As of 10:00am Monday 1 July 2018, Puerto Maldonado and its
surrounds is on the air with Diospi Suyana FM 107.7 MHz with our population
reach estimated at 200,000. In recent
years this place has seen an infectious growth rate which is ongoing.
During our visit it was 32°C and 85% humidity every day,
with a minimum of 20°C in the night. Normal
Amazon jungle weather for this time of year.
This was the closest thing for me to a Sydney summer since being in
Perú.
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| The 50m Diospi Suyana radio tower of Puerto Maldonado with the new FM antenna installed atop. |
Here is a brief overview of some of our challenges (sorry to
our readers, some of these are a bit technical);
- Upon arrival we found the site was overgrown with tropical plants – it was like an episode of Lost in Space I recall watching as a child. In fact a vine had even grown half way up the 50 metre tower ladder! (see photos)
- The electrical supply meter on the outside wall was stolen just before we arrived!
- Then I find that the electrical authority installed 3 phase power instead of single phase – despite providing drawings, load charts and having face to face meetings with them in advance. So they had us run in double the extra heavy gauge copper cables which we had to go out and buy (expensive) in order to get approval for our power connection, even though we would still only actually use the original single phase pair of cables we brought with us.
- The tower rigger arrived a day late. Then the day after he could not start as his supervisor went missing for most of the next day! So we lost 2 days there.
- The antenna pipe clamps did not fit their brackets despite coming from the one supplier, and all needed workshop bending to fit.
- The satellite antenna alignment was delayed as we had a significant frequency error in our satellite downlink equipment due to a misconfiguration in the telemetry decoder. So the spectrum did not match my signature reference plot taken the week before. This made me think I was pointing to the wrong satellite, but I was not. When I worked out what was wrong (no external 10 MHz reference to our LNB resulting in it drifting hundreds of MHz off frequency), then support was not available to fix the reference issue in the German provided modem (a complex unit) as it was the weekend. So we had to get a conventional standalone type LNB sent from Curahuasi. Fortunately our team was able to send this to Puerto Maldonado overnight (it’s a 12 hour drive) to get us operational the next day.
When we drove into town just a few hours after commencing
transmission, we stopped at red light (not everyone does that here by the way! J) whilst listening to
our broadcast on the Hilux FM radio. And
to our surprise at the restaurant opposite us, Diospi Suyana radio was blaring
out! We laughed – talk about a quick
take up!
Then days later back in Curahuasi, we start getting many
calls from Puerto Maldonado listeners with amazing positive feedback such as
the following examples (ongoing);
2.
On 5 July we receive a call from the Puerto
Maldonado prison to thank us for the programming.
3.
Also on 5 July, we receive a call from a man in
Cirilo thanking us for our program, some 7 hours from Puerto Maldonado only
accessible by canoe!
4.
Our Centro de Medios manager, Doris Manco (who
appears in some of my installation photos) says to me “Hermanos, gracias por
venir a Perú (with a crying emoji), estoy feliz por tanto amor de Dios. Dios
los colme de sus bendiciones. Gracias,
gracias, mil gracias!” Translation: Thank you to my family for coming to Perú, I
am happy for so much of God’s love. God bless you with your blessings (with our
work on the radio). Thanks, thanks – a thousand thanks!
5.
On 7 July, the mum of a Caleb and Damaris calls
in to announce: What a blessing is this radio Diospi Suyana, what beautiful
music. Let us rejoice to hear you sing
to the Lord – thank you brothers to all who work in this radio of the
Lord. There is no lack of testimonies
from many men with hard hearts who also listen to this radio. Of which I will say is the only Christian
radio beating in this city…
And I have listened across the FM band in Puerto Maldonado
myself, and I hear such hopelessness / meaninglessness from the other stations.
As our Welches in Perú mission scripture Isaiah 55:10~11
states (NIV);
10 As the rain and the snow come down
from heaven,
and do not return to
it without watering the earth
and making it bud
and flourish,
so that it yields
seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from
my mouth:
It will not return
to me empty,
but will accomplish
what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
To our amazing supporters – this is just the beginning of
course. The listeners will increase with
time in Puerto Maldonado, and I am soon to install our 5 other FM sites which
will increase our Diospi Suyana coverage up to 630,000 people!
And as I have reported previously there is more - the next
phase Dr Klaus John is intent to buy more licences in 4 more key districts which
are prime catchment areas of Diospi Suyana hospital patients. They travel such a long way to receive first
world medical services, love and respect offered by Diospi Suyana that is so rarely,
if ever, available for the indigenous Quechuas of Perú.
Here below is a photo montage of the works…
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| When we arrived and opened the compound doors, we were surprised to see the growth after only 2 months from when it was a newly finished construction with bare ground. |
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| A vine amazingly climbed half way up the 50m tower ladder! |
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| Unloading the truck with our transmission equipment – here our 2.4m satellite antenna box (which is heavy!). |
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| Piecing together our 2.4m C-Band satellite antenna. |
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| The Electro Sur electrical authority worker connects a new circuit breaker and meter whilst the wires were live and with one leather glove and a metal handled screwdriver! (a normal practice in Perú) |
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| When in the city, Diospi Suyana enjoyed a strong police presence J |
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Eventually the heat
got to me and one night I insisted on trying suri (cooked on a kebab stick as no
suri pizzas were to be found). It’s
their rainforest grub not unlike our Australian witchetty grub. You have to try these things once in your
life (and once was enough for me J).
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| A top down view of the new FM antenna installed on our 50m tower. |
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| Testing the FM coaxial cable return loss (in the sweltering Puerto Maldonado day heat) with our R&S ETL analyser. |
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| Here I am commissioning the FM transmission system with my originally Australian acquired R&S ETL analyser (with radio option donated by R&S Australia). |
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| Our Diospi Suyana installation team – from left to right: Carlos, me, Doris, Euloguio and Cristobal. |
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| After completion we were back in the Diospi Hilux for the 12 hour drive back to Curahuasi in the Andes via a 4,725m mountain pass with seemingly unending hairpin bends. |
I plan to return to Puerto Maldonado next week with one
assistant to make operational the satellite telemetry, commission it with the
2.4m satellite antenna with Intelsat and complete phase 2 of 3 of our site security
system installation (i.e. siren, strobe, CCTV cameras with video images linked back
to Curahuasi via satellite).
Thank you for your ongoing support partnering with us in
this good work.
Chris
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