El Yunque

A quick report on my activation of KP4/CE-001 El Yunque on 20th Jan 2025.

This was the closest SOTA summit on my return home from Belize and travelling with a radio through Belize required some coordination with regards licences and permits but on the plus side I managed to operate for a few hours with my new V31 call sign.

I had rented a car from San Juan airport, but there seem to be some excursion companies that serve the area which probably work out cheaper.
I parked at the small Palo Colorado parking lot (“Parking 2” on Google Maps) which was about half full at 0930 on MLK day. The Caimitillo Trail starts about 300 m back down the road at a sign post. The path is steep, and was once tarmac but has been eroded badly in many places and after a short time turns into a well defined rocky path and joins the El Yunque trail which I think is still closed at the start.

The El Yunque trail is also closed off at the top and there is a diversion along the Monte Britton trail and you have to follow the tarmac access road to the summit (the signs said access to the Los Pichachos viewpoint is still possible, but as the summit was in cloud I didn’t bother checking).

There had been a land slip further down the Caimitilo Trail which hadn’t affected the path, but another slip in the future is likely to cause this to be closed off.

The summit was wet and boggy due to the recent rain. I managed to find a spot next to the tower which was reasonably sheltered from the wind, had a rock to sit on and there was an old pipe in the ground which would support the travel pole.

11 contacts were made quickly on 10 m with 5W from the FT817 but after 10 minutes, a further 10 minutes of calling CQ yielded no more contacts. I switched to 15 m and called for 15 minutes without making any contacts, I heard a very weak chaser but he didn’t respond to my reply. I hunted around the band and tried to make contacts with other stations calling CQ while it was spotting with rain but without any success.
As the wind started picking up I cut my losses and started packing up although not fast enough as the heavy rain started again. The radio and batteries went in my bag and I tried hiding in the shelter, although this wasn’t much help as the wind was blowing the rain in though the window openings. I went back out and threw the rest of the kit through one of the other windows and ran back inside to pack up as best as I could, and when the rain eased a little I made my descent. Once off the summit, the wind and rain dropped off significantly.
After a detour to the tower at Monte Britton (with no views due to the cloud) I headed back down to the car, answering lots of “how far is it to the top”, “is there anywhere to get water”, “is the path this muddy all the way” questions from others on the way up, many turned back after not liking my honest answers!

By now it was lunchtime and the car parks were full and the roads choked with cars parked on both sides. I suspect this was because it was a public holiday and it’s normally quieter on a Monday.

I managed to dry most of my kit out somewhat on the beach before heading back to the airport for my flight back to Miami then home to the UK.

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Enjoyed that report - fancy a Welshman getting rained on abroad, eh? :grinning:

I’d be interested in the steps involved with getting a V31 callsign and travelling with your radio gear. If you can, please share any relevant links so that others may follow via search results, etc.

At least it was warm rain.

It’s pretty much as per the most recent posts on QSL.net however my experience was slightly different. I asked for a visitor licence which I was expecting to be V31/M0PJE but I was actually issued with my own regular call sign V31PE.

  1. Drop the PUC an email, contact details are at the bottom of this document Belize Amateur Radio Overview & Exam Information – Belize Public Utilities Commission
  2. You need to email a scan of your passport, current licence and contact details. I wasn’t sure if this was the Ofcom licence document or my HAREC certificate so I sent both.
  3. You need to pay 2 fees - the Belize licence fee and a fee for an import permit. You send the money via Western Union/Moneygram in the name of the contact at the PUC. They pick up the money and deposit it in the relevant bank accounts in Belize and email you the receipts.
  4. Complete the application for the import permit on their online portal. You need to list your equipment (including make/serial number) and upload this with the payment receipt. The PUC will then check and approve this and you can download the permit.
  5. Seperately, your licence will be generated and a copy of your certificate emailed to you. The hard copy can be posted to you (took 3-4 weeks to arrive) or you can collect from the PUC’s office in Belize City.
  6. You need to complete a landing card when you arrive in Belize, but this can now be done online (as of Januaury 2025) and it works really well except when you print a copy the QR code is A4 sized so you have to take a few steps back while they scan it from the booth - save the screenshot on your phone! I listed my FT817 on the customs page but when I went through the goods to declare line they weren’t bothered about it and didn’t want to see my import permit. I would receommend having the paperwork handy though as bringing radio transceivers into the country is banned without a permit.

I didn’t have any intention of operating in Belize, I just needed to carry my radio with me for use elsewhere but I wanted to make sure everything was in order. As it turns out I could have just left everything in my bag and nobody would have asked any questions.

I didn’t get much of a chance to operate while there but felt obliged as I’d been given the call sign. I got about half an hour on some wasteland next to the hotel before a rain storm arrived, and a couple of hours at the second hotel where there was S8-S9 noise on all bands.

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Pete- Greatly enjoyed your activation report. As a kid I spent a lot of time camping in el Yunque — and it always rains. I would sleep on a hammock with a tarp as a fly, in an effort to stay dry. My mates would usually get soaked in their tents… Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

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Haha, isn’t that just typical? Thanks for detailing the steps you took in order to get all the paperwork, it’s very much appreciated. I’ve a feeling we’ll be heading down towards Central and South America this year and from now on my amateur radio gear will be with me as much as my camera gear.

Forgive me for going off at a slight tangent, I wonder if you’ve ever thought about widebanding a transceiver for (legal) use in territories where the band allocation differs from that in our region? My ID-52E was of limited use on a recent trip to the US for exactly that reason, and I believe there are some differences on HF too.