Sunday, August 2, 2009

On Air

When I got the license in my hand, I made calls to HAM friends to inform the good news. Everyone greeted and asked me to come on air as soon as possible.

On the same day evening,

VU2SGW, OM Sai, reacted quiet differently (he is bit different, who contacted more than 100 countries within a short period, also designed eyeball/QSL Cards for his friends at free of cost) asked me to reach is QTH immediately. I reached there around 8.00pm.

After having tea and snacks, we went to the terrace where he had installed diamond X50 dual band antenna along with Dipole for 20 Mtr and inverted “V” for 40 Mtr. He tuned hand held radio-Yesu FT 60 to the local repeater frequency, 145.000 + (VU2BBB) and show me how to operate. He made CQ calls and got reply from one station.

The station was VU2IIA, OM Mahesh, and both of them started passing the signal and WX reports. ( I know Mahesh, a nice person with good technical knowledge and a home brewer ) SGW told IIA that, one more station is there with him and asked to standby. Sai handed over the mic to me to have qso with Mahesh. I pressed the PTT, but unable to talk…. after short while, had a small qso with OM Mahesh., my very first on-air experience.

Then we returned to his shack, beautifully arranged with HF and VHF sets along with different types of Power supplies, antenna tuner and SWR meter. The time was around 9.30p.m, the time for the local VHF net (Night owls net)

The net control was VU2PJM, YL Perviz . SGW explained me about the net and the procedures, and we both checked-in. The net lasts up to 10.00 pm and later I had a small qso with VU3CGL, OM Leon.

I thanked Sai and returned to my QTH with the fulfillment of the first time on air.

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