CQ …. CQ …. CQ …. A52AA Calling from the Land of the Thunder Dragon, Come in….

Beginning this morning, a HAM Radio operator from the US of A will start broadcasting SSB HAM Radio voice signals from Jambayang Hotel in Thimphu. He is provably the first HAM Radio operator to operate from Bhutan - after the legendary “ZORO” - Mr. Yasuo Miyazawa of Japan went “Silent Key” in March of 2022. Zoro maintained a permanent Ham Radio Shack at the Royal Thimphu College from where he operated Ham Radio to the delight of Hams around the world, whenever he was in Bhutan.

A52AA arrives Bhutan and begin operations as of today

A SAARC HAM Radio Member operator based in Guwahati, India announces to the world the arrival in Bhutan and operation of HAM Radio by A52AA

Bhutan’s first HAM Radio Shack - called a QTH in HAM parlance. It was located at Wirelesspang, above Dechenchholing Palace. It became operational in 1954-55. For the first time Bhutan sent out HAM radio signals in 1954 from a place called Rida in Wangduephodrang. The operator was N. Chawna, a wireless instructor in the employ of the Royal Government of Bhutan.

Ham Radio is a form of wireless communications that is so versatile and efficient that one can operate it from the top of Mount Everest - or the middle of Atlantic/Pacific Ocean. It is one communications system that will never go down - when every other communications is down. It is a critical communications mode and system that is first to report world’s most devastating calamities, from the remotest of locations. In times of emergencies, this is the communications of choice - without parallel.

When every form and method of communications was blocked and disbanded, His Majesty Palden Thondup Namgyal, 12th and last Chhogyel of Sikkim used HAM Radio communications system that was installed inside his Palace, to inform the world community that his Kingdom was being besieged by India, in 1975.

https://yesheydorji.blogspot.com/2011/11/normal-0-false-false-false_18.html

I have been trying to get Bhutan to train people in the use of this mode of communications. This is critically important for us - given our land-locked geographical positioning. Sadly, no one is interested.