Eye ball with VU2GUR

Last week of June 2010 was an interesting milestone in my satellite communication journey. I had the chance of having an eye ball with OM VU2GUR at Mumbai.

I am sure most of my HAM friends must be aware of the achievements of OM VU2GUR, from Bangalore. He has been the pioneer in Satellite communications using HAM radio in India , you can google and find out more about him. But i remember him for doing maximum satellite QSO's using simple slimjim and di-pole sets of antennas. Many times through the rubber duckies .


It was kind enough of Mr. Guru to have informed me when he arrived and took out some precious moments from his purpose of visit to Mumbai. We had fixed up our meeting at 18:30 hrs which got little delayed by an hour, due to my pre-occupation with the audit getting stretched. I rushed down the moment my morning QTH activity got over.

Like all genius, he was humble and forthcoming on all the topics of bird watch. The discussions started from the activities on satellite communication to the visit to ISRO (the Indian Space Research Organization), Bangalore, which unfortunately i could not visit (due to my morning QTH pressure).

We occupied a table in the lobby of the hotel and his lessons started. During the initial course of our discussions he could judge that i won't be able to remember all the info he was providing me. He took my diary and started scribbling from page to page. The information flowed seamlessly from the master to the disciple. I was thrilled with wonderful moments and information, there were finer aspects of transponders, inverting transponders, the difference between them, the bandwidth, SSB, SSTV, CW , in satcom, functioning of new satellite SO-67. The time flew by and i saw that the time was past 21:00 hrs, i remembered he had to attend a wedding reception. Till the time of drop to the venue we kept chatting on the subject.

It was a brilliant day for me. Promised OM Guru to have our next meeting at Bangalore in few weeks time.