Amateur radio in India


Amateur radio or ham radio is practised by more than 38,000 licensed users in India. The first amateur radio operator was licensed in 1921, and by the mid-1930s, there were around 20 amateur radio operators in India. Amateur radio operators played an important part in the Indian independence movement with the establishment of illegal pro-independence radio stations in the 1940s. The three decades after India's independence saw only slow growth in the numbers of operators until the then Prime Minister of India and amateur radio operator, Rajiv Gandhi, waived the import duty on wireless equipment in 1984. Since then, numbers have picked up, and, there were more than 16,000 operators in the country. Amateur radio operators have played a vital role during disasters and national emergencies such as earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, floods, and bomb blasts, by providing voluntary emergency communications in the affected areas.
The Wireless and Planning and Coordination Wing —a division of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology—regulates amateur radio in India. The WPC assigns call signs, issues amateur radio licences, conducts exams, allots frequency spectrum, and monitors the radio waves. Popular amateur radio events include daily ham nets, the annual Hamfest India, and regular DX contests.

History

The first amateur radio operator in India was Amarendra Chandra Gooptu, licensed in 1921.
Later that year, Mukul Bose became the second ham operator, thereby introducing the first two-way ham radio communication in the country. By 1923, there were twenty British hams operating in India. In 1929, the call sign prefix VU came into effect in India, replacing three-letter call signs. The first short-wave entertainment and public broadcasting station, "VU6AH", was set up in 1935 by E P Metcalfe, vice-chancellor of Mysore University. However, there were fewer than fifty licence holders in the mid-1930s, most of them British officers in the Indian army.
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the British cancelled the issue of new licences. All amateur radio operators were sent written orders to surrender their transmitting equipment to the police, both for possible use in the war effort and to prevent the clandestine use of the stations by Axis collaborators and spies. With the gaining momentum of the Indian independence movement, ham operator Nariman Abarbad Printer set up the Azad Hind Radio to broadcast Gandhian protest music and uncensored news; he was immediately arrested and his equipment seized. In August 1942, after Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, the British began clamping down on the activities of Indian independence activists and censoring the media. To circumvent media restrictions, Indian National Congress activists, led by Usha Mehta, contacted Mumbai-based amateur radio operators, "Bob" Tanna and Nariman Printer to help broadcast messages to grass-roots party workers across the country. The radio service was called the "Congress Radio", and began broadcasting from 2 September 1942 on 7.12 MHz. The station could be received as far as Japanese-occupied Myanmar. By November 1942, Tanna was betrayed by an unknown radio officer and was forced to shut down the station.
Temporary amateur radio licences were issued from 1946, after the end of World War II. By 1948, there were 50 amateur radio operators in India, although only a dozen were active. Following India's independence in 1947, the first amateur radio organization, the Amateur Radio Club of India was inaugurated on 15 May 1948 at the School of Signals at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh. The club headquarters was later moved to New Delhi, where it was renamed the Amateur Radio Society of India on 15 May 1954. As India's oldest amateur radio organization, ARSI became its representative at the International Amateur Radio Union.
Partly due to low awareness among the general population and prohibitive equipment costs, the number of licensed amateur radio operators did not increase significantly over the next two decades, numbering fewer than a thousand by 1970. CW and AM were the predominant modes at that time. The electronic equipment was mostly valve-based, obtained from Indian army surpluses. During the mid-1960s, the modes of operation saw a change from Amplitude Modulation to Single Side Band as the preferred communication mode. By 1980, the number of amateur radio operators had risen to 1,500. In 1984, then Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, waived the import duty for wireless equipment. After this, the number of operators rose steadily, and by 2000 there were 10,000 licensed ham operators. As of 2007, there are more than 17,000 licensed users in India.
Amateur radio operators have played a significant part in disaster management and emergencies. In 1991, during the Gulf War, a lone Indian ham operator in Kuwait, provided the only means of communication between stranded Indian nationals in that country and their relatives in India. Amateur radio operators have also played a helpful part in disaster management. Shortly after the 1993 Latur and 2001 Gujarat earthquakes, the central government rushed teams of ham radio operators to the epicentre to provide vital communication links. In December 2004, a group of amateur radio operators on DX-pedition on the Andaman Islands witnessed the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. With communication lines between the islands severed, the group provided the only way of relaying live updates and messages to stations across the world.
In 2005, India became one of few countries to launch an amateur radio satellite, the HAMSAT. The Indian Space Research Organisation launched the microsatellite as an auxiliary payload on the PSLV-6.

Licence

The Indian Wireless Telegraph Rules, 2009 lists two licence categories:
  1. Amateur Wireless Telegraph Station Licence
  2. Amateur Wireless Telegraph Station Licence
After passing the examination, the candidate must then clear a police interview. After clearance, the WPC grants the licence along with the user-chosen call sign. This procedure can take up to 12 months.
Licence categoryAgePowerExamination.Privileges
Amateur Wireless Telegraph Station Licence 1210 W on VHF and UHF
50 W on HF		Minimum score of 40% in each section of the written examination, and 50% overall.Terrestrial radiotelephony transmission in VHF and UHF frequency bands and 12 HF Bands.
Amateur Wireless Telegraph Station Licence 1225 W on VHF and UHF
400 W on HF		Minimum score of 50% in each section of the written examination, and 55% overall. In addition, a demonstration of proficiency in sending and receiving Morse code at eight words a minute.Radiotelegraphy and radiotelephony transmission VHF and UHF frequency bands and 12 HF Bands.

Examination

Amateur Station Operator's Certificate or ASOC is the examination that needs to be passed to receive an amateur radio licence in India. The exam is conducted by the Wireless and Planning and Coordination Wing of the Ministry of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. The examination is held monthly in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, every two months in Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Hyderabad, and every four months in some smaller cities. The licence may be awarded to an individual or a club station operated by a group of licensed amateur radio operators.
The exam consists of two parts:
  1. Part I – Written Test
  2. # Section I: Radio Theory and Practice
  3. # Section 2 : Regulations
  4. Part II – Morse
  5. # Section 1 : Morse Receiving and Sending :
  6. # Section 2 : Morse Receiving and Sending :
The maximum number of marks that a candidate can secure is 100. To pass the examination, a candidate must score a minimum of 40 in each written section, and 50 in aggregate for a pass.

Radio theory and practice

The Radio theory and practice syllabus includes eight subtopics:
The first subtopic is the elementary theory of electricity that covers topics on conductors, resistors, Ohm's Law, power, energy, electromagnets, inductance, capacitance, types of capacitors and inductors, series and parallel connections for radio circuits. The second topic is the elementary theory of alternating currents. Portions include sinusoidal alternating quantities such as peak values, instantaneous values, RMS average values, phase; electrical resonance, and quality factor for radio circuits. The syllabus then moves on to semiconductors, specifically the construction and operation of valves, also known as vacuum tubes. Included in this portion of the syllabus are thermionic emissions with their characteristic curves, diodes, triodes and multi-electrode valves; and the use of valves as rectifiers, oscillators, amplifiers, detectors and frequency changers, stabilisation and smoothing.
Radio receivers is the fourth topic that covers the principles and operation of TRF receivers and Superheterodyne receivers, CW reception; with receiver characteristics such as sensitivity, selectivity and fidelity; Adjacent-channel interference and image interference; AGC and squelch; and signal to noise ratio. Similarly, the next topic on transmitters covers the principles and operation of low power transmitters; oscillators such as the Colpitts oscillator, Hartley oscillator, crystal oscillators, and stability of oscillators.
The last three topics deal with radio propagation, aerials, and frequency measurement. Covered are topic such as wavelength, frequency, nature and propagation of radio waves; ground and sky waves; skip distance; and fading. Common types of transmitting and receiving aerials such as Yagi antennas, and radiation patterns, measurement of frequency and use of simple frequency meters conclude the topic.

Regulations

Knowledge of the Indian Wireless Telegraph Rules and the Indian Wireless Telegraphs Rules are essential and always tested. The syllabus also includes international radio regulations related to the operation of amateur stations with emphasis on provisions of radio regulation nomenclature of the frequency and wavelength, frequency allocation to amateur radio service, measures to prevent harmful interference, standard frequency and time signals services across the world, identification of stations, distress and urgency transmissions, amateur stations, phonetic alphabets, and figure code are the other topics included in the portion.
Also included in the syllabus are Q codes such as QRA, QRG, QRH, QRI, QRK, QRL, QRM, QRN, QRQ, QRS, QRT, QRU, QRV, QRW, QRX, QRZ, QSA, QSB, QSL, QSO, QSU, QSV, QSW, QSX, QSY, QSZ, QTC, QTH, QTR, and QUM; and CW abbreviations and prosigns such as AA, AB, AR, AS, C, CFM, CL, CQ, DE, K, NIL, OK, R, TU, VA, WA, and WB.

Morse

The syllabus includes the following Morse code characters: all alphabets, numbers, prosigns, and punctuations such as the full-stop; comma; semi-colon; break sign; hyphen and question mark.
; Receiving
; Sending
PlaceMonth
Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, ChennaiEvery month
Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and NagpurJanuary, March, June, August, October and December
Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Ajmer, Bangalore, Darjeeling, Gorakhpur, Jalandhar, Goa, Mangalore, Shillong, Ranchi, Srinagar, Dibrugarh, Visakhapatnam, and Thiruvananthapuram.January, April, July and October

Fees

Reciprocal licensing and operational restrictions

Indian amateur radio exams can only be taken by Indian citizens. Foreign passport holders can apply for reciprocal Indian licences based upon a valid amateur radio call-sign from their country of residence.
Indian amateur radio licences always bear mention of location of transmitting equipment. Portable and mobile amateur radio stations require explicit permission from WPC.
Amateur radio operators from United States of America do not have automatic reciprocity in India. The use of US Federal Communications Commission call-signs is prohibited under Indian law.

Call-signs

The International Telecommunication Union has divided all countries into three regions; India is located in ITU Region 3. These regions are further divided into two competing zones, the ITU and the CQ. Mainland India and the Lakshadweep Islands come under ITU Zone 41 and CQ Zone 22, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands under ITU Zone 49 and CQ Zone 26. The ITU has assigned to India call-sign blocks 8TA to 8YZ, VUA to VWZ, and ATA to AWZ.
The WPC allots individual call-signs. Indian amateur radio operators are allotted only the VU call-sign prefix. The V or Viceroy, series prefix was allotted to British colonies. at the 1912 London International Radiotelegraphic Convention.
VU call-signs are listed according to licence grade: for General licence holders, the call-sign prefix is VU2; for Restricted licence holders, the prefix is VU3. The VU3 prefix has also been granted to foreigners operating in India., call-signs consist of only letters, not numerals, and can be either two or three characters long. Examples of Indian amateur radio call-signs are "VU2XY" and "VU2XYZ".
In addition to individual and club call-signs, the WPC allots temporary call-signs for contests and special events. For example, in November 2007, the WPC temporarily allotted the prefixes AT and AU to selected ham operators to mark the anniversary of the birth of radio scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose. The Indian Union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands are assigned the prefix VU4 and the UT of Lakshadweep is assigned VU7.
Defunct call-signs include CR8, FN8, and AC3.
Organisation
The WPC is the only authorised body responsible for regulating amateur radio in India. The WPC has its headquarters in New Delhi with regional headquarters and monitoring stations in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. It also has monitoring stations in Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Ajmer, Bangalore, Darjeeling, Gorakhpur, Jalandhar, Goa, Mangalore, Shillong, Ranchi, Srinagar, Dibrugarh, Visakhapatnam, and Thiruvananthapuram. Set up in 1952, the organization is responsible for conducting exams, issuing licences, allotting frequency spectrum, and monitoring the airwaves. It is also responsible for maintaining the rules and regulations on amateur radio.
In India, amateur radio is governed by the Indian Wireless Telegraphs Rules, 1978, the Indian Wireless Telegraph Rules, the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 and the Information Technology Act, 2000. The WPC is also responsible for coordinating with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Intelligence Bureau in running background checks before issuing amateur radio licences.

Allotted spectrum

The following frequency bands are permitted by the WPC for use by amateur radio operators in India.
BandFrequency in MHzWavelength
61.820–1.860160 m
73.500–3.70080 m
73.890–3.90080 m
77.000–7.20040 m
710.100–10.15030 m
714.000–14.35020 m
718.068–18.16817 m
721.000–21.45015 m
724.890–24.99012 m
728.000–29.70010 m
850–526 m
8144–1462 m
9434–43870 cm
91260–130023 cm
103300–34009 cm
105725–58405 cm

Awareness drives

Indian amateur radio operators number approximately 38,000. Amateur radio clubs across the country offer training courses for the Amateur Station Operator's Certificate. People interested in the hobby would be advised to get in touch with a local radio club or a local amateur radio operator who can direct them to a club that organises training programmes.

Activities and events

Popular events and activities include Amateur Radio Direction Finding, DX-peditions, hamfests, JOTA, QRP operations, Contesting, DX communications, Light House operation, and Islands on Air. One of the most popular activities is Amateur Radio Direction Finding commonly known as a "foxhunt". Several clubs across India regularly organize foxhunts in which participants search for a hidden transmitter around the city. A foxhunt carried out in Matheran near Mumbai in 2005 by the Mumbai Amateur Radio Society was listed in the 2006 Limca Book of Records under the entry "most ham operators on horseback on a foxhunt." Despite being a popular recreational activity among hams, no organization has yet participated in an international event.
Hamfest India is an annual event that serves for social gathering and comparison and sales of radio equipment. Most hamfests feature a flea market, where the attendees buy and sell equipment, generally from and for their personal stations. The event also seeks to raise amateur radio awareness in the host city. In 2008, Gandhinagar hosted the annual hamfest. Bangalore hosted the hamfest in November 2009. The 2011 hamfest was held at Kochi, Kerala.
Ham nets, where amateur radio operators "check into" are regularly conducted across India. Airnet India, Charminar Net, Belgaum Net, and Nite Owl's Net are some of the well-known ham nets in India.