Chile Ham Activity

I have had the great privilege of operating in Chile since 2008.  

I have operated in Vina del Mar, Chile a beautiful seaside city of 350,000 people. I typically take along my Icom radio and a Force 12 multi-band vertical dipole - the Sigma 40xk. The vertical dipole is visible in the photo to the left in the center of the hotel. The picture of this hotel looks like a ship - and every room has an ocean front view. I took this photo of the sun setting to the west toward Valparaiso, Chile.

I try to operate in the hour or two before sunset to take advantage of terminator line propagation into EU and then the USA. I do mainly CW from the hotel room which places me at the top of the hotel. The hotel sits out on the Pacific ocean, so the entire station is above saltwater. 

I enjoy 599 reports from all of Europe and the USA when I am on the air. I can also work the West Coast, Asia and the Oceanic regions if I am willing to stay up late enough! Chile is 3 hours different than the central USA in their summer and one hour ahead in our summer. 

I have also operated from Hotel Del Mar just about 1/4 mile north of this hotel. I did the CQ CW WW 2009 there as a single operator all band entry and placed first in Chile for that! The big gun stations all went high power or single band. I operated part time in the CW contest, primarily as part of a science fair experiment for my daughter Ashley who was studying whether predicted propagation would match the actual propagation experienced. It was a neat experiment and she won first place at the regional science fair in Minnesota.

Chile is an easy country to get a reciprocal license.  

I have also worked from the South of Chile in Puerto Varas. This is in the Chilean patagonian region. Propagation is much tougher there than by the Ocean. I would like to try operating from the northern Atacama desert sometime. I am happy to QSL for all QSO's from Chile but my work schedule gets hectic often and I am sometimes slow to reply.