Amateur radio in India
[2][3][4] The Wireless and Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC)—a division of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology—regulates amateur radio in India.
Popular amateur radio events include daily ham nets, the annual Hamfest India, and regular DX contests.
The first short-wave entertainment and public broadcasting station, "VU6AH", was set up in 1935 by E P Metcalfe, vice-chancellor of Mysore University.
[7] 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 (VU2FU) 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 (VU2LK) and Nariman Printer to help broadcast messages to grass-roots party workers across the country.
[5] The club headquarters was later moved to New Delhi, where it was renamed the Amateur Radio Society of India (ARSI) on 15 May 1954.
In 1984, then Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, waived the import duty for wireless equipment.
Shortly after the 1993 Latur and 2001 Gujarat earthquakes,[citation needed] 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.
[17] The exam is conducted by the Wireless and Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC), which comes under the Department of Telecommunications of the Ministry of Communications.
The Radio theory and practice syllabus includes eight subtopics:[20] 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.
[20] 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 abbreviations such as AA, AB, AR, AS, C, CFM, CL, CQ, DE, K, NIL, OK, R, TU, VA, WA, and WB.
[12] Candidates who appear for the General grade licence examination must also take and pass the Morse receiving and sending test simultaneously.
Foreign passport holders can apply for reciprocal Indian licences based upon a valid amateur radio license from their country of residence.
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.
It also has monitoring stations in Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Ajmer, Bangalore, Darjeeling, Gorakhpur, Jalandhar, Goa (Betim), Mangalore, Shillong, Ranchi, Srinagar, Dibrugarh, Visakhapatnam, and Thiruvananthapuram.
[19] Set up in 1952, the organization is responsible for conducting exams, issuing licences, allotting frequency spectrum, and monitoring the airwaves.
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.
[13] Several clubs across India regularly organize foxhunts in which participants search for a hidden transmitter around the city.
[40] 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.
