A change of satellite for Diospi Suyana and plans to return to Peru

Saturday 15 November 2025

It’s been nearly 3 years since my last post in February 2023. Quite a bit has happened and there has been a recent significant development for Diospi Suyana radio with a forced satellite change. So I believe this is a long overdue update.

As a family we have been going well in Perth (can’t believe we have been here for going on 4 years now in fact). Everyone is involved in life, meaning either study, work, church and sport. Sometimes we even get a break to rest and play! 😊

On political front in Peru, the unrest has continued in waves since we were last there. In recent time the first female president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, became one of the worlds least popular leaders and on 10 October was impeached after some 3 years in office. Her tenure was marked by scandals, protests, and a rise in crime, leading to a unanimous impeachment vote in Congress based on "permanent moral incapacity". There have now been 7 presidents in Peru in as many years, all removed for similar reasons as the latest impeachment. Since then, a state of emergency has been declared in Lima due to increased crime. Tragically, the downward spiral of corruption in Peru’s politics seems to be without resolve any time soon.

To Diospi Suyana now (refreshing by comparison to Peru’s political stage), things have continued to prosper on all fronts. The Christian music festival that Diospi Suyana holds at the end of April every year in the hospital auditorium since our last visit in 2023, with a host of bands and predominantly young music goers has now grown to some 5,000. They pilgrimage from all over North and South Americas for the 3-day concert. Here is a Facebook link to the event: https://www.facebook.com/festivaldiospisuyana/

Regarding the Centro de Medios (the broadcast centre), there have been 3 new FM sites added which brings the total number of Diospi Suyana radios sites to 12. As a recap, here is a list of all the broadcast sites now:

 Original rollout (2016 to 2019):

1. Abancay
2. Andahuaylas
3. Casabamba
4. Curahuasi (FM & TV)
5. Echarati
6. Puerto Maldonado
7.  Puno

Our last visit (2023):

1. Cusco
2. Urcos

Subsequent sites (up to current):

1. Anta
2. Ayachucho
3. Sicuani

The 12 FM sites now reach over 2 million people 24 x 7 with our message of hope for a people that is suffering in so many ways. Not to mention the government is failing them also, as eluded to in the opening part of this blog. As the Diospi Suyana Centro de Medios team motto goes, "it’s the best message in the world" as it contains the Gospel message of Jesus Christ who is the one and only hope for mankind.

At the end of October, our satellite contract with Intelsat (now SES) ran out and they advised me our incumbent IS-14 satellite is not being replaced. We use the satellite to get our radio signal to the remote FM sites and have been on IS-14 since our first remote radio commencement, Puerto Maldonado FM, in mid-2017. Other forms of signal distribution are unreliable in Peru, and satellite remains the only dependable solution.

Alternative satellites were considered and after considering the technicalities and commercial aspects, we settled on the newer IS-34 which is 10.5° away from IS-14. Meaning repointing all 12 satellite antennas would not be a dramatic change and avoid look angle obstructions at our sites.

IS-34 also will extend coverage to not only Latin America, but also all of North America and Europe! This is a Spanish speaking population of 635,000,000! See Figure 1:  SES IS-32 downlink coverage map below.

 

Figure 1:  SES IS-32 downlink coverage map

However, to change satellite is still no walk in the park for Diospi Suyana as we need to have technicians travel to all 12 sites and repoint the antennas plus change the frequency of all the satellite receivers. This is after we adjust the main site at the Centro de Medios at the Diospi Suyana hospital in Curahuasi. There are a number of critical adjustments to make to the main uplink, and for this I will be helping Diospi Suyana remotely from Perth as I can log into the critical equipment whilst in discussion with the SES Network Operation Centre (NOC) in Miami, USA. Critical adjustments to frequency, level and antenna position (including polarisation) are needed before we achieve permission to transmit on IS-34. And time is of the essence as Diospi will be off the air at the remote sites until the changeover is complete.

Diospi Suyana are so very grateful for my help with this, as they say they would be quite stuck otherwise. The expertise to do this is beyond their team at this point, although they are learning much, and quickly. And exposure to significant changes like this is a great learning opportunity for the team.

The date the changeover has been set to commence on Saturday 22 November (next weekend) Peru time. I have allowed a night to work with the head technician, David, on the ground at the Diospi Suyana Centro de Medios hub.

After success at the hub, they will set out for the week to visit all 11 remote sites to complete the satellite changeover. This will take them multiple 1,000s of kms by road. Please pray for their safety as driving in Peru is a precarious undertaking in itself due to crazy drivers who speed and cut corners combined with dangerous roads. There also no policing on their highways which exacerbates these problems.

This will hopefully get all of the Diospi Suyana radio sites up and going again well before the end of November. But the satellite telemetry is excluded from this. The telemetry is a system that reports the status and alarms back to the Centro de Medios studios so action can be taken to address problems quickly and efficiently.

The satellite telemetry is more involved to adjust and requires a higher skill level to commission on the satellite with the SES NOC. As a consequence of this need, I have decided to return to Peru in mid-2026 to revisit all the sites myself and get this system operational again. This will take about 3 weeks to do, and for this extended trip away I have decided to take my youngest son, Solomon. He will be 15 by this time and already stands taller than me! He is a very intelligent young man (a budding chess master) and his Spanish will be infinitely better than mine. He will be an invaluable help and company for me on this trip.

For this we have some leftover funds in our Pioneers Australia mission account. Although not all is covered and we will need to supplement this for our 2026 budget to return.

I appreciate this blog may be a bit technical for some readers, sorry. But hopefully it makes enough sense to bring you all up to speed with what has been happening in Peru and our plans ahead.

Chris