. We boarded at YWAM Canberra for 11 months and were blessed to experience community living.  It was at its best during our state COVID lockdown when our household community was 50+ people and our kids had a huge 6 hectare property to play on, with another 5 sport loving kids who became firm friends.

We did really enjoy our Canberra church, Fusion City Church, Canberra cycling and bush-city vibe.

But in the second half of 2021, God started to open a new door for us. Chris was given much favour at work and a simple enquiry on our behalf turned into a new employment position for him as a communications engineer contracting to our Navy with his company Nova Systems in Perth. He is on a project upgrading communications systems on our eight ANZAC Class frigates.

Sandi's immediate family reside in Perth all near the Naval base, making this an exciting new chapter for all of us.

God went before us at every step. The move to Western Australia has been easy. We were able to all get WA G2G Passes (permission to enter Western Australia) thru Chris’ new position given his critical work for the Navy.  From Canberra we bought a house in Perth (not our normal online shopping purchase! J). We are yet to see the house in person as we are currently in the required 14 day COVID quarantine at Sandi’s parents’ house.  

We will miss our family and friends in the east. This includes our eldest son Jake who is living in Sydney.

Our 20ft shipping container is collected from YWAM Canberra destined for Perth.

Our family in Canberra airport excitedly ready for the adventure ahead.

 

We touched down in our new home of Perth on 9 December.

When we returned from Peru in 2019, our aim was to buy a house so we would have a family base. It has been a different journey to what we anticipated, but we are sure God is directing our steps.

Please pray for us as our family transitions again to a new place.

🎄 Feliz Navidad! (Merry Christmas!) 🎄

 Love and blessings,

 Chris & Sandi Xx

Abancay FM On Air

Tuesday 31 Aug 2021

On Saturday 7 August we saw the culmination of a lot effort dragged out in slow motion over some 18 months due to trying circumstances – the most notable being COVID-19 of course.  This resulted in extended lockdowns of which Peru has some of the strictest in the world (but that’s another story).  Not to mention our main installation technician, Luis Condori (who during my last 2 years in Peru I instructed to install to my standards), contracted the virus himself whilst in Lima and was out of action for over a month.

Diospi Abanacy FM tower is the centre tallest tower banded red and white.

The city of Abancay 1,700 m below. Our FM reaches this valley and beyond.

Diospi Suyana also encountered extended delays with the Peru power authority Electro Sur, who needed to make the electrical connection to our 4,077 m high mountain top site needing many new poles, a transformer and wires.  I had provided all my installation drawings (in Spanish) to the team on the ground in Peru, including; site construction drawing including tower earthing, electrical system line drawing, transmitter equipment rack layout, wiring block diagram, satellite antenna drawing etc.

But in the end, perseverance prevailed and our latest FM 92.7 MHz was launched to reach the city of Abancay and its surrounds!

Abancay is a thriving bustling city built on a mountainside slope, with town centre at 2,377 m above sea level.  Our coverage extends beyond Abancay itself to reach our computer predicted population of 136,000 FM listeners in the region.

There are a number of things needing completion including our satellite telemetry which is something only I can do, and the security system install that monitors and control all the transmission equipment at the site.  But those things will need to wait for a future opportunity for my return to Peru.

Following is a brief photo montage of this, our 7^th FM site in Peru.

Assembling the satellite antenna for Diospi audio signal reception.

The final connections made to the electrical transformer.

My colleague, Peru technician Luis Condori, who installed my new generation FM rack (built to my design in Italy).

Chris providing support (viz. calling the shots ☺) from home in Canberra.

Our computer prediction of our Abancay FM coverage

So another satisfying result.  The next Diospi FM site, Sicuani, is also nearing completion to allow a similar installation to take place, likely in the next month or so.

Thank you for those that still support us by prayer to enable this good work to miraculously continue.

Chris

Our Mission on Hold

Dear friends and family,

This blog is the hardest to write.  At the same time it’s ok because we are excited and so grateful when we remember all that God has done thru our Peru mission.  

God has made a way for the Diospi Suyana media centre to reach 850,000 people in remote Peru daily with the gospel message via radio 24/7.

As you know we were home in Sydney on furlough in April 2019 with intent to return to Peru for nine months in 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic this was not possible.  Chris continued with the Diospi Suyana satellite/radio work from Australia and undertook some irregular paid engineering contracting work in Sydney.

As time went on we had to accept that no return to Peru would be able to be organised in the near future. We prayed for God’s next step for us (and many of you did too) and God answered with full time employment for Chris in Canberra.

Thus we have made the decision to place our mission officially “on hold” until we can make further plans to return to Peru.

The funds that have been given to our mission are held in full with Pioneers awaiting our return trip. We are so ever grateful to those of you that have hung in with us to this time, and for those that have supported our mission in the past and for those that pray for us. Thank you!

This all means that with a ‘hold’ status on our mission, we will not be accepting anymore donations thru OARF or our family support account.

The Pioneers Australia team have written a letter they asked us to pass onto you all from them…

“We would like to extend to you a heartfelt thank you for all your prayers and financial support for the Welch family over the past almost five years, as they have ministered in Peru at Diospi Suyana with Pioneers (both on-site and while back in Australia). The family have made the difficult decision to remain in Australia and take up paid employment for this current season. Whilst Chris has been doing consulting work remotely over the past two year for Diospi Suyana to ensure their radio transmission sites continued to broadcast, this will reduce to a few hours a week at night and on the weekends.

Your continued care and prayers for them will be much appreciated as they adjust to their life in Canberra.

Financial Support: For those who have been financially supporting the Welch family, please note that support gifts should stop before the 1st March 2021.

• If we withdraw your payments through direct debit or credit card, we will automatically stop these on the 28th February 2021.
• If you arrange your own payments through your online banking or by cheque, you will need to stop your payments.

If you have any questions about your support, or if you are interested in supporting another Pioneers worker, you can contact our finance team at info@pioneers.org.au or Freecall 1800 78 78 89.

Yours in Christ,

Pioneers Finance team”

We are in Canberra now, our hearts filled with thankfulness for the blessings and love you have shown us, in obedience to God’s call for you to help with his work.

You can be assured that the Diospi Suyana Media Centre has 2 more FM transmission sites already underway and God willing Chris is very keen to help get them going!  We will stay in touch.

Grateful, Thankful, Blessed by and for you all.

Love, The Welch family

Our Satellite Network Frequency Change in Peru

Friday 29 Jan 2021

After arriving in Canberra in the week I had before starting work at Nova Systems, took to remotely managing a necessary satellite frequency retune for the Diospi Suyana radio network in Peru.  As there were no other satellite engineering expertise available.  It was a mandatory requirement of the satellite operator Intelsat to shuffle services up in our satellite band, as they make way for 5G in the Americas (the same thing is happening all over the world in all similar satellite bands in fact).

So after 3 midnight to dawn efforts, managing 3 teams of people on the ground in Peru (a combination of Diospi Suyana people and contractors) up to 800km apart by road, we successfully executed this for all 7 of our satellite sites.  This was a precarious feat to say the least, as if anything went wrong, the signal outage could be very lengthy and difficult to remediate without engineering hands on access to the right equipment.  But due to COVID-19 this trip for me was not an option.

So from the comfort of our new dwelling place at YWAM in Canberra, I was able to remotely log into the needed sites via a secure internet link.  This enabled me to directly make the necessary frequency changes to those sites including the main satellite uplink site at the Centro de Medios at the hospital in Curahuasi.  I gave instruction by email step by step instructions (in Spanish) and also WhatsApp messages and video real time, to the remote teams.

But clearly God was with us as it went without any serious problems and the Diospi Suyana radio network outage was minimal.

Here I am managing the satellite retune from my Canberra bedroom both via WhatsApp and email with the teams and directly via secure internet link into the Diospi Suyana equipment in Peru.

One of my colleagues in Peru – contractor Luis Condori, who was one of our remote site teams helping with the satellite retune.

The Centro de Medios main satellite uplink antenna at the hospital in Curahuasi.

Here is my latest Diospi Suyana FM radio coverage map in Peru, all 8 sites which includes the 2 new sites of Abancay and Sicuani that is soon to commence when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted to allow us to undertake the transmitter installations.

With the satellite frequency change complete – the next stage for Diospi Suyana radio now is the launch of the next 2 FM radio sites of Abancay and Sicuani.  Those sites are now constructed with the towers, buildings and 3m high secure walls completed.  We only await the installation of the FM transmission equipment.  However COVID-19 in Peru has worsened in these regions and there is a Government curfew in place that prevents any work.  This includes the electrical authority, Electro Sur, from making the power connection to these sites with the poles, wires (up to 800 metres) and transformers.

Diospi Suyana Abancay FM site with 30m tower ready for power and FM transmission equipment.

It is hoped that in the next month (April), this curfew will be lifted to enable the final works to be completed. I have arranged the FM transmission and satellite equipment is to be installed by an engineering contractor from Lima who I have given my design documentation packs to having worked with him when I was in Peru and I trust (Luis Condori).  As presented previously, I have also had all this FM and satellite transmission equipment prepared (pre-built and wired in the factory including the equipment rack) and delivered to Diospi Suyana hospital, to make the installation as simple and as easy as possible.

So when completed, the Diospi Suyana radio coverage will then exceed 1 million people (24 x 7 x 365) per our original prophecy some 25 years ago.  How amazing that will be! (I believe there will be up to 1 million very grateful people in Peru J).

Thank you for those who have contributed to this good work and supported us in so many ways to make it possible!

Chris