I operated from San Andres Island during the first week of March of 2017. San Andres is a very small island in the Caribbean closer to Nicaragua than to Colombia, but I guess politics played in, and now it´s Colombian territory. Nicaragua actually claims it is their territory every time they need a scandal to keep their minds off the turmoil politics, but then again, nothing really happens.
The photo on the left is actually an islet less than a mile away in front of San Andres called Johnny Cay (pronounced Johnny Key).
The language is creole, which in San Andres is a mixture of Spanish, English and French creole. When you hear them speak you begin to understand but just when you think you know creole, you are left scratching your head!
Arriving
A tour of the island from above.
Had a few .. just a few “cervezas” while on the Island… what was I talking about?
Is it nice? Hell yeah!
Dinner… seafood anyone?
If you think I’m annoying when I bring my cell phone to the table, imagine me working on my laptop during dinner? The weather was fine on San Andres Island, Colombia. Made a few HK0/WJ2O earlier that night.
Will and I were doing the Gentry, Tim was just getting held up!
Actually this is Will. AA4NC. We managed to log 14,519 qsos!
So this is why San Andres is actually Colombia, despite being located practically in front of Nicaragua. They kinda have a territorial dispute, but it goes something like this: light blue is Colombia, red used to be Colombia, dark blue almost Colombia. Get it? Numbers are just there to confuse you, don´t pay any attention to them
Getting a license was easy. Tim, LU9EOC was in charge of HKØ licensing and he got in contact with Rob – HK3CW, who did all our paper work in Bogotá with the Ministry of Communications (which I walked by a week later in Bogotá). I only needed my American license, a letter stating who, when, where and how and my U.S. passport. Each operator got a HKØ/ license and temporary permission to operate 5JØNA. If you want to operate from San Andres Island try to file your request a few months before (at least three) as the Ministry always takes a little time to issue your paperwork.
Below is actual front page of the license . . . Tim,LU9EOC and Bill, AA4NC, and I, Wj2O were all included in the license.
Equipment:
Elecraft K3 Transceiver
Toshiba Satellite Laptop
160 Meter Dipole and the K3’s tuner
We operated as 5JØNA in San Andrés Island, NA-033. My partners were Tim, LW9EOC and WIll, AA4NC.
We were active on 160-6m CW, SSB and RTTY and in the ARRL DX SSB Contest.
I came in first through Bogotá and then traveled to San Andres. Same thing back, all the way to Bogotá and back to the U.S.
