For years I wanted to visit Belize, Central America and finally in 2003 the opportunity presented itself. 

The first step in obtaining my license was to fax a letter requesting a reciprocal amateur license along with a copy of my US license to:           

Public Utilities Commission
Office of Telecommunications
Mr. Kingsley Smith, Sr. Tech Officer
P.O. Box 300
Belize City, Belize
011 501 222 4938 Voice
011 501 222-4940 Fax

In my letter, I sent a list of three callsigns with a request for any one of the three and stated that if none of the three were available, to please issue any callsign.  Good fortune prevailed and I was issued the callsign V31ME, which goes very nicely with my US callsign N3ME. 

Mr. Smith (puctelecom@btl.net) sent me a confirming e-mail message advising that a license fee of $20 US made payable to the Public Utilities Commission should be forwarded to him.

Furthermore, he stated he would Air Mail the license to me upon receipt of payment.  As it turned out, a local ham, Bob Fox, V31MD paid for and picked up my license for me.  Mr. Smith also asked me to E-Mail him a list of equipment that I planned to bring with me so he could also issue a Temporary Import Permit for presentation to Belize Customs upon my arrival into the country.  How pleasant to discover such an accommodating government employee.  As it turned out, I made arrangements to use Bob's station so I did not take anything other than my laptop computer, which did not require an import permit. 

While visiting in Placencia, Belize, I visited with Bob Fox, V31MD and for a fee was able to operate using his station for two days.  The station consisted of a Kenwood TS-850, 10-15-20 meter tri-bander, 12 & 17 meter vertical dipole and a 40 & 80 meter HF2V sitting directly over the saltwater lagoon.  In case you are interested, Bob also rents a very nice place to stay on the west side of the Placencia peninsula facing the lagoon.  During my two partial days of operating, I had an absolute blast! 

Bob and I drove up to the Sittee River area and visited with Joe Pontek, V31JP for a couple of hours.  Joe was as gracious a host as he is when operating on the air. 

               
Tony/Joe/Bob    Tony/Joe/Bob    Tony/Joe/Bob    Joe's QTH      Tony @ Bob's

For those interested in a confirming QSL card for my V31ME operation, send your card to: