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Bambamarca, Peru

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The following item is taken from Relampago DX by Takayuki Inoue Nozaki. It is placed here with permission.

Por las Rutas del Per� #36...

BAMBAMARCA

Bambamarca is a beautiful and tranquil highland town, which was founded during the independence era of Peru in the early 19th century. Located at 06-45-51 L.'S. and 78-36-57 L.W. in the heart of the Department of Cajamarca, it lies 116 kilometers north of Cajamarca, about five hours by dirt road on the public transportation. The town name is derived from the Quechua words "pampa" and "marca", which together mean "populated plain". In the center of Bambamarca, a lovely white Cathedral and a modern municipal office over the main Plaza de Armas are both appealing. The scattered business district is comprised of several small variety stores and drugstores, four few (just say "four basic hotels" - we do not combine numbers with the word "few") basic hotels, some restaurants and three bus company offices, including Atahualpa, El Peregrino and Palacios. The town is formed by narrow streets, which are flanked by one and two-story buildings of discolored-white adobe or cement block, roofed with reddish brown clay tiles. There is also an interesting local produce market on Sunday. Although it is a little less touristy, (I think it is better here to say "Although it is not very touristy...". When you say "little less" it sounds like you are comparing it to somewhere else. But, you don't mention anywhere else to compare it to. That makes it sound strange.) it has importance to the inhabitants of surrounding villages. As of 1995, it has a growing population of 57,457 inhabitants in the whole district. The majority of the population (80%) live (better than inhabits) in the rural areas and the rest (20%) lives in the urban area. The urban people speak and use Spanish as the official language of Peru, but also understand Quechua-Ca�aris, which is a dialect commonly spoken in the urban area since the ancient times. (Very interesting. Is this the same dialect as the Ca�aris around Cuenca, Ecuador? If you know it is, maybe you might mention that.)

Situated at 2526 meters above sea level, Bambamarca lies in the Valley of Llaucan on the confluence of the Maygasbamba River and the Llaucano River, surrounded by the rugged Cordillera Occidental and Central. It has an ideal climate and an excellent rainfall. The average annual temperature is 16.5 degrees centigrade. Thanks to the perfect climate, Bambamarca is known throughout the region as the agricultural center for growing crops of potato, wheat, barley, carrot and cone. (Cone? I don't understand what you mean hear. Do you mean corn?) Other products of the region are copper, silver and gold, which have been produced in the mining town of Hualgayoc, which lies some kilometers west of Bambamarca. The mine was discovered by Rodrigo de Torres Oca�a in 1772. Afterward the mining town was established on August 25, 1773, based upon an indigenous village called Micuypampa, which was later renamed after the hill of Hualgayoc.

Bambamarca is the capital of the Province of Hualgayoc. The province was officially established on August 24, 1870 in the Department of Cajamarca. The province encompasses 777.15 square kilometers is politically composed of three districts: Bambamarca, Chugur and Hualgayoc. As of 1995, it has 75,806 inhabitants in the whole province.

After visiting two stations in Chota, I hitched a shared taxi in the afternoon on January 2, 1995. The shared taxi, locally called "Comit�" (transportation committee), is the easiest and the most convenient way to take a trip between Bambamarca and Chota. It charged US$1.66 (5 nuevos soles) per passenger for three-hour drive. The other (it is never correct to say "the another") way to go to Bambamarca from Chota is getting buses running between Chiclayo and Cajamarca, which make stops at Chota, Bambamarca and Hualgayoc on the route. According to locals, buses are a little cheaper than the shared taxi. However, it is not usually guaranteed to get a seat depending on how full the bus is. Around at 18:00 local time toward evening, I arrived in Bambamarca. I took a room at Hotel Anaximando Vega near the Plaza de Armas. It charged US$3.90 (8 nuevos soles) per person for a simple room with a bath of cold water. In the room, a candle and a candlestick were placed on the side-desk nearby the bed. At that time, the electricity was supplied by the municipal generator in the evening from 1800 through 2400 local time (i.e. 2300-0500 UTC). Accordingly, some of the variety stores, the government offices and the mineral refining factories have been equipped with their own generator in order to provide themselves the electricity during the day.

During my stay in Bambamarca in January of 1995, I visited three broadcasters, which were in operation on the airwaves at that time: Radio Bambamarca "Frecuencia L�der", Radio Visi�n 2000 and Radio La Voz de San Antonio. I learned by my visit and monitoring that except for Radio Bambamarca "Frecuencia L�der", which transmitted the programming from the morning through the evening with its own diesel generator, the other stations were on the air only in the evening, following the limited schedule of the electricity supply in the town. Since that visit, Bambamarca has continued to develop and change. The most significant development in the local broadcasting scene is that the electricity came to be supplied in the District of Bambamarca and the surrounding villages thanks to the completion of the "Maygasbamba" Hydroelectric Power Station, allowing the local broadcasters to broadcast all day long. Therefore, some of these stations came to be audible in Japan during their morning transmissions. (I moved "in Japan". When it is at the end of the sentence, it sounds like their broadcasts come from Japan!)

Since 1982, when Radio Bambamarca, which broadcast its signal in the vicinity of 5657 kHz, was noticed by Latin American DX enthusiasts, Bambamarca, the capital of the Province of Hualgayoc, has been known as one of the active epicenters of out-of-band-shortwave stations in the Department of Cajamarca. It was in 1982 that the broadcasting activity began to boom in the District of Bambamarca. "Radio Bambamarca Empresa Individual de Responsabilidad Limitada", the first commercial broadcasting enterprise, was established by August Ara�a Morales in Bambamarca. The station nominally broadcast on 5656 kHz with an output power of 100 watts. Radio Bambamarca was heard by DXers in the variable frequency range between 5656.7 kHz and 5657. 5 kHz from 1982 through April of 1987. Beginning in 1982, the caserios (small communities) in the District of Bambamarca have produced a number of radio stations, including Radio Cultural in Chalapampa, Radio El Campesino in Lucmacuho, Radio Agricultura in Chalapampa, Radio San Antonio and Radio Frecuencia Popular in Maygasbamba and so on. All these broadcasters have been established and operated by the peasant vigilante organizations, locally called "Rondas Campesninas" in order to have the proper medium of communications for the communities. Generally, these community stations broadcast in the evening with dry-battery-driven transmitting units of merely 5-10 watts. To my knowledge, these stations have never been monitored outside Peru. According to Walter Hugo Silva Bautista, a radio hobbyist and a staff of Radio La Voz de San Antonio, who had wide experience in working as announcer and operator at different community stations, these outlets had broadcast in the frequency range between 4000 kHz and 7000 kHz, but they vanished from airwaves due to financial difficulties and technical problems. The pioneer broadcasting station in the District of Bambamarca was Radio La Voz de San Antonio, which was established by Valent�n Mej�a V�squez in the village of San Antonio. Later in 1990, the station moved to the town of Bambamarca. Not long after Radio Bambamarca made its appearance on the airwaves, Radio San Francisco was briefly monitored by few Latin American DX enthusiasts in 1984. Radio San Francisco announced that the station transmitted on a nominal frequency of 5560 kHz, though the outlet highly drifted between 5483.4 kHz and 5787.5 kHz.

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