Photo is of the Buddhist H.H. Dalai Lama, originally from Lhasa, Tibet TAR, now living in exile in India, a few km south of the Nepal border. Buddhists believe blessings come from looking at his photo.

9N7UD is the call sign assigned to Charly Harpole during his visits to Nepal while he is making a documentary film about Buddhism. Charly's earlier Nepal call sign, 9N1UD, which he used in 1997 and 1998 in Kathmandu, has been changed to 9N7UD because now (1999) foreign hams are given a "7" and native citizens are assigned the series of 1 through 5 depending on the geography of their home address in Nepal.

Charly's USA call sign is K4VUD; search qrz.com under K4VUD for more information. For American hams traveling to Nepal, the licensing is recipriocal but a hefty fee must be paid to the Nepal government for the ticket.*** Charly's host in Nepal is 9N1AA, Satish, the father of ham radio in Nepal. (9N1MM was the grandfather!!) Satish uses a donated Yaesu FT-757GX, PK-232, and a Force-12 C-4 that was donated by the Northern California DX Foundation, shipping cost donated by Mike Zak, and the antenna carried there by Charly in his airline luggage packed in a golf bag! Satish's home in on the banks of the sacred Bagamanti River in Kathmandu. The yagi is on a pole above his fourth floor home roof. Satish like RTTY best and often works hundreds of RTTY contacts on 10 meters.

Satish and Charly are co-sponsors of the effort to establish a Nepal club station with the call sign of 9N1MM in honor of Father Moran, the first and for years, only, guy on the air from Nepal. This club station will serve both as a training ground for new Nepali hams and as a place for foreign guest operators to get on the air quickly. Contact Satish or Charly if you wish to donate any gear or $$$ to the 9N1MM station. Charly's last visit to Kathmandu (Spring 1999) saw him install a fan 20/15 m dipole at 90 feet from the huge neon sign atop the Khumbila Hotel on a ridge in Kathmandu. The antenna worked great and taught Charly the value of a really high dipole! He also put up a long wire but propagation limited his 40 and 80 efforts. This trip (of four he has made), Charly used an ICOM 706MkII barefoot. In 2004, tiny Nepal experienced political and violent unrest, sometimes putting ham radio on standby (often continuing into 2009). LA7JO, as 9N7JO, gave out thousands of 9N contacts but no longer lives there.

Charly gladly offers advice about how to obtain visiting/foreign ham operations.

Check Charly's Web page at unchainedheart.org or k4vud@hotmail.com

Rev: 9N7UD - Wed Nov. 25, 2009