After nearly 6 years since I went off the air, I will finally be heard on the air-waves. It was a long self imposed exile from the on - air operations. I continued to keep in touch with the Hams. That kept me informed about the activities and the progress of the hobby.
The reasons were plenty for me to go off the air.
The hobby was going a little out of control with certain grade of operators 'pushing' themselves into the activities. They were getting a little unruly. Operating ethics were thrown to the wind. Language, was at times, not palpable. Having come into the hobby the hard way (an altogether different story- to be narrated later in a separate post), I just could not come terms with the unruly behaviour on the air.
The homeliness and comoradeship was missing. People were getting into too many small groups discussing petty matters which was in contravention to the set ethics of the hobby. It was difficult to make new friends.
My work was getting too hectic. I was travelling almost 5 days a week giving me no free time.
It was also during this period that my life took a spirtual turn. I started certain spritual and religious actvities in the mornings.
There was also the possibility of my getting transferred from Mysore.
To top it all, the final nail on activities was - I got MARRIED!!!
Enough reasons to end all my radio activities. I have now finally come into Bangalore.
This weekend, I happened to come to Mysore. I pulled out the antenna and cables to be carried to Bangalore. I intend to put up the antenna on Sunday and should be making the good old ham radio "galata" - not to be linked to MGP's other acronym.
Will keep the info coming
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4 comments:
I am not for a form of censorship but I thought HAM radio was kind of being monitored by some regulatory authority to prevent the medium from turning hostile or unsavoury? Isn't there a mechanism to ensure rules are complied with? Please enlighten me.
Yes Capt., there is a Monitoring Authority authorised to 'eves drop' on all radio communiction. But the Amateur frequencies are seldom monitored, especially the VHF bands - due to its low range. The type of operators mentioned belonged to a restricted grade (details coming up in a future post) where they are authorised only the VHF range. The requirements are very minimum for passing the examination for such licences.
Even on the Shortwave (HF) bands, there were a lot of increased activity from regionalised areas and it so happened that groups started forming along language lines. It became near to impossible to understand the line of conversation. There was no way any other HAM could join in to the coversation.
Another point I missed in my original post was that propogation was also at its lowest making any other long distance (termed DX in HAM parlance) very difficult. That was another reason for me going into HAM hibernation.
Thanks Mr. Madhukar. I did not understand a few things at the end like DX and all, maybe I can see another topic coming in explaining some of the terminology that is used in HAM radio.
Hey.... came across your blog... good to see what you've been upto. congrats on getting married... best wishes to your XYL.
regards from someone who used to be VU3VID :P
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