King
of Hobbies: Amateur Radio an
Introduction.
By:
Dilip Kumar Padhi VU2 DPI
‘Nearly
three and a half million people world-wide including more than fifteen thousand
Indians are currently licensed Amateur Radio Operators or “HAMS”. Japan has
the most licensed hams, more than one million! Ham radio is one fraternity that
knows no geographic, political or social barriers. It is a service that
emphasises people’s common interests not their differences.
Oddly
enough, there is no universally accepted explanation of where the popular term
“Ham” originated. Various theories exit, but the most likely explanation is
that the term derives from the frontier-day custom of referring to an unskilled
or inept telegraph operator as ham-fisted. Regardless of whether it started out
as a compliment or insult, it is a term in which amateurs take great pride. With
amateur radio you are not limited to local radio, contacts. Ham range is
worldwide, limited only by radio conditions.
The
term “Amateur” refers to one who engages in a pursuit as a pastime or hobby
rather than as a profession. Amateur Radio is the personal use of short and
microwave radio equipment for direct, worldwide communications on a two-way
one-to-one basis. Amateur Radio operators are best known for providing
communication during emergencies and disasters when all regular means are
unavailable or disrupted such in case of earth quakes, flood, cyclone and so on
They also provide communication assistance for various charity and civic
activities such as marathons, cross countries, bike/car races and like. No
matter what the project, hams never accept compensation for the services they
provide, nor can ham radio be used to facilitate the business activities of any
organisation.
The
Amateur Service is International in scope and exists in nearly every nation.
This permits hams to readily communicate with one another in all areas of the
world even in space. Several space shuttles have carried astronauts abroad who
are also licensed ham operators. Several of the cosmonauts who have flown on the
Soviet space station Mir have been hams, too. Imagine the excitement of chatting
with orbiting shuttle astronauts or cosmonauts. Hundreds of amateurs have done
it from their sakes using very inexpensive 2 Meter ham equipment!
The
amateur service offers something for everyone. Throughout the globe. Forming
lasting friendships without ever leaving their homes, while other talk to
literally hundreds of different countries, the varieties are endless.
Amateur
Service means a service of self training, inter-communication and technical
investigations carried on by amateurs that is, by person duly authorised under
these rules interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without
pecuniary interest.
The
late Prime Minister Mr Ragiv Gandhi was an active Ham.
The King of Thailand never leaves his palace without a Ham Radio in his
hand. Sultan of Brunai, the late King Husan of Zordan, King of
Spain Amitav Bachhan,
Kamal Hassan, Charu Hassan, Sri Devi, Mamsur Ali Khan,
Mamuthi Sonia Gandhi, are but a few hams to maintain.
The
Ministry of Telecommunications offers the following five categories of Licence:
-
i.
Advanced Amateur Wireless Telegraph Station Licence;
ii.
Amateur Wireless Telegraph Station Licence Grade I;
iii.
Amateur Wireless Telegraph Station Licence Grade II;
iv.
Restricted Amateur Wireless Telegraph Station Licence;
v.
Short Wave Listeners'
Amateur Wireless
Telegraph Station Licence.
To
be a HAM and to obtain the Amateur Wireless Telegraph Operating Licence one must
be a citizen of India and not less than 18 years of age may appear for a an
examination conducted by the Ministry of Communication through the Officer in
charge, Wireless Monitoring Station. The nearest station to appear the exam for
Orissa is either Vishakapatnam:
Office In-Charge Intentional Monitoring Station, Ministry of Communication,
6-20-9, Chinna Waltiar Visakhapatnam 530 023 or Calcutta: (Officer In-Charge International Monitoring Station,
Ministry of Communication, Gopalpur, Sarkarpool 24 Parganas 743 352) write to
them for the application form for the Grade I exam. Probably they have exam every month. Attach a demand draft for Rs. 20 /- drawn in
the State Bank of India, Service Branch, New Delhi favouring the “Pay
and Accounts Officer, (H.Q.) Department of Telecommunications, New Delhi” and
send it to them and they will intimate you of the date of the exam.
(We at Sambalpur shall be organising an examination for some interested
students in the coming months. Interested person to appear the same at Sambalpur
may contact the author for further detail). After passing the exam the results
are usually declared a month after. A copy of the result sheet goes to the WPC,
in return they pass it to the Police department to check the antecedent of the
person and after getting all clearance from the intelligence, and police, they
issue letter to the successful candidates to deposit the requisite fees in a
prescribed form along with three passport size photographs for the licence.
After
getting the licence only one can either go for a commercial rig or built his
own. To build one's own rig one has to have a bit of technical knowledge.
The NR60 is one of the most popular rig one can build with a little
effort. For a commercial rig, there are several companies to choose from, like
the Yaesu, Kenwood, ICOM and JRC are but a few to mention. The ARSI (Amateur
Radio Society of India) is also getting Ham radio equipment for its member, in
bulk purchase order either from Yaesu or from ICOM.
One can of course import his own equipment through a dealer of Ham radio
equipment in India. The dealer will arrange for the OGL and other paraphernalia
to import a Radio set.
One
can write to Saad Ali, VU2ST,
Blooming Heights, 5th Floor, Flat 10, 4 - Pali Hill, Bandra, Mumbai
400 050 for one of his book on Amateur Radio and also for a Morse Training Kit,
which comprises of Morse key and an oscillator so that one can listen to the
sound produced by the key. A special training Cassette of the ARRL (American
Radio Relay League) for beginners and advance as well in two 90 minutes
cassettes are available with the author. Which can be obtained from him free of
any charges if someone writes to him personally.
Learning
Morse is very interesting; it is less difficulty then learning how to drive a
car. If you give 1/2 hour every day then within 30 days time you would be
receiving Morse 10 to 15 words per minutes.
The
entire syllabus for both the Grade II and Grade I, are given below. Basically
the syllabus for both the grade is same only the Morse portion is different. For
Grade I one has to send and receive 12 words per minute and for Grade II it is 5
words. The Grade II operators are required to complete 100 contacts before they
could operate on the phone mode. Whereas the Grade I operators do not need any
endorsement like this. Further more
you need to answer 6 question in Grade II and the time allotted is one hour and
the Grade I exam need 12 question to be answered in 2 hours time. After passing
the Grade I exam one can go for the Advance Grade the course material for that
is little exhaustive.
Syllabus and the details of Examinations for
the award of Amateur Station Operator's Licence
1.
The examination shall consist of the following two parts:
Part
I: Written Test. It is compressing
of one paper containing two Sections as under:
Section
I: Radio Theory and Practice
Note:
Applicants holding degree in telecommunication, or electronics and
electrical communications or a degree recognised by the Central Government as
equivalent to the above degree shall be exempted from appearing in Section I of
the test.
Section
II: National and International Regulations applicable to the operation of
amateur station and those relating to the working of station generally.
Part
II: Morse i) Receiving and ii) Sending.
Part I: Written Test
Section I:
Radio Theory and Practice: Elementary Electricity and Magnetism - Elementary
theory of electricity, conductor and insulators, units, Ohm's Law, resistance in
series and parallel conductance, power and energy, permanent magnet and
electro-magnets and their use in radio work; self and mutual inductance; types
of inductors used in receiving and transmitting circuits, capacitance,
construction of various types of capacitors and their arrangement in series and
parallel.
Elementary
Theory of Alternating Currents- Sinusoidal alternating quantities
- peak, instantaneous, R.M.S., average values, phase; reactance,
impedance; series and parallel circuits containing resistance, inductance,
capacitance; power factor, resonance in series and parallel circuits; coupled
circuits; transformers for audio and radio and radio frequencies;
Thermonic
Valves - Construction of valves; thermonic emission, characteristic curves,
diodes, triodes, and multielectrode valve; use of valve as rectifier,
oscillators, amplifiers, detectors and frequency changes. Power packs,
stabilisation and smoothing, elementary theory and construction of
semi-conductor devices; diodes and transistors.
Radio
Receiver - Principles and operation
of T.R.F. and superhetrodyne receivers. CW reception; receiver characteristics
sensitivity, selectivity, fidelity; adjacent channel and image interference;
A.V.C. and squelch circuits; signal to noise ratio.
Transmitter
- Principle and operation of low power transmitter; crystal oscillators,
stability of oscillators.
Radio
Propagation - Wave length,
frequency, nature and propagation of radio waves; ground and sky waves; skip
distance; fading.
Aerials
- Common types of transmitting and receiving aerials.
Frequency
measurement - Measurement of frequency and use of simple frequency meters.
Section 2:
Rules and Regulations:
Knowledge
of - i) The Indian Wireless Telegraph Rules, 1973;
ii) The Indian Wireless Telegraphs (Amateur Service Rules, 1978.)
Knowledge
of International Radio Regulations as relating to the operation of amateur
stations with particular emphasis
on the following :-
Item
Provision of Radio Regulation
-
Designation of Emission -
--- 104 - 110
-
Nomenclature of the Frequency & Wave length
--- 112
-
Frequency allocation to Amateur services
--- Article 5
-
Measures against interference
---
667 - 677
-
Interference and tests
--- 693 - 703
-
Identification of Stations
---
735 - 737 743, 772-773
-
Distress and Urgency Transmissions
--- 1389-1396, 1477-1478,
1481,1483.
-
Amateur Station
--- 1560-1567
-
Phonetic Alphabets and figure code Appendix16
Standard
Frequency and Time Signals Services
in the World.
The
following ‘Q' codes and abbreviations, which shall have the same meaning as,
assigned to them in the Convention.
QRA,
QRG, QRH, QRI, QRK, QRL, QRM, QRN, QRQ, QRS, QRT, QRU, QRV, QRW, QRX, QRZ, QSA,
QSB, QSL, QSO, QSU, QSV, QSW, QSX, QSY, QSZ, QTC, QTH, QTR AND QUM.
Abbreviations:
AA,
AB, AR, AC, C, CFM, CL, CQ, DE, K, NIL, OK, R, TU, VA, WA, WB.
The
above written test is of Two-hour duration. The maximum number of marks is 100
and candidates must secure at least 40 per cent in each section and 50 per cent
in aggregate for pass.
Part
II: Morse. (Speed: 5 words per minute for Grade II and 12 words per minute for
Grade I)
Section I:
Morse Receiving (Speed: 5/12 words per minute) The test piece will consist of a
plain language passage of 300 letters, five letters counting as one word.
Candidates are required to receive for five consecutive minutes at the speed of
5/12 words per minute from a double headgear headphone receiver, international
Morse code signals from an audio oscillator keyed either manually or
automatically. A short practice piece may be sent at the prescribed speed
before the start of the actual test. Candidates will not be allowed more than
one attempt in each test. The test may be written in ink or pencil but must be
legible. Bad handwriting and over-writing will render a candidate liable to
disqualification. More than 5
errors will disqualify a candidate. However, if a candidate receives the test
piece correctly for a continuous period of one minute during the transmission,
he shall be considered to be successful in the test.
Section 2:
The test piece will consist of a plain language passage of 300 letters, 5
letters counting as one word. Candidates are required to send on an ordinary key
for five consecutive minutes at the minimum speed of five/twelve words per
minute. A short practice piece may be allowed before the actual test. Candidates
will not be allowed more than one attempt in the test. Efforts should be made to
correct all errors. However, more than 5 uncorrected errors will disqualify a
candidate. The accuracy of signalling, correct
formation of characters and the correctness
of spacing shall be taken into account.
Note:
Test piece may contain only the following punctuation: - Full stop; Comma;
Semi-colon; Break sign; Hyphen and Question mark.
The
test is of 3 hours duration. The maximum number of marks is 100 and candidates
must secure at least 50 per cent in each
section and 60 percent in aggregate for pass.
Note:
A candidate is required to pass both in Part I and Part II simultaneously
For
reading materials and the syllabus, a book “Introduction to Amateur Radio”
will prove very helpful. For the
book one can write along with Rs. 60.00 + postage
to Sri A Ponnusamy VU2APS, 16 Pachaipatti Main Rd, Salem 636 001.
Any further clarification on the subject please send your quires to Dilip
Kumar Padhi VU2 DPI, Hotel Sujata, Sambalpur 768 001.
Phone 0663- 400403, 401112, 405244. 401302(R) Fax 400662, e-mail: [email protected]
Correspondence
to be addressed to
Officer, in,
charge, Wireless Monitoring Station,
Ministry
of Communication, Government of India
02. Christian Ganj, Shantipura, Ajmer, 305001 Tel. 20641
03.
18, Padmanabha Nagar, Banashankari
2nd Stage, Bangalore, 560 070
Phone: 6690102
04. Gorai Road, Borivilli(West), Mumbai, 400 092 Te1661626
05. E‑1/149, Aera Colony, Bhopal, 62003 Te164653
06.
Village‑Gopalpur, PO
Sarkarpool, 24‑Parganas
Calcutta,
743352
07.
7, Oak's Bank, Holding, 560,
Darjeeling‑734 101 Tel
3442
08.
Girdharilal Sardarmalls Bldg, Mancotta
Road, Dibrugarh, 786 001Tel. 21238
09. Near Teachers' Training College, PO Alto Porvorim, GOA, 403 112 Tel. 7245
10 Avas Vikas Colony, Surajkund, Gorakhpur, 273 001 Tel. 3709 Te161265, 54265
11.
327, Mota Singh Nagar,
12.
Perungudi,
13.
111 Floor, Guruprasad Bldg,
14.
Chindwara Road,
15.
Ghitorni, PO Mehrauli,
16.
P.O.Harmoo Housing Colony,
17.
Lapalang Rynjah,
18.
118, Kusru, Rajbagh,
19.
T.C.9/951‑1,
20.
6‑20‑9, Chinna Waltair,