Journey on wireless track

21st January 2008 has been an important milestone in my journey of evolution. This was the date when a new degree of freedom entered my life with a bang. The bell from postman at my home QTH brought my long cherished desire in the form of my HAM license from the ministry of communications. I was in the city of Lucknow that day for my morning QTH outstation visit, almost 1800 kms from Mumbai (city of my dwelling). My XYL broke this news along with the last hurdle between me and my HAM license; the postman refused to deliver it to my XYL, and informed that the license needs to be collected by myself in person. My anxiety could not solve the issue on telephone. It took some serious convincing by my XYL to the gentleman that the license shall reach me and the destination he has arrived is correct. All through my way back, after two days I was making grand plans for the celebration and equipments to begin my journey on airwaves.

Thanks to the ever ready community of HAMs at Mumbai, i could organize my first base station ICOM 2200. I was restless to come on air, but the antenna still had to come in place. The coax LMR 400, 5/8 antenna from VU2GT, and a 15 ft mast was procured and the rig was connected. We were hitting the repeater at Mumbai, located 35 kms from my home QTH at Navi Mumbai on 144.100 MHZ with + 600 shift. But there was no contact made as it was a working day. I was eagerly waiting for the the night owls net conducted at 21:30hrs on Mumbai repeater. It was a pleasant experience having QSO for the first time, although the finer aspects of the protocol was still needed and friendly assurances from the fellow HAMs at Mumbai ensured , i pick up the experience faster.

The journey had begun and the idea of home brewing started making waves in my mind. Study various designs on 2 meter and 70 cm started with hunting the stuff on the internet. Thanks to the previous hams a mine of info was available.

January 2009 my first hand held dual band Yeasu FT-60R was added in the shack. This gadget has accompanied me to all my outstation trips and has helped me communicating through other stations in the town. Also came in a NAGOYA dual band magmount from VU2AF.

Every weekend has been a milestone for experimenting the home brewed stuffs. Thanks to all the stations (VU2AF, VU2 SGW, VU2 IVV, VU2 WSM, VU3SLJ and many more) joining/helping me testing my antennas and bearing with the poor signals till the antenna is tuned.

There has been lots of progress towards the antenna home brewing since then. The detailed stuff with design and actual photographs shall be posted next. of antenna designs from the net and other blogs were the next steps i took.