Tag Archives: Don Moore

Portable Antennas for Serious DXing: Don’s Field Tests from Parks to the Open Road (Part 1)

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–who shares the following post:

Two Portable Antennas for Remote DXing (Part One)

By Don Moore

Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

Once upon a time, I had a traditional DX shack with an L-shaped desk and shelves of receivers, radio gadgets, and DX books. Everything I wanted or needed as a DXer was right at hand. Then I retired and was finally able to pursue my lifelong itch for serious travel. But there was no way to carry that DX shack along with me. Fortunately, modern technology was there to help. SDRs are significantly more travel-friendly than my old Sony ICF-2010 (let alone the Drake R-8). Instead of books and bulletins, my DX reference materials are websites and PDF files on my laptop.

I spend several months a year traveling internationally with just a suitcase and knapsack. That doesn’t leave much room for DX equipment. Several years ago I described my approach to vagabond DXing in an article here.

https://swling.com/blog/2019/03/radio-travel-a-complete-sdr-station-for-superb-portable-dxing/

Since writing that article in 2019, I’ve continued to work on making my portable DX shack better and more compact. Recently, I replaced the Elad FDM-S2 with three Airspy HF+ Discovery SDRs. Not only are they smaller and lighter, but I can record three different band segments at once. Next up was rethinking my travel antennas. A wire loop with the Wellbrook ALA-100LN is still, in my opinion, the best travel antenna. But the components are heavy and are now irreplaceable since they are no longer made. So over the summer, I set about testing and comparing both old and new options. But you don’t have to wander the globe for my findings to be useful to you. This can be just as helpful for DXing from a nearby park. That’s how I did my testing.

I spent the past summer staying at an AirBnB in the north Chicago suburbs. I wanted a better location for testing so I checked out parks in the area and finally settled on Preserve Shelter B (42.26797, -87.92208) at the Old School Forest Preserve, east of Libertyville in northern Illinois. The shelter was entirely wood, with standard asphalt shingles (rather than steel), and had no nearby power lines. I made four daytime DXpeditions there to do some utility DXing and to run my tests. Here’s a photo of my setup.

I decided I should rerun the tests at least one other location. So while driving across the US in mid-October, I stopped for a few hours one morning at Park Shelter A (39.11144, -94.86629) in Wyandotte County Park, just west of Kansas City, Kansas. There, I just had a minimum setup.

The Antennas

So, what were the antennas I was testing? The first was the tried-and-true PA0RDT mini-whip from Roelof Bakker. The PA0RDT is described in my 2019 article and is probably the most portable quality antenna you can get. To power it I use a battery box and eight rechargeable lithium-ion AA cells.

 For the traveling DXer, setting up the PA0RDT is as easy as it comes. I just attach the coax cable and throw it over a support, such as a picnic shelter beam or a tree branch.

But I’ve always believed that the best antenna is another antenna. That is, every antenna works differently, and therefore the more options you have, the more likely you will have something that works well in any situation. So if I wanted to leave the Wellbrook at home, what might complement the PA0RDT? I contacted my friend Mark Taylor, who I knew had a large collection of the various inexpensive Chinese-made amplified loops. With his help, I settled on the MLA-30+ MegaLoop from DmgicPro.

This antenna consists of a steel wire loop that connects to terminals on the amplifier box. The amplifier has a ten-meter coax cable, which in turn is connected to a small bias-T power supply, which gets its power via a USB connection. The MLA-30+ is designed to be used in a permanent installation with some sort of vertical support, such as a PVC pipe. Some users replace the wire loop with copper tubing.

Those options aren’t practical for me, and simply hanging the antenna from the top would cause the steel loop to stretch and deform. So I came up with the idea of tying a strong cord from the top to the bottom of the loop so that the cord, and not the loop, bears the weight. To hang the antenna, I throw the cord over the support, attach the antenna, and then pull it up into place. That works well if you have rear support to hold it in place, such as the beams of a picnic shelter.

It’s a bit more difficult to mount the MLA-30+ in a tree.

Comparing the Antennas

I ran comparisons between the antennas several times at Old School Forest Preserve and then again at Wyandotte County Park. The results were practically the same every time. The images below were made at Old School unless otherwise stated.

The PA0RDT was designed to be a good performer on longwave and medium wave. Unsurprisingly, it shows a lot of signals on the upper end of the medium wave band, even during the daytime. Except for being non-directional, the PA0RDT is an excellent MW antenna.

The MLA-30+, on the other hand, isn’t good for much beyond hearing the strongest local signals on medium wave.

When I ran these tests in the late morning, WWV on 5 MHz was the only signal in the 60-meter band. It had a very listenable signal on the PA0RDT.

But on the MLA-30+, WWV was barely there.

Likewise on 49 meters, CFRX on 6070 kHz was very clear on the PA0RDT but barely listenable on the MLA-30+. But when I moved up to 31 meters, the difference between the antennas mostly disappeared, as in these images made in Kansas. The PA0RDT is top and the MLA-30+ on the bottom.

On 25 meters, the PA0RDT is picking up a lot of noise and the signals are not that strong. Nor were signals very strong on 19, 16, 0r 13 meters.

However, on 25 meters with the MLA-30+ there isn’t much noise and the signals are booming in. And 19, 16, and 13 meters likewise had strong signals.

So the PA0RDT is clearly the best antenna for MW and the lower shortwave bands, but it doesn’t do as well on the higher bands. This wasn’t a surprise to me as I’ve always felt that the PA0RDT underperformed above nine or ten Megahertz. The MLA-30+ was abysmal at the lower frequencies but worked better or just as well in the middle and higher shortwave bands. The best antenna is another antenna. Each one performs better in different situations. But I couldn’t help but wonder … was the problem with the MLA-30+ that small steel wire loop?

Look for Don’s Part 2 article next weekend on the SWLing Post!

From Missouri to Oklahoma: Discovering America’s Secure Nets on 5140 kHz

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–who shares the following post:

Icom IC-756 Pro Transceiver DialThe Missouri and Oklahoma Secure Nets

By Don Moore

Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

I’m always looking for new stations to add to my logbook, and the more unusual, the better.  So I was intrigued by a pair of messages in the Utility DXers Forum (https://www.udxf.nl/) email group in mid-August. Steve Handler posted a list of emergency station call signs from the state of Missouri that he found on the web in a 2014 emergency plan document. Then Jack Metcalfe responded that the last time he had checked, in early 2024, they ran a regularly scheduled net on 5140 kHz.

I immediately sent an email to Jack to find out more. He answered that on Wednesdays the Oklahoma State Secure Net had been doing a check-in at 0900 local time and that the Missouri State Secure Net followed at 0930 local time. Both of these started on 5140 kHz and then moved to 7477 kHz.

Going After the Secure Nets

I was spending my summer at an Airbnb in the north suburbs of Chicago. It wasn’t a good place to DX from, but I had already found a good listening site at the Old School Forest Preserve near Libertyville, Illinois. I began a series of regular Wednesday morning listening sessions. I knew that this wasn’t the best time of year for reception on lower frequencies, but I wanted to give it a try.

All I got from the Oklahoma net was a few very weak and unreadable signals. From the Missouri net, I got two loggings of the net control station, WNBE830, and of WQKX373 in St. Charles County. Two other Missouri stations did check in, but they were too weak for me to copy the call signs. They did say that the net is only on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. And there was nothing on 7477 kHz, so they apparently stick to 5140 kHz only now.

Recording of WNBE830 as heard on 5140 kHz at 1430 UTC on 03 September 2025, as heard in Old School Forest Preserve:

In mid-September, I left Chicago to visit my daughter in western Colorado. While I was planning my return drive back east along I-70, I realized that I would be spending the night of Tuesday, October 14, somewhere around Kansas City. And that meant I would be in the area the next morning for the third Wednesday of the month. I made plans for another mini DXpedition.

I found a hotel in the west suburbs and the next morning headed to a picnic shelter in nearby Wyandotte County Park for another remote DX session with my Airspy HF+ Discovery SDRs and PA0RDT mini whip. It was an excellent location. I logged five stations participating in the Oklahoma net. During the initial chitchat before the roll call, it was mentioned that some of the participants were at a conference. I might have gotten more stations if it hadn’t been for that. The Missouri net, on the other hand, did not make an appearance even though it was the third Wednesday.

Recording of roll call in the Oklahoma State Secure Net on 5140 kHz at 1407 UTC on October 15, 2025, as heard in Wyandotte County Park.

How To Log the Secure Nets

I didn’t hear as many new stations as I had hoped, but then I was listening in late summer and early autumn. There had already been several hours of daylight before the net started, which isn’t the best for propagation on the lower shortwave frequencies. The northern hemisphere is moving into winter, and as that happens, sunrise times will move later. And that will allow 5140 kHz to be heard at greater distances during the timeslot these nets are on. If you can hear WWV on 5 MHz in mid-morning in mid-winter at your location, you should have a chance at these.

The nets are on at 0900 and 0930 local (Central) time. When I was tuning in, that was 1400 and 1430 UTC, but when the US goes off of Daylight Savings Time on November 2nd, that changes to 1500 and 1530 UTC. From what one of the Oklahoma stations said, it sounded like the Oklahoma net is on every Wednesday. The Missouri net did say only first and third Wednesdays, but according to Jack Metcalfe, it was weekly some years ago. And for some reason, they weren’t on the third Wednesday of October.

I’m going to be spending the next four months traveling in Southeast Asia, so I won’t be DXing these again until I return to Chicago for a short visit in March. But hopefully some of you reading this in North America will try to hear these networks, too. Given that there is some question as to which Wednesdays these networks take place, I suggest setting up your SDR to make a spectrum recording including 5140 kHz every Wednesday at 1400/1500 UTC for the next few months. And let me know what you hear by dropping me a message to Don AT DonMooreDXer DOT com. If I get enough good information, I’ll put together an update to this article.

And that brings up something else. Do you know of any other regularly scheduled utility voice networks on shortwave like this one? Over twenty years ago, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Aviation Administration had weekly voice nets, but those are long gone.

Please post what you know in the comments or send me an email to the above address.

Oklahoma Secure Net Stations

On logs going back to 2005, these are the stations that Jack Metcalfe has heard participating in the net.

  • KNBV428 Santa Fe, NM
  • KNFG267 Oklahoma City, OK (normal net control)
  • KNGR728 Rush Springs, OK
  • WGY926 Oklahoma City, OK
  • WNBM839 Stillwater, OK
  • WNCH624 Department of Emergency Management, Tulsa, OK
  • WNPV700 Durant, OK
  • WNUW211 Oklahoma City, OK
  • WNUW212 Department of Emergency Management, Shawnee, OK
  • WNUW213 Department of Emergency Management, Altus, OK
  • WNUW215 Ponca City, OK
  • WNUW216 Oklahoma City, OK
  • WNUW217 Ardmore, OK
  • WPBV938 Beaver, OK (Beaver County EOC)
  • WPFY721, Oklahoma Emergency Management Agency EOC at the National Guard Armory, Seminole, OK
  • WQSY836 Byng, OK

My logs include three more stations either participating in or being unsuccessfully called.

  • WQYW833 Unknown location
  • WQZT582 Broken Arrow
  • WSHM692 Oklahoma City

Missouri Secure Net

Stations Jack Metcalfe has logged.

  • WNBE830 Ike Skelton Training Center, Jefferson City, MO (net control)
  • WNUW240 Missouri EMA, Jefferson City, MO
  • WQKE203 Missouri Dept of Transportation, Jefferson City, MO
  • WQOI753 Missouri Dept of Transportation, Hannibal, MO
  • WQOI754 Missouri Dept of Public Safety, Sikeston, MO
  • WQOJ557 Missouri State Police Radio Shop, Jefferson City, MO
  • WQOL350 Missouri Dept of Public Safety, Chesterfield, MO
  • WQOL459 Missouri Dept of Transportation, Lee’s Summit, MO

I heard one additional station:

  • WQKX373 St. Charles County, MO

Next listed are the stations Steve Handler found listed in the 2014 edition, Appendix 2, Section 2.22 of the 2014 Emergency Operations Plan. This plan was publicly posted by the City of Battlefield at the following URL:

https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/4319/CBM/3591786/complete_emergency_operations_plan.pdf

  • KNNT320 Boonville, MO
  • KNNT321 Greenwood, MO
  • WNUW238 Battlefieldd, MO
  • WNBE824 Jackson, MO
  • WNBE825 Rock Port, MO
  • WNBE826 Lee’s Summit, MO
  • WNBE827 Macon, MO
  • WNBE828 St. Louis, MO
  • WNBE829 Springfield, MO
  • WNBE830  Jefferson City, MO
  • WNBE831 Poplar Bluff, MO
  • WNBE832 St. Joseph, MO
  • WNBE833 Willow Springs, MO
  • WNBE834 Raytown, MO
  • WNBE835 St. Charles, MO
  • WNBE836 Hillsboro, MO
  • WNBE837 Neosho, MO
  • WNUS448 Union, MO 64084
  • WNWU734 St. Joseph, MO
  • WPCY526 Kansas City, MO
  • WPBN258 Kirkwood, MO
  • WNZJ459   Belton, MO
  • WPES740  Camdenton, MO
  • WPGA369 Fort Leonard Wood, MO
  • WPKX561 Hermann, MO

According to the same document, the net is authorized to use the following frequencies. Under 7477 kHz, there is a note that the station uses 1000 watts during the day and 250 watts at night.

2326, 2411, 2414, 2419, 2439, 2463, 5140, 5192, 7477, 7802, 7805, and 7935 kHz.

A big thanks to Jack Mecalfe for his assistance with this and to Steve Handler for making the initial post that drew my interest. 

Taming the Noise: Don Moore’s Simple, Cheap Filter Solution for Traveling DXers

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–who shares the following post:

A Cheap and Simple Noise Filter

By Don Moore

Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

My DXing career started over fifty years ago in an upstairs bedroom in tiny Milesburg, Pennsylvania. I had a consumer-grade multi-band radio and some copper wire strung from the roof to a nearby tree.  It was a simple setup but it worked very well. Do you know what I didn’t have? A noise problem. The only time I remember noise ruining my DX was when my mother was using the electric mixer and that meant she was making cookies or a cake. I never complained.

Times have changed, haven’t they? What DXer doesn’t complain about noise these days? I know people who have left the hobby because the place they lived at and DXed at for decades gradually became so noisy they couldn’t DX anymore.

Unsurprisingly, a lot has been written about how to find and eliminate noise in your home. However, most of my DXing is done as I wander the globe. I try to find places to stay at that should be good for DXing. But no matter how good a place looks beforehand, there’s no way of knowing what the noise level will be until I get there.

As a traveling DXer, I need quick, easy, and compact noise solutions. The best solution I’ve found are these CCTV distortion filters (ground loop isolators) that Brett Saylor recommended to me several years ago.

No, these weren’t designed for radio use. And they aren’t a miracle solution that will eliminate all the noise that plagues DXers. Sometimes they’re no use at all. But I’ve DXed in dozens of locations over the past ten years and there have been multiple occasions where one of these filters has turned what would have been a disappointing stay into a good DX session. I don’t go anywhere without two of these packed in my mobile DX shack.

But let me show you some results. All of these SDR screenshots were made with SDR-Console using an Airspy HF+ Discovery SDR connected to a PA0RDT mini-whip antenna.

I spent last summer in the north suburbs of Chicago and several times went to a park to test my DX equipment. Around midday, the lower shortwave frequencies were filled with noise peaks. On this first image, it’s hard to pick out WWV on 5 MHz from all the noise peaks. In the second image the filter hasn’t totally eliminated the noise, but WWV’s signal is now strong and clear.

The noise was nearly as strong on 49 meters but the filter almost totally eliminated it. CFRX’s signal on 6070 kHz was slightly weaker with the filter, but it was significantly more listenable without the noise.

Which frequencies noise affects can vary between locations. At that park the noise was gone above about 11 MHz.  While traveling across the US in mid-October, I stopped at a park just west of Kansas City to do some more DXing and equipment tests.  The noise there was bad in the middle shortwave bands, such as in the 25 meter band.

But the filter did a good job cleaning it up.

Finally, about two years ago when I was DXing in Rafina, Greece, the noise was bad on the higher bands. Here are before and after screen shots on the 16-meter band.

These filters should work with any coax-fed antenna. I’ve used them with beverages, Wellbrook loops, the PA0RDT, and the MLA-30+ loop. If the antenna has an interface, such as the last three mentioned, the filter goes between the interface and your receiver (and not between the interface and the antenna).  I’m not sure what the impedance on these is, but I’ve used them with both 50- and 75-ohm coax cable.

Sources of the Filters

An Internet search for “CCTV Ground Loop Isolator” brings up all kinds of products. They are probably all the same but I have no way of knowing that. So I recommend getting the exact ones that I have purchased. Just compare the product to the pictures of mine.

Here are links to three current sources for these exact ones on Amazon. They can also be found on eBay and other sites. [Note that all of these links are affilliate links that support the SWLing Post at no cost to you.]

A Few More Ideas

At just a couple dollars each, every DXer should have a few of these filters in their shack. But types of noise vary and at several places I’ve DXed from using one of these filters made no difference at all. When that happens I have a few other solutions to try.

The first thing I try is to either move the antenna or, if it’s directional, to point it in a different direction. On several occasions that’s all it has taken to totally eliminate what at first seemed like an impossible noise problem.

If the noise is coming in through the power lines, unplugging the laptop and DXing off of battery power might do it. (I only use SDRs powered off the USB connections on my laptop.)  If you do that, be sure to unplug the cord from the outlet and move it away from the wall.  If you unplug the cord from the laptop and leave the other end plugged into the outlet, it may act as an antenna and radiate the noise from the power lines into your SDR. And, yes, I learned that lesson the hard way!

Do you have any interesting experiences or solutions to the DX noise problem? Please leave them in the comments section. 

New SDR Recordings from Peru and Brazil Now Available via Don Moore

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Our good friend and longtime contributor Don Moore has just updated his extensive SDR recordings archive with new files from his recent travels in South America. These latest recordings—captured in Peru (February) and southern Brazil (May)—are now available to explore and download.

Don writes:

I have a webpage where most of the SDR recordings from my travels are available for download. I just added files made in Peru in February and in the far south of Brazil in May. This archive is mostly medium wave. I hope they give other DXers a chance to hear what the dial sounds like in other parts of the world. They could also be useful as a way to compare possible IDs, ads, and other programming with what you hear in your own DXing.

You can browse and download the recordings directly via Don’s archive here:

https://www.donmooredxer.com/logs/loglinks.html

Many thanks, Don, for sharing these with the SWLing Post community!

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Guatemala (Part Seven) – Radio Maya de Barillas

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Image: Radio Maya via Facebook

Don Moore’s Photo Album:
Guatemala (Part Seven) – Radio Maya de Barillas

by Don Moore

More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

Given the subject of this final part you might assume that I eventually did make it to Barillas and get to visit Radio Maya. I wish it were so, but no. When writing part six of this series I tried to find a few interesting links about Radio Maya to include. I came across a 38-minute video about the history of the station issued on its 50th anniversary in 2012. The video is a series of still photos (most very old) narrated in Kanjobal.

Actually I’m assuming that it’s Kanjobal as that is the Mayan language spoken in Barillas. I don’t speak Kanjobal, but the Mayan languages use Spanish for numbers, dates, and modern ideas such as technical terms. Between the Spanish words and the context provided by the photographs, I was able to somewhat understand the video. Instead of expecting you to watch the 38-minute video, I’ve copied the most interesting pictures below. (I don’t think you want to see pictures of all the people involved over the years.)

Beginnings

There had been an Evangelical mission in Barillas since the mid-1950s. The name of whoever decided to put a radio station in Barillas is lost to history. But, like Father John Rompa of the Catholic station La Voz de Nahualá, they realized that radio was the best way to reach the Mayan people scattered across remote mountain towns and villages. Also lost to history is why they picked a place as remote as Barillas. Not only was the town at the end of the road, but in the early 1960s the last stretch of road wasn’t even drivable. Hauling in equipment for the new broadcaster was a challenge.

Here a man carries part of the transmitter on his back:

The transmitter eventually arrived in Barillas on an oxcart:

In these next two pictures about two dozen men haul the generator over a rough stretch of road:

The original building in 1962:

The next step was putting up the antenna. Here villagers prepare to erect a wooden pole as a center support for the antenna wires:

One of two shorter poles to hold up the lower ends of the wire:

When the pole was in place a very brave (or foolhardy?) man climbed to the top to attach the wires:

The finished tower. The antenna wires, attached at the top, aren’t visible. The lower wires are for support:

From its beginnings until the late 1970s, Radio Maya de Barillas only broadcast on 2360 kHz with this 250-watt transmitter. Later a one-kilowatt transmitter was added for 3325 kHz.

Installing the generator:

The Radio Maya studio in the 1960s:

Getting Bigger

In 1969 a plot of land was purchased on the edge of town and over the next three years a new building was constructed with help from American missionaries. Continue reading →

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Guatemala (Part Six) – Huehuetenango

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:

default

Don Moore’s Photo Album:
Guatemala (Part Six) – Huehuetenango

by Don Moore

More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

I first heard of Huehuetenango in February 1974. I had gotten my first serious receiver, a Barlow-Wadley XCR-30, a few weeks earlier. Now I could try for stations in the 120-meter band. The first one I heard was Radio Maya de Barillas on 2360 kHz from a place named Barillas in Guatemala. And Santa Cruz de Barillas (the town’s full official name) was in a department named Huehuetenango. The name sounded exotic and magical.

In my mind, Radio Maya de Barillas was the ultimate DX target. The Evangelical Protestant station used a tiny amount of power in 120-meters, the shortwave band that provided the most challenge to DXers. The programs were in Mayan languages with mostly hard-to-pronounce names. And my map showed that Barillas was literally at the end of the road. There was nowhere to go beyond Barillas.

That sense of Huehuetenango being on the edge of civilization was totally correct. The department contains the rugged Cuchumatanes mountains, the highest non-volcanic mountains in Central America. It’s the only place in Central America where it’s too cold to grow corn. Instead, people get by raising sheep and planting potatoes. The mountains explain why eight different Mayan languages (belonging to three different language families) are spoken in this one department. Steep rugged mountains are a barrier to communication. A lack of communication causes a common language to diverge into multiple languages over just a few centuries.

The Mam, numbering about half a million, are the fourth largest Mayan group in Guatemala and their homeland extends into other departments in the south. But the other seven languages are only found in Huehuetenango with maybe a little spillover across the borders. The largest of those is Kanjobal, spoken by about 80,000 people today. The Tectiteco (Tektik) number just a little over two thousand.

As noted on the back of my QSL from Radio Maya de Barillas, that station broadcast in six of the region’s languages, including Mam and Kanjobal, the language spoken in and around the town of Barillas. For about a decade Radio Maya was the only radio station to broadcast in the region’s languages. Then in 1975 the Roman Catholic church opened an educational station, Radio Mam, in Cabricán to the south in Quetzaltenango department. But Radio Mam only broadcast in the Mam language. (And, unfortunately, I never got to visit the station.)

Visiting Huehuetenango (or not)

When I was traveling to Guatemala while living in Honduras in the early 1980s, one of my goals was to visit as many Guatemalan shortwave stations as possible. Yet I never once considered going to Barillas. Sure, I knew that the dirt road from the town of Huehuetenango to Barillas was one of the worst in Central America and that the bus ride took twelve hours. That wasn’t going to stop me.

 What stopped me from visiting Radio Maya was that Barillas was right in the middle of the area of the heaviest fighting between the government and the guerrillas. This may surprise you if you’ve read the previous parts of this series, but there really were some things back then that I knew better than to do. Going into the worst part of a war zone was one. The closest I came to Barillas was passing through the southern part of the department on the Pan-American Highway on my way to Mexico in December 1984. That was just a few weeks after a guerilla band had ventured south and blown up four bridges on the road. Continue reading →

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Guatemala (Part Five) – Visiting Nahualá

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:

Santo Tomas Church, Chichicastenango, Guatemala (by Lucía García González via Wikimedia Commons)

Don Moore’s Photo Album: 
Guatemala (Part Five) – Visiting Nahualá

More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

After my first attempt to visit La Voz de Atitlán failed in June 1983, I turned my sights northward. The next morning in Panajachel I boarded a bus bound for Guatemala City but got off when the bus reached the main highway at the Los Encuentros intersection. A few minutes later I caught a ride on a ‘chicken bus’ headed north to my first destination of the day – Chichicastenango.

Chichicastenango is not a town that DXers would be familiar with but anyone who has seriously traveled around Guatemala has surely been there at least once. The outdoor markets held on Thursday and Sunday are among the largest in all of Central America. Guatemala has dozens of towns with long names ending in …tenango, meaning “place of.” Chichicastenango is the place of the chichicaste plant, in reference to a thorny bush that grows in the area. Most of the time people just call the town Chichi as it’s common to drop the tenango part from names when speaking.

For over five hundred years, Quiché Mayans from the surrounding area have been coming here twice weekly for the market held in the plaza in front of the Santo Tomás church. The steps to the church are always filled with flower vendors and men swinging containers of incense.

In the early days of the Spanish conquest, Catholic churches were often built on the sites already holy to the Indians. It was a clever way to get the newly forced converts to come to mass. In the case of Santo Tomás, however, they unknowingly picked a location of major spiritual importance in the Mayan religion. As a result many Mayan ceremonies involving nature and natural gods have survived in this area. Some became intertwined with Catholic practices while others were practiced in secret for centuries until it finally became safe to bring them out into the open again.

It was only June but I did my Christmas shopping that day and mailed everything home from Guatemala City a few days later. Guatemala’s post office was very reliable. Everything arrived safely in less than two weeks.

On to Nahualá

With my purchases packed in my now very heavy bag, I got on the next bus heading south and once again got out at Los Encuentros. This time I was looking for any bus heading west. I wasn’t going too far. A few minutes later a bus bound for Quetzaltenango stopped and I got on, telling the driver’s assistant that I wanted to get off at Nahualá.

I knew Nahualá was in the northwest corner of Sololá department a little way off the Pan-American Highway but I was surprised when about an hour later the bus stopped next to a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. I gave the driver’s assistant a puzzled look when he told me this was my stop. He explained that they could leave me off further down the highway where the road to Nahualá branched off. But it would be a long walk from there. From here, the walk was only about ten minutes. There was a well-worn path leading upwards through the cornfield, so I took him at his word. Continue reading →