THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A land and its people devastated by a disaster of Biblical proportions will have no need for the Avengers or the Guardians of the Galaxy or the Fantastic Four. A ham radio operator is their best bet. When hurricanes and earthquakes snap modern communication systems like they were dry twigs, hams alone keep the communication going. A crack team of hams or amateur radio enthusiasts, three from Kerala and two from Karnataka, will reach Kavaratti Island, the capital of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, on October 11 to activate ham radio operations for 10 days, till October 21. Their brief: “Demonstrate amateur radio operations and its benefits during natural calamities.” “We would like to show how during an emergency, when all communication systems have failed, ham radio operations can be used as an effective alternative,” said Manoj Kumar Warrier, a commercial pilot who leads the five-member team. Last November Manoj had travelled to Lakshadweep to scout for an ideal location to set up stations. He zeroed in on a relatively lonely beach in Kavaratti.
There is a reason why a beach has been selected. “Because of the presence of salt, the radio waves will get a low-angle radiation taking it to the farthest places. The sodium and chloride ions in sea water will bend the radio waves, making it move in a horizontal wave of sorts instead of vertically,” said Ravi Gopan, a Kerala-born IT professional based in the UK and a team member. A ham operator, like a camper or a mountaineer, is also fired by the thrill of adventure. “Ham operations are normally done in closed, secluded environments, like inside a home. But at times we would like to move out of our comfort zones,” Mr Manoj said. It is a huge challenge for these DXers (ham jargon for long distance radio operators) to set up radio stations in an alien location. “In this case we have to set up three stations on a beach, all in half a day’s time,” said Ravi Gopan, a Kerala-born IT professional based in the UK.
The most problematic would be the erection of four antennae to receive and transmit radio waves. “When four antennae are erected in close proximity to each other the trouble is their frequencies could overlap and cause huge disturbance. So we have to space them in such a way that the harmonic of one does not enter into another's space,” Mr Gopan said. Each antenna will be tuned to operate in one particular band. All the three stations will be operated 24X7 during the 10 days on a shift basis. The other DXers are Siddhalinganesh Basawanal (software professional), Kiran Padiyar (a BI analytics architect), and Sangeeth S. Musaliar, a Kollam native based in Muscat. Paul R Hardcastle, a flight simulator engineer working for Emirates, will be part of the team as remote support and coordinator.
Once the DXers begin transmitting, a global wooing game of sorts will ensue.
The DXers, by setting up shop in a remote area where hams have only dreamed of visiting, position their station (known in the ham world by the ‘callsign’ VU7T) as an object of desire. (The ambition of any ham worth his salt is to get in touch with the remotest of stations. It is like in rock climbing where climbers aspire to reach the farthest point on an increasingly difficult route.) But by being in one of earth’s most obscure coordinates VU7T also plays hard to get. VU7T, therefore, becomes all the more tempting for a true-blue ham. (VU stands for India in ham world, 7 is the number assigned to Lakshadweep, and T is an alphabet the DXers had chosen.) For the hams around the world, getting in touch with VU7T has already become irresistible. Within an hour of the news of their ‘DXpedition’ was flashed on QRZ.com, which houses almost every ‘callsign’ in the world, their page had logged nearly 800 ‘lookups’, a pre-internet equivalent of ‘hits’. “If they can get in touch with us, they will accumulate points and win awards,” Mr Gopan said.
VU7T follows a pre-planned course
VU7T has its activities charted well in advance. Time slots have been assigned for each continent. If mornings and evening are set apart for North America, the rest of the day is divided between various parts of Asia and Europe. “The time slots are so designed because the propagation of radio signals to these areas is strongest during these slots,” Mr Gopan said. The mode of communication with contact has also been set. The ‘dot and dashes’ of Morse Code during certain periods, and voice messages during the other. Once transmission begins, 'callsigns' across the world will try to tune into VU7T’s frequency. “In a particular time slot, we will give preference to contacts from the lands assigned that slot. So if someone from Asia tries to get in touch with VU7T during the early mornings and evenings set apart for North America, we will invoke the operational ethics laid down in the DX Code of Conduct,” Mr Gopan said.
Since the objective is to get in touch with as many hams across the world, the meeting will be kept extremely short. The caller will first introduce herself with her callsign. If she is from United States, her callsign will begin with ‘N’, the way a person from India’s begins with ‘VU’. “In return, we will identify them with their name and give them their report,” Gopan said. The caller, too, gives his RST Code report. The report refers to the RST code or the readability, strength and tonality of the to and fro signals. The varying quality of each of these parameters is measured in a scale of one to five or one to nine. If the signal is unreadable, the value is 1. If perfectly readable, the value is 5. As for strength, if the signals are faint and barely perceptible, the value is one.
For very strong signal, the value is 9. So if the signal is readable with considerable difficulty and the strength is fair, the value will be 34. The third parameter of tonality is taken when Morse Code is used. If the tonality is very rough and broad, the value is one. And if it is a perfect tone, no trace of ripple or modulation of any kind, the value is 9. All this information will be simultaneously logged into the computer and passed on to a central server that will validate the findings. The exchange of information - the assessment of the RST code and the deciphering of the Morse Code - will last for barely 20 seconds.
