History

The Educational and Evangelical Station “Radio Truth” was born within the mind of its founder, Dr. Edgar Amilcar Madrid Morales, by the beginning of 1967, when he got the illusion of mounting a small 25 watts transmitter, on short wave, as an extension of his Evangelical Radio Program “Back to Jesus”, which was founded on the 1st of April, 1966. By the beginning of November 1970, a North American, Philip Martin, offered to grant him a 1000 watt transmitter, of any necessary type. When he realized that his project was becoming so large, Edgar Amilcar Madrid applied for the backing of the Yearly Meeting of Friends Churches of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which was granted through a loud “Amen”. But, after the meeting, the newly appointed Superintendent said to him that he was not in favor of the project. Facing such an adversity, Edgar Amilcar Madrid thought it convenient to wait until there was a new Superintendent, in order to continue with his project. However, three months later, the Permanent Commission o the Yearly Meeting took over his project, and started to promote the foundation of what, later on, became the Friends Cultural Station. Under such circumstance, Edgar Amílcar Madrid suspended his own project, and waited for their project to be developed, granting them his cooperation in all he was possible to do. The offer of the 1000 watts transmitter was lost, due to such adverse circumstance. After several years, without a significant advance in the Friends’ Cultural Station, Edgar Amilcar Madrid, continued again with his own project; it was by 1975. By this time, the National Radio Authorities offered him an FM frequency, as they had just adopted the FM band for radio transmission. But, he did not accept it, because he was not in a financial capacity to mount the project as yet, and he continued his wait. By May 1984, The Friends’ Cultural Radio Station came on the air, and Edgar Amilcar Madrid had to loan them his own name as a Legal Director, because the Government did not approve such station, unless he was a part of the project. His “Back to Jesus” Broadcast was the first structured program which was transmitted on the station, beginning May 28, 1984. Radio Truth’s Project was suspended again, with the hope that the Friends’ Cultural Radio Station would fulfill the existing spiritual need. But the Station’s spirituality was soon on a decay, and Edgar Amilcar Madrid took again his former project and, as a simple try out, he built the Audio phonic Close Circuit “Radio Truth”, with the help of two children, Darwin and Karen Patrice Gregory, on which they transmitted educational and spiritual programming, and operated from November 7th 1988 up to April 30, 1989, even when they paid the taxes in advance up to June 30th. The main announcers at the Circuit “Radio Truth” were: Rosendo Avila Salguero, Franklin Galvan Sance, Oscar Gamaliel Romero, Karen Patrice and Brenda Jemima Gregory Henriquez, some others, and Edgar Amilcar Madrid, as Director. Against such a Circuit, there was the strong opposition of a man who owned a commercial circuit, who presented without a success a demand against it. Afterwards, the same man conquered the will of a new environment authority, and accused us of environment contamination, due to our educational and spiritual programming. Chiquimula’s Governor accepted his false accusation, because he was afraid of that woman in charge of environment, and ordered the cancellation of our Educational Audio phonic Circuit. After the news of the forced cancellation of our Educational Audio phonic Circuit, Guatemala’s Central Government deprived that woman from her environment job, and instructed to restore our Circuit. However, Edgar Amilcar Madrid, refused to continue the Circuit, and took over again the old idea of mounting the Educational and Evangelical Station “Radio Truth”, against which they could not oppose again. Beginning that year, 1989, he started finding out all about legal steps, in order to obtain the frequencies for the new Station. At first, it seemed to be almost impossible, because the State Officers did not let him even present an application. They required from him to prove them first that he possessed lots of money. They were suggesting tipping underground, which was not acceptable at all. In the mean time, we were gathering so many documents, like Penal Background, Citizenship certificate, legal support of a Radio Technician, legal proof of economical and professional status of the applicant, budget, Station programming, electronic diagrams of the equipment, previous purchase bill of the equipment, cartographic map showing the site of the transmitter, and many other requirements. First attempts of application were made in October 1990 and May 1993. On September 6th 1994, we attempted to deliver an application, but the officers refused to receive it, until we got the help of Lic. Conrado Monroy, from Prensa Libre Journal, and it was accepted on the 24th of September 1996, and it finally prospered. It was very soon after, when we got the favorable judgments, until there was only one thing missing: The signature of the Minister of Communication. But, immediately after, the Minister of Communication gave instructions to suspend all radio legal steps, because he was planning to ask the Congress to modify the radio laws. His idea was to sell all frequencies. His action was illegal, because the former law was still in force. But he stopped all procedures and did not return any of the difficult to get documents. By the beginning of the following year, the new Law had been published already and, on February 25th 1997, we applied for our short wave and link frequencies. But the short wave frequency was rejected, because they did not accept either the power nor frequency applied for. On December 15th we applied again for our short wave frequency. For that purpose, we got the help of Ing. Robert Bravatti, who was working for the Telecommunication Superintendence, which was created for the effects of the new law. We also received the free backing and orientation from the Radio Technician Hugo Calvillo. Finally, we purchased our link frequency on the 2nd of April, 1998, through a public auction, and the short wave frequency on the 19th of June the same year. For the short wave frequency, there was no need of a public auction, because there happened a miracle from God. There were 50 applications entering together, but Radio Truth’s and another frequency of the like, were excluded from the public auction. We avoided this way the need of paying huge amounts of money for it, which could even be several million Quetzals (about half a million dollars). Finances for the purchase of the main transmitter were gathered by regular offerings and other activities during eleven years, beginning on the 14th of November 1988. The Radio’s buildings and studios were financed by the Central Holiness Friends Church, with the help of other Churches like New Valley, Ruano’s Colony, Galilean Complex, Lone’s Colony and others. Further on, Radio Truth and the Central Holiness Friends Church built an open air auditorium, kiosk, temple, pastoral house and other buildings. “Radio Truth” came on the air on the 25th of February of the year 2000, by 5:20 p. m., and was formally dedicated on the 5th of March of the year 2000.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

From the beginning, Radio Truth's transmitter has suffered the destructive effects of many lightning strikes, for which cause we have suffered severe difficulties during several times. But, the gravest situation came to be on September 21st, 2008, when a lightning strike severely destroyed our two amplifier modules, and we were left off the air during two years, because several technicians attempted to fix it and were not able to do so. On the 17th of September, we got to come on the air with a small ham radio, with 50 watts power. The results were good. On the 17th of October, there arrived from Canada Eng. Ralph Wayne Borthwick, who was able to repair the transmitter, and built a new very powerful antenna. It was so, that we went on the air with 500 watts power on the 26th of October, 2010. The results have been great.

Now, we are making all efforts to obtain an F. M. frequency for the local coverage. But it has been almost impossible again. We have applied for it several times, and our applications have not prospered. We had applied for a good FM frequency, 92.7 Mhz, with a departmental coverage, and paid the process fees, Q.7,000.00 Quetzals, but our frequency was sold underground to a TV channel, and they did not even inform us about the dirty sale. The government promised to give our money back, but they never did, even though we have applied for it several times. We shall continue making all our efforts to finally get our FM frequency, because it is to serve the social and economical development of Guatemala's most needy people.