Monday, July 4, 2022
Friday, October 9, 2020
CHANDIPORE DXpedition ~ 1982
details of our coming DX Camp.The site we choose this time was CHANDIPUR, a newly developed beach resort in the State of Orissa. The zero hour drew in on the 6th of January and we set out loaded with wires, receivers, tons of excitement and of course ouerselves.
LOCATION: Chandipur is about 20 km to the east of
Balasore, the latter a small town in the North East corner of the State. Apart
from Tourism, the town of Chandipur is also a port for inshore trawlers. Even
as we approached Chandipur, the warm, sea-smelling air greeted us-a true
feeling of being in the tropies. The beach is one of the best I have seen so
far, a wide strech of sand gently sloping into the sea and lined with a belt of
knee-deep water !!
We put up at the OTDC
Hotel, whose manager Mr.B.G.Mohanty was very helpful in arranging our ideal QTH
and understanding our funny requirements. Our room overlooked the Casaurina
trees extending into the sea with excellent antenna space and natural support
in the direction from North East thru South East.
ANTENNA: For the first day we used a length of 200
metres in the direction of Papua-New Guinea and a small length of 60 metres
approx North-South. On the second day we rua out 400 metres length in the
direction of Central Japan and for final night we ran out 600 metres (joining
our earlier antennas) in the direction of North Philippines and Taiwan. The
last antenna was grounded at the far end via a 500 carbon resistor.
Erection of these
antennas was a real achievement for all of us and involved lots of acrobatics.
I personally thank OM Babul Gupta for his ingenious “Rigging-made easy” ideas
and active participation. For supports we used the Casurina trees providing
excellent height and direction. We used G.I. wires to keep the wires pulled up
and applied PVC piping insulation at contact points.
BUDGET: The whole camp of 6 days worked on a shoe-string budget and still had nothing lacking anywhere. In fact, for all of us it was a pleasant holiday as well. OM Alok Kundu was our financial manager and armed with a small calculator he would monitor each day’s expenses even in paises ! Thank “Big Man”. For each of us the whole 6 days cost only R. 300/- including transport, lodging, food, chicken roasts, fish delicacies, countless cups of tea…. for more details drop a line to OM Alok Kundu !!
HARVEST: Our DX catches were quite fantastic
for us. Indeed, using not so sophisticated RXs we had achieved quite an amazing
lot. This meet was also a great experience in the field of using longwires and
their “air-an-shoot” principle.
ACKNOWLEDMENT: We are very greatful to the Orissa State Tourism and especially Mr. Mohanty for his generous help. We also thank the skipper of the Trawler “B.T.” for kindly allowing us to use his boat’s compass. Our thanks also go out to the people of Chandipur for not being inquisitive of our activities and lastly to all the Tourism minded people for not choosing Chandipur as their abode during this week.
73s de
- PRODYUT
BANERJEEE
Friday, October 2, 2020
We are back again ...... this time in digital
Asian DX Review [ADXR] monthly newsletter from Indian DX Club International is back again. After a long gap, we are pleased to release the digital edition of the much popular newsletter.
When ADXR last rolled out of the press in 1990, DXing was different. There was no internet. We had to eagerly wait for the DX program like DX Jukebox (later renamed Media Network) from Radio Nederland and other DX program to copy down the tips for DX hunting. Once in a week we would get the sunspot numbers. DX magazine like our ADXR reached people by post. Digital Frequency Readout receivers were already there but they were beyond the reach of the average listener. There were no mobile phones, no mobile phone towers. During sunspot lows the medium waves were full of Japanese regionals on lucky days. The tropical bands were all full of Indonesians in the evening, Africans appeared late evening and night and then the Latins in the early Indian morning. The reception reports were still sent by mail and often with IRCs to facilitate a qsl card. QSL card arrived by post, often with pennant and other goodies like exciting stamps. DXers met in persons over small group gathering, through the land line and through the bulletins.
Then there was a hiatus of thirty years during which period DXers did go on listening, QSLing, face to face meeting, DXpeds and communicating through land phones .The couple of exciting DXpeditions along Bay of Bengal did keep us enthused about DXing. Then came the internet. It developed slowly but steadily and changed the very face of DXing. DXing was gently turned upside down.
Where does ADXR digital fit in? It now comes with our own flavor of DX reporting, our small contribution to keep the spirit of DXing alive and to give you a feel of the man between the radios and the signals. We are here to give a life to those frequency lists and schedules and encourage others to speak. Our aim is to keep DX alive and speaking.
Indian DX Club International (IDXCI) is an informal association of DXers mainly from India. Head Quartered in Kolkata, India, the Club brings out the “Asian DX Review” DX bulletin which is presently an online publication and is distributed free. It has also been active in organizing DXpeditions and promoting the hobby of radio DXing in general.
Direct download link
https://idxci.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ADXR-Volume-38-No-552-October-2020.pdf
Radio enthusiasts are can send in their logging, feedback, reports, etc to idxc.international@gmail.com by 25th of every month.
Indian DX Club International, GPO Box 646, Kolkata 700001, India.
IDXCI Website www.idxci.in
Join Our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/idxcintl
Monday, August 31, 2020
AIR KOLKATA ANTENNA TALES
Dr.Supratik Sanatani, VU3IFB
The
super cyclone of October 1999 brought down the antenna 120 m mast of Kolkata A
657 Khz which radiated 2x 100 kw. In the words of an engineer manning the
transmitter " we got a phone call that AIR Kolkata A was not audible. When
we looked out, the main antenna mast simply was not there !! "The huge
mast built of thick gauge metal can still be seen lying in the premises.
Portions have been sawed off to make way to the newly installed 120 m mast.
This incident caused disruption of Kolkata A transmissions for few days.
Transmission resumed only when a new mast was put up.
The
new main radiating mast of Kolkata A had a parasitic mast put up few meters
down south. It was to act as a reflector and direct most of the radio signals
to the north which is the populated part of the State. The southern parasitic
mast was to avoid valuable signals getting lost in the Bay of Bengal to the
south which is sparsely populated anyway. However, a controversy cropped up in
2011. During a tropical cyclone in July 2011 few fishermen who had ventured out
to the sea were lost. There was hue and cry in the media that the disaster
could have been avoided if the weather bulletins from AIR Kolkata could be
better heard (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bangladx/message/2668). The
AIR authorities were under pressure when news reports originating from the
fishing town of Kakdwip said that Bangladesh Betar weather bulletins were
better received over the Bay of Bengal ((http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bangladx/message/2686).
The AIR authorities woke up and an engineer was dispatched in a coast guard
vessel to measure signal strength of AIR transmissions almost 300 km deep down
south in the Bay of Bengal. He found good to strong signals all throughout the
test area. However, the authorities decided to disconnect the parasitic
reflector mast to put the controversy to rest. The parasitic mast still stands
up mournfully though in the antenna field of Chandi some 24 km south of
Kolkata.
As
if this was not enough, the 120 m mast of Kolkata B snapped in May 2012. This
was not due to any cyclone or gale. It was presumed that one of the guy ropes
anchoring the mast that snapped and that caused a disbalance. This in turn
caused a cascading effect and finally the main mast snapped. AIR Kolkata B 100
kw transmitting on 1008 kHz was disrupted for almost 20 days while a new mast,
somewhat shorter in height was put up. This new mast has a loading hat on top
and rhombic elements on all sides. Presently this is fed by 10 kw standby brand
new RIZ mobile transmitter which is running at 8 kW because one part of the
panel is not working and the engineers conversant with BEL transmitters would
not risk tinkering with the malfunctioning panel of Riz mobile transmitters
which is in the warranty period. They would rather wait for the authorized
technicians of Riz transmitters to arrive.
Pilferage
is another minor irritation which bugs the antenna fields of Chandi. Even
though manned by security guards round the clock,and watch towers in the
periphery the precious copper of antenna and feeder elements are prey to the
thieves. Most often the pilferages would be minor e.g. one coil of some
hundreds of tank circuits in the antenna support wires or few lengths of
concentric feeder lines. However, these would disbalance the fine tuning required
for that extra last mile for the radio signal !
Yet
another element which upsetting the fine tuning is the collapsed old tower
which is awaiting bureaucratic clearance for disposal . A mammoth steel
structure in the antenna fields is bound to add some inductance here or there
and compromise design efficiency. The same applies to the disconnected
parasitic antenna mast in the south which is still there completete with the
ground radials. This is bound to compromise the design efficiency.
The
Engineers at the site were however very upbeat. They are proud that their
signals were getting around in spite of all the difficulties and they have
faithful listeners tuning in. One engineer who had just completed a stint at
Orissa talked about a 90 year old faithful listener who would telephone the
station at the slightest fall in transmission quality. However, he would also
sympathise with the ground realtites. Talking about ground realities in India,
I was reminded of the Engineer at AIR Aligarh HPT who talked about Neel Gai's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilgai)
charging into antenna curtains and disrupting transmission.
Report
by Dr Supratik Sanatani after a visit to Amtala and Chandi facilities of AIR
Kolkata along with Babul Gupta, Sudipta Ghosh & Swopan Chakraborty in July
2012.
A VISIT TO THE HERITAGE TRANSMITTING SITES OF AIR KOLKATA AT AMTALA AND CHANDI
Dr. Supratik Sanatani, VU3IFB
It
was an odd combination of fixtures which greeted us as we entered AIR Kolkata
transmitting station at Amtala. There was a table tennis table laid out in
front of the retired Westinghouse transmitter panels. This transmitter was
already decommissioned and we could locate the number plate tucked away at one
corner “ 2.5 kW Westinghouse May 1948 DWG NAA11560 So FEZ65900
Westinghouse NP 2145413”. This building had two wings, the one on the
left housed the 100 kw MW transmitter and the one on the right housed the 50 kW
shortwave transmitter. Soon the Westinghouse transmitter would give way to
equipment for DRM simulcast on existing AIR Kolkata frequencies. The bulk of
the DRM equipment would be voltage stabilizers and power supplies which would
be housed here. In future we would see neither the table tennis table nor
the Westinghouse transmitters!
The
medium wave transmitter was located on the left half of the building. This was
a BEL HMV 140 transmitter serial no 003 but was presently non functioning. Ever
since the 120 m antenna mast connected to this mw transmitter collapsed,
transmission had been going on from a 2x10 kW mobile transmitter made by the
Croatian company RIZ. The mobile transmitter came in two neat containerized
units which were placed at the back of the transmitter building. One container
was the power supply and the other one was the transmitter unit control panels
and even a crammed up quarter for the personnel. The antenna which came with
this unit was commissioned close to the place where the former antenna mast had
collapsed in May. The new mast is smaller in height, has a loading hat on top
and rhombic elements all around. The older antenna mast had a large room
housing the antenna tuning unit at its base. The new antenna had a smaller
antenna tuning enclosure. The new Riz transmitter is DRM capable and
preparations are under way for DRM simulcast. They were waiting for the new
power supply transformers to be installed. Brisk civil construction was already
under way.
At
Chandi transmitter site we were greeted by a huge dish antenna for down linking
signals from AIR studios at Eden Gardens Kolkata. The transmitter building had
a FM antenna on top for studio link. Besides these two studio links there was a
E2T2 cable link as well as a telephone link through BSNL cables. The Chandi
site used the satellite link while Amtala site used the E2T2 link. Both of the
sites had very rudimentary studio facilities for playing taped fillers in the
event of all link failure from the studios. They were seldom needed nowadays
while in the past, during the days of telephone link only, it was no unusual
for us to listen to filler music during periods of link failure.
The
feeder lines were coaxial fashioned out of a set of copper rods arranged in one
inner ring and another outer ring. The outer ring was grounded and was
therefore the “shield” The inner ring was the active element. The desired feed
line impedance could be obtained by arranging the elements in desired number
and desired distribution. Supported on insulators and poles these coaxial
distribution of elements ran out to the antenna field to the antenna tuning
unit which was housed in an enclosed building at the base of the 120 m antenna
mast. That was far cry from the RG 58 coax and a small box of antenna tuning
unit we DXers are familiar with.
As
we returned to the main transmitter building to take leave, it was late
afternoon and through the transmitter monitors we could hear the unmistakable
opening tune of the popular women’s programme – “ Mahila Mahal”. I wonder if
the helpful Engineer realized how much this visit meant to us DXers, some
of whom have been tinkering with the radio dials for close to 45 years.
As young boys we woke up to the signature tune from these transmitters, as
hobbyists we saw the tubes , transistors, jammers , DTH and SDR's and now we
are here to see the AIR DRM compatible transmitters coming while so many
broadcasters such as DW and Radio Nederland are closing shop.
Dr
Supratik Sanatani reports after visiting Amtala and Chandi in July 2012 with
three other IDXCI members Babul Gupta, Sudipta Ghosh and Swopan
Chakraborty
Photo's
courtesy www.riz.hr
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Indian DXer Enters Limca Book of Records
As a teenage Jose started listening to radio and started to write to stations way back in 1973, when in his school days. Few years later in 1976 he first wrote All India Radio, when his reception report was first verified with a QSL. Over next 42 years, he has used various mediums, ranging from inland letters, post cards to emails, for sending reception report. Currently he has over 2500 QSL from 130 different countries, many of which left the airwaves.
Over the years, with his special interest in All India Radio, he is one key country contributors, from India, of World Radio TV Handbook updating about All India Radio to the directory of global broadcasting.