My Amateur Station

           Every HAM has to have a station, in Indian context 'Amateur telegraph station'. there are many rules and regulation for maintaining 'station' which every amateur must abide Check Indian Telegraph Act Amateur Service (Annexure I  Condition for the conduct of amateur telegraph station) to comply . Amateur station is a place where most of hamming activity is usually performed,  At core stations have receiver & transmitter, nowadays transceivers are used having both as single unit, power supply and antenna system. all these and some additional components (Antenna Tuner, Amplifier, Computer Etc)  are usually placed in area which in HAM lingo called 'Shack'.
            Shack is like heaven for HAM a place where he spend his quality time and be merry with friends all over world & beyond :).   shack is weak point for any ham be it small/big, full of equipments or near empty, be it start of the art high end transceiver will all bells and whistles or cheap home brewed experimental device. a shack is 'Shack' its nothing less than 'Kingdom' where HAM is the king
            Today I'll be giving you information about the equipments i've in my 'Shack'

Here's the picture of my treasure

                    I also have Diamond BU-50 Balun and copper wire for home-brew dipole antenna not shown in picture, You can see all of my equipments are suitable for mobile/portable use,  this is required because i live in area hostile to HAM's where no antenna's allowed on terrace not even DTH, worst part is i stay on 1st floor in 7 story building surrounded with 14 building's. So when i use temporary wire antenna on terrace feed-line losses are high even with LMR 400 cable and SWR goes haywire that's reason you see Antenna tuner.

Let me give you walk-thru of my setup

 Radio -  Yaesu FT857D
          Reason for choosing 857 was obvious, i was looking for small, portable, robust, all-bander rig with limited budget which i can use for contests, expeditions, hilltops, mobile, field day Etc. this rig is excellent value for money, best part is its all-bander you don't need anything else for VHF/UHF. verious add-on are available based on your budget and future requirements and its backed by respected brand name Yaesu. if you are new ham with limited budget and want to operate on all bands/modes go for 857. its not just a rig but ecosystem. overall its worth buy.

Antennas -  JPC 7/ Yaesu ATAS-120A / Long wire / MFJ 1729
         Performance of JPC 7 antenna is OK I'll give it 3.5/5 It's easy to carry and take just minutes to setup. I also have ATAS 120A it's great auto tune antenna that needs solid grounding to work magic. if perfectly works with 857 with auto tune feature and drawing power directly from FT-857D.  it can also be used in mobile and temporary setup. it can be mounted on UHF trunk mount. On fields & contests i also use wire dipoles with diamond BU-50 balun. MFJ1729 is budget VHF/UHF antenna performance is good and its very light weight.  

Antenna Tuner - LDG YT-100
           It's worth buy if you want automatic antenna tuner 100% compatible with 857. unlike other auto-tuners it don't require external power supply it draws power from 857 thru control cable. performance is good after using it for more than 1 year i can safely say it wont let you down.

Antenna Analyser - RigExpert AA-30
           AA-30 is good antenna analyzer, before making antenna analyzer buying decision,  please read Antenna analyzer reviews and then make purchase.

Battery - Exide 70Ah
             this is very heavy car battery (28 Kg) but lasts long (used it continually for 24 hrs in contests) it has charge required indicator which show battery health,  i use it even at home QTH. use of battery eliminate noise and its easy to recharge. 


 Apart from above i also have 50ft of LMR 400 cable which is mostly used in field trips Hope all information given here helps you to make purchase decisions for your amateur station. if you think anything is missing pls comment.

ARSI VHF Hilltop contest from Kharghar hills mumbai 2015

For ARSI VHF hilltop contest 2015 i was looking for place which has clear line of sight view towards Mumbai & Thane area where most of ham population is located.

       my first choice was tallest hill  in borivali national park because of its height and centre location, unfortunately it is already occupied by air force radar station and is restricted zone. 2nd choice was dronagiri fort at uran (mountain is visible from gateway of india) i found out from hiker/trekker friends  dronagiri also comes under sensitive area category because of close proximity to ONGC gas terminal and there is permanent 24*7 CRPF guard base on hill top and one needs prior permission to visit fort. finally i explored kharghar hills i never visited this place before and only source of information was internet

on paper its just 40-50 min drive away from my office in airoli  and there is motorable road to kharghar hill top  hill area is approx. 1000+ ft high and as seen from google earth has clear line of sight to Mumbai city, central suburbs, panvel, thane etc. voila life is set for contest what else you need?? i finalised on kharghar hills and sent my request to  contests@… 

but we know life it never that simple, over busy work week i was sparing some time to find out there’s no last minute surprises, there was lack of latest information on kharghar hills on  internet, most of information was about how great view is from kharghar hills in monsoon and how to reach pandavkada waterfalls.  there was some news about restricted road access to vehicles in monsoon due to landslides, drunk reckless driving by kids etc.  i asked about current status of kharghar hill road to panvel hams group on whatsapp but they also didn’t had latest information. i couldn’t do more on busy weekdays. i invited interested hams to join me in contest as i don’t have much experience in VHF contests, no one responded to invitation except Ruzbeh VU2KWI (even ruzbeh couldn’t make on Saturday.)

 Then comes contest day i already had NAGOYA NL-770H antenna and mobile trunk mount fixed to my maruti zen estilo car, i also had battery, Yaesu FT-857D for 10 watt operation.  contest is for 24 Hrs starting from 12 noon on 24th january to 12 noon 25th of january

      i left office post lunch and reached kharghar hill gate at 2.40 pm then come big surprise road has Checkpost with security guards. there is big board highlighting kharghar hill & road is CIDCO property and entry is restricted only to authorised persons. i talked to security guards and explained them my purpose of visit. they clarified they need written permission from CIDCO executive engineer to allow anyone entry to hill road they suggested me to go and visit kharghar CIDCO office and meet mr phadke for entry permission, i went to CIDCO office @ 3 pm Saturday is half day in CIDCO luckily mr phadke was available but he informed me kharghar hill  area charge is now transferred to Ms geeta and she already left for the day. even if she was available written application with valid reason for kharghar hill access usually take 2-3 days to get processed. heartbroken i come back to checkpost to talk back to security guards. after talking for sometime and explaining them situation in CIDCO office one of guard changed his mind and allowed me to go to hill top. surprised i thanked him and drive directly to hill top 5km away from checkpost, reached hilltop by 3.30 pm. parked car on lonely road, take out my rig connected antenna and start giving CQ calls on frequency allocated to me for contest 144.475 MHz i was operating alone on deserted road and worst deserted frequency. by ARSI dedicated frequency were assigned to each of hilltop contest station, all frequency were published on yahoo groups but catch was exact mapping was not revealed for excitement after 30 min operating on 144.475 MHz i lost my patience and switched to 145.500 MHz randomly i also giving CQ calls on matheran repeater which was easily accessible from my handy on 1 watt.  after lots of CQ calls on 144.475 MHz i copied just 1 faint response from VU2IVV (jayesh banatwala) who was operating from Lonavla his signal report was  57 but was unable to copy my signal report. after few more minutes in frustration i started doing what i wanted to avoid msg on whatsapp  i send msg to ruzbeh to let him know i’m on hilltop and whether he can copy my transmission from town side. he responded and went to terrace and was able to copy me clearly on handy using rubber duck antenna, VU2IVV transmitted but i could copy only noise, clock showing 6.15 pm by this time. i was also giving random CQ calls on on Matheran repeater from my 2nd handy  and also on 144.300 MHz for VU2TBV (Pralhad ji) he was expected on frequency after 5.30 pm unfortunately no one responded.  finally i called my mentor VU2NXM (Basappa ji) over phone and requested for signal report, he was out for evening walk and could QSO after 6.30 PM

it was total dark by 6.45 PM in lonely hilly area i got final response from VU2WAG (Shankar) and 59 signal report from his QTH in lodhivali near panvel. i was thirsty with empty water bottle after giving continue CQ calls for nearly 5 hours, i decided to pack up and by 7.15 pm left kharghar hill for way back to home in dahisar, mumbai 50km away .

  Although contest was till 12 pm on 25th January i decided to not operate on 25th due to challenges in entering kharghar hills without proper permission.

From this entire experience i could think of below points for contest

HF contest is comparatively easy to participate in India than VHF contest, this is due to scarcity of active hams,

Need to advertise your participation, place, date & time as much as possible before any indian contest.

Apart from licensing and other restrictions we have very limited options near Mumbai city for hilltop operations. must visit place personally and arrange to get necessary approval before operating.

Need to have excellent knowledge on antenna for any contest

And most importantly positive attitude

73s

de vu3one -shriraj

 

PS- received my contest participation certificate its worth the efforts