Intended activation of Myanmar

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By Simon HS0ZIB

After one year of discrete discussions with senior officials within the Myanmar Ministry of Post & Telecommunications, and the Ministry of Tourism, I have received an invitation to visit Myanmar (from my nearby QTH in Thailand), and to operate a PSK31 ‘micro’ DXpedition for about 4 days from the historic city of Bagan.

This operation is intended to be an initial demonstration station, and my plans for regular, ‘low-profile’ PSK DXpeditions from different tourist locations within Myanmar have been warmly received.

The initial operation would be on 20 metres only, using about 50 watts output power into a PAR wire antenna. Whilst some may scoff at such a micro station, others will be fully aware that a small station of this type can easily achieve global contacts. In any case, I hope that this will be the first of many micro DXpeditions by me to Myanmar, (I live about 3 hours car drive from the border of south Myanmar).

It is possible that the date for my visit will be very soon. Although the costs involved in organising this little trip are fairly low, I would very much appreciate some financial assistance from any interested organisations or individuals, (of course, all expenses incurred etc will be fully documented on a dedicated web-site). Right now, I’m waiting on an estimate of the overall costs from my Myanmar contacts.

I’m keeping my fingers very much crossed that this will all come to fruition

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By Simon HS0ZIB

UPDATE: No good news as yet. I was in Myanmar twice last month and I’ll pop over next week also, but I cannot say that I have made any progress in getting the licence. Lots of encouraging words from my contacts but no concrete progress. I’m going to use another contact to try to ‘wangle’ an inroad from a different direction.
[link http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=81373.0]

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By Simon HS0ZIB

March 24, 2012 — I’ve posted before about my efforts to get a licence for operating a DXpedition to Myanmar. Whilst those efforts seem to have produced little direct results so far, it has meant that I’ve spent more time in Myanmar over the past few months, and have been able to assess the general business and operating environment, especially in the very far south of the country at Kawthaung, which is only a few hour’s drive from my QTH in Thailand.

The long and short of this is that my wife and I have decided to ‘take the plunge’ and to build a small hotel/resort in Kawthaung, to compliment the several that we already own in Phuket. My wife will continue to manage our Phuket hotels and I’ll be based a few hundred km away in Myanmar at our new resort.

As the Myanmar government takes steps towards democracy, the Foreign Business Law has just been updated to encourage more foreigners to own businesses in Myanmar.

Our plan is to construct our resort with the major intent to use it as a permanent, licenced amateur radio station, and we will pursue this aim with the relevant authorities. Kawthaung is 2,000km away from the ‘trouble spots’ in north Myanmar (drug smuggling, ethnic fighting etc), and the feedback that I’m getting from those with contacts in the government is that obtaining a permanent amateur radio licence should not be impossible. I would hope that visiting amateurs can operate the resort station.

I return to Myanmar in a week or so to view building land and other relevant details.

Now here is the important point! This proposed project is beyond my own financial means, especially since I’ve just financed a guesthouse in Phuket. Therefore, I will invite all radio amateurs to become shareholders in this new venture. I will not give the full details on this forum, because it is a commercial venture – I’ll set up a separate website for this purpose.

This post is therefore just a ‘heads up’ to announce our plans and to invite comments, advice and questions

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Stand by for some VERY good news about XZ within the next few days…