Background
I love Maldives and travel ones or twice a year from 1988. This year, I traveled to the paradise on March 17 to 23. It was the first time to take radio equipments instead of paperbacks.
License
It was very easy to get an amateur radio license in Maldives, 8Q7WB based on Japanese license, JM1WBB. If you hope to get it, please let me know, I will give you a contact person of Maldives telecom office. There are no frequency and no power in the license :)
Kuda Huraa
I stayed at the Four Seasons Maldives at Kuda Huraa (GL: MJ64fh). The resort damaged from the Tsunami in 2005, but it came back at the end of last year as very beautiful place. It’s a great resort for any visitors and is providing stable 230V power.
Equipments
Kenwood TS-50S, AT-50 and Cushcraft R7 (were used for FK/JM1WBB in 1994)
Kuranishi BR-510D SWR analyzer
ThinkPad R32 and DIF-3R3Lplus for CW/Digital mode operation
Results
I made 261 QSOs, 50 entities from Maldives.
7 10 14 18 21 Total
CW 2 2
SSB 1 1 21 23
PSK 6 131 9 63 27 236 inc.JT65B
Total 9 131 10 63 48 261
It was easy to work with EU/AF stations on 17m and 30m PSK31 mode, but it was very difficult with others in the propagation that SSN was Zero!
Conclusion
I enjoyed resort life with radio. PSK31 was especially useful for small setup station. I was calling CQ SSB on 15m at the day one, but my main operation was went to PSK31 on WARC bands because no taker for SSB at many time. I needed a liner amplifier for SSB and low bands.
It had so heavy QRN (maybe Tropical Noise, always S meter had 7 to 9) on 30m and above. TS-50 is very good for DX-vacation but it has no NR system. When going back to Maldives with radio equipments, I have to take Rig that has NR system, e.g. TS-2000.
I took a duralumin pole 5m long, however I couldn’t find a good part of the bungalow
to stably fix it. So I have put up with 3m high. I should have token a mast base, but it would be heavy.
Thank you for looking for me and working with me. I hope to see you again from Maldives and other small islands. Also thanks to Nobuko (7L3PNE) and Tatsuya of my family.
Special thanks to Ms. Mariyam Ivan of Maldives telecom office, Mr. Mohamed Ashraf of the hotel manager.
jm1wbb at jarl.com
