Merry Christmas & Advance Wishes for a Happy New Year 2015

LATEST AMATEUR RADIO NEW LICENSE ISSUANCE/EXISTING LICENSE RENEWAL PROCEDURES!!!!

AMATEUR RADIO LICENSE RENEWAL PROCEDURES

These steps are to help people either apply for new License after their police verification is over and they receive a letter for sending DD or for those who want renew their existing License.

1. Follow the link http://www.wpc.dot.gov.in/home.asp for all the information/details related to Amateur and other services.

2. Open the link in 'Internet Explorer browser'. It is little fast.

3. Registering your self is NOT MANDATORY at http://www.wpc.dot.gov.in/udefault.asp, but it would help to follow/track your application, later.

4. In case your licence number is present in the on-line database please complete the on-line application and include the acknowledgement slip along with the application. If your licence number is not present please mention the same in the application.

5. Take a DD for Rs. 2000/- for 'Life Time' (up to the age of 80 years ONLY) or

6. Take a DD for Rs. 1000/- for 20 years.

7. Demand Draft of requisite amount towards fees (including late fine), drawn from any branch of SBI Only in favors of 'Pay and Account Officer (HQ), Department of Telecommunication' or 'PAO(HQ), DOT' payable at Service Branch, New Delhi (code-7687). Or MICR CP CENTRE (Code 4328) [Please write your License No./Call-sign/Name/Case No etc. on overleaf of DD] (Reports are there Service Branch (Code-7687) is closed now, some of our friends send the DD payable at MICR CP Centre (Code – 4328 and got the license renewed.)

8. Life time renewal would be beneficial, particularly for the youngsters.

9. Add 'Late Fee' along with the renewal fee, if you are sending after expiry date (Applicable Late fee is Rs.100/- per every Half year or Part thereof)

10. Send in the duly filed in application form along with a 
(a) Xerox copy of your license, (No need to send your Original License)

(b) Date of Birth certificate duly attested by a gazetted officer.

(c) A covering letter requesting for the type of renewal required. 

(d) Please enclose ONE self addressed, un-stamped envelop of 23cm x 15 cm size for the 
Renewal of Amateur License, where it is required to be posted and/or enclose ONE self addressed, un-stamped envelop of 24cm x 11 cm size for all other kind of correspondence.
(Total 2 envelopes)

(e) DD as per point No. 5 or 6 towards renewal fee including late fee, if any.

11. If the renewal application is delayed more than TWO years later after expiry of license; please attach the justification of delay.

12. Write your Name, call-sign and the license number at the back of the DD and other Documents attached with the application.

13. Please write your complete recent address {Including Town, City, State and PIN and Contact No.(if any)} of correspondence on top of the letter for fast disposal of the cases.

14. Retain a photocopy of the application and documents sent by you as proof or for follow-up in case of any problem and future reference.

15. Send your application by 'Speed Post' ONLY.

16. Check the status of your application after a couple of weeks by logging on to their web site in case you have applied online successfully. En-cashment of DD indicates the process of renewal is 'ON' or in progress. May be, a phone call to WPC with your License Number would help, if undue delay is experienced.

17. Keep Logbook ready if called for. (Minimum 40 contacts per year are mandatory).

18. Normally one may have to wait atleast 2-4 months to get it cleared.

WPC address and the contact Details:
The Asst. Wireless Advisor,
Govt. of India
Ministry of Communications & IT
DOT, WPC Wing, (Amateur Section) COP section
Room No: 619, 6th Floor, Sanchar Bhawan
20, Ashoka Road, New Delhi – 110 001.

Contact No.
011-2303 6181
011-2303 6539 *
011-2337 2081
011-2335 5441
FAX No. 011-2371 6111
Website: http://www.wpc.dot.gov.in


LICENCE RENEWAL letter

From:

Full address Including Town, City, State and PIN and Contact No.(if any)

Phone: 

Date: 

To:
The Assistant Wireless Adviser to
Government of India,
Ministry of Communication and Information Technology,
WPC Wing, Amateur Cell,
616, 6th Floor, Sanchar Bhavan,
20, Ashoka Road,
NEW DELHI -110001.

Sub: Renewal of the amateur Licence No. ________ Call sign ______ expired on __________for 20 Years/Life Time.

Sir, 

I am herewith enclosing the following for renewal of my amateur license:

1. As per the new guidelines, I have searched the WPC website but my Licence No. is not present in the online database and hence I was unable to attach the On line application Acknowledgement slip. /my license No. is present in the online data base and I have registered successfully and attaching the online application acknowledgement. (Strike out whichever is not applicable.)

2. DD for Rs _______/- No. _______________dated___________ drawn from SBI in favour of 
“PAY AND ACCOUNTS OFFICER (HQ), Department of Telecommunications” / 
“PAO (HQ), DOT” payable at _______________________________________.

2. A xerox copy of the licence duly attested.

3. Two self addressed, un-stamped envelopes for correspondence.

4. Date of Birth Certificate duly attested.

I do hereby declare that I have made the requisite contacts per year and request your 
Good self to renew my licence for Life Time / Twenty years and oblige. (Strike out whichever is not applicable.)

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

{Signature of the licence holder}

Note: You should maintain the Log book for the authorities to verify the above declaration.

Some of the ways HAMS made immense contribution to the society

Update : Chennaihams Eyeball meet conducted on 13th Dec 2014

Thanks for all who made it and very nice meeting with active participation from all on how to increase HAM activity level in Chennai. 

MOM Chennai HAM's Eyeball had on 13/12^/2014 @ Whannels Road , Egmore

19 HAMS attended the meeting which started at 1730 Hrs Ended 1900 hrs.

Following points were discussed. Purpose of this second informal meeting was basically to review action points from last meeting and further takeup fresh agendas to improve HAM activity in our city.

1.  VU3USI has successfully updated the Chennai based HAM contact database and of the 180+ email ID’s, 100 have been verified as active and correct. Further a Whatsapp group and a email ID chennaihams@gmail.com has been created for the benefit of all . A new Yahoo Groups for ChennaiHams will also be created and all ID’s added onto it.

2.  HAM activities

• .   25^th Jan 2015 has been fixed as a day for Fox Hunt. 
•     Deepan would be the Fox and would take further lead and advice details.

2.  CDV Vivek brief JOTA activities and really commendable effort on his part to be doing it continuously for so many years . For the next year JOTA announcement to be made atleast 1 month in advance and plan to cover atleast 10 schools with more participation from all Chennai Hams, etc.

3.   Frequency of such meeting to continue as bi-monthly – Every Second Saturday of the month and could be either a meeting alone or a meeting along with activity. Accordingly next meeting date is fixed for 25^th Jan 2015 along with Fox Hunt . Venue will be the Fox location itself and is will be communicated a week before the meeting by email , VHF net and WhatsApp / SMS . A new email distribution chennaihams@googlegroups.com has been created for further communication and all active email ID's will be added.

4.  It has been decided that Sunday VHF nets would special nets with additional activites like On the air quiz etc , net controllers USI & DPN to further work out on this and start from 21^st Dec 2014 Sunday. 

5.  Support for New/existing hams to come on air by providing assistance like making cable, antenna, etc , core team who volunteered would be VU2PTR, VU2GMN & VU2ABS, VU2DPN, VU2DH . ABS to also work on another bulk equipment import basis demand.

6.  SIARS Pallikaranai team lead by Sinosh & team presented on the app available on www.siars.org.in as well as the class schedules being conducted now regularly . All chennai hams would closely support SIARS initiatives also wherever needed.

7.  Assistance and support for renewal of License from WPC or any such supports – Rajesh VU2OEC@gmail.com who is ARSI rep at Delhi would provide any assistance . VU2DH would take lead on local liason with WPC Chennai monitoring station.

8.  Repeater at Madhuranthakam – A team to visit Madhurantakam shortly to further take-up and conclude the project.

9.  All HAMS were requested to be a members of ARSI and send article and photos for publishing it in their e-bulletin/news letter.

10. HFI 2014 – Almost 25 HAMS from chennai attended the HFI Hyderabad and overall Tamilnadu had the largest participation.

11. VU2GHB OM Hari & ABS Arvind presented and gave a demo on on Software Defined Radio and its functionalities 

12. ARSI Hill Toping contest likely to happen in Jan 2015 although exact dates yet to be announced.

Following are the hams attended the meeting:

VU2DPN, VU2PTR, VU3MOA, VU2CDV, VU3USI, VU2SDU, VU2DH , VU2ABS, VU2AKW , VU3CBM , VU2GWH , VU3PKQ , VU3RGK , VU2GHB ,VU2TSF, VU2VAU, SWL Vipin (Awaiting License) , SWL Suresh , SWL clement(Awaiting License)

Chennai based HAM develops Android Morseit Ring Tone software

Chennai based HAM Rajesh K (callsign VU3RGK ) has developed a Android Morseit Ring Tone software which is available in Google play.

The key feature of Morseit is if started in any Android device, will play caller id (ringtone) in Morse code. One important feature of the app is that it is very light weight as far as CPU and Battery is concerned. Very small in size and does not run any separate thread while the phone is ringing.

Since the program does not hijack the ringing feature of an android phone, it allows android to retain all functionalities of original ringtone manager. Morseit also allows user to shut it down when not needed and startup automatically when phone reboots.

Android platform is very famous among phone users. In these days, everyone uses mobile devices intensely. Idea is to provide an application to ring in Morse code so that folks can listen and develop their Morse skills every time their phone rings!

Challenge for Rajesh was making the app fast so that a customized ring tone file is created very quickly on every incoming call, before Android picks it up for playing!. The next project he is working on is a flexible Morse code tutor…. that is perhaps when he finds time from his busy schedule. 

You can get more details in google play , pls visit and enjoy free download

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vu3rgk.Morseit

An introduction to Echolink

EchoLink is a computer-based Amateur Radio system distributed free of charge that allows radio amateurs to communicate with other amateur radio operators using Voice over IP (VoIP) technology on the Internet for at least part of the path between them. It was designed by Jonathan Taylor, a radio amateur with callsign K1RFD.

The system allows reliable worldwide connections to be made between radio amateurs, greatly enhancing Amateur Radio's communications capabilities. In essence it is the same as other VoIP applications (such as Skype), but with the unique addition of the ability to link to anamateur radio station's transceiver. Thus any low-power handheld amateur radio transceiver which can contact a local Echolink node (A node is an active Echolink station with a transceiver attached) can then use the Internet connection of that station to send their transmission via VOIP to any other active Echolink node, world-wide. No special hardware or software is required to relay a transmission via an Echolink node.

Before using the system it is necessary for a prospective user's callsign to be validated. The EchoLink system requires that each new user provide positive proof of license and identity before his or her callsign is added to the list of validated users. There is no cost for this service, and it ensures that this system is used only by licensed amateur radio operators.

The software is written to run on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows. Another edition of the software runs on Apple mobile devices (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad), and is available from the Apple App Store. An Android version is available on Google Play and several other Android app repositories.

Radio amateurs using the EchoLink software can operate it in one of two modes:

• Single User Mode. If they have an Internet-connected computer, they can use the computer's microphone and speakers to connect to (or through - see below) other EchoLink-enabled computers over the Internet and talk to the amateur at the other end.
• Sysop Mode. This entails connecting their own VHF or UHF transceiver to their Internet-connected PC with a specially-designed hardware interface. Doing this enables another radio amateur with their own transceiver, who is within radio range of this station, to communicate with (or through) any other EchoLink-equipped station anywhere in the world. This is the unique feature of EchoLink.

Radio amateurs without the EchoLink software or a computer connected to the Internet can take advantage of the EchoLink network if they are within radio range of a sysop mode EchoLink station. It is also possible to link a sysop mode EchoLink station to a local repeater, further enhancing the communication possibilities.

An ambitious project is being worked out to link all Indian amateur VHF repeaters through echo link which will enable long distance communication through VHF across India . Already a trial linking Chennai & Mumbai VHF repeaters has been successfully completed with trials going on and regular nets interlinking repeaters would be conducted in the near future. 

Women In Amateur Radio

Amateur Radio Is A Hobby For Men And Women

Amateur Radio is a communications hobby that throughout its history has been dominated by men, well times are changing and more and more women are becoming involved in the varied aspects of the hobby.

Amateur Radio offers a chance for the entire family to enjoy activities together. Its easy to make a start in the hobby without having great technical knowledge.

Many women combine amateur radio with other activities such as camping and bush walking. Others like to feel that they are able to share interests with their spouses and family.

Women In The History Of Radio

Women have participated in Amateur Radio since its very start

In 1924 Florence Wallace (as she was then known) became Australia’s first certificated woman radio telegraphist and in 1924, the only woman member of the Wireless Institute of Australia. She was the founder and director of the Electrical Association for Women, established in 1934. In 1939 she founded and directed the Women’s Emergency Signalling Corps, which later became the starting point for the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS). Rosemary Broomham wrote in the biography of Florence McKenzie in 200 Australian Women that altogether Mrs McKenzie trained over 10,000 servicemen in morse, visual signalling and international code, and she trained 3000 women, a third of whom went into the Services. On 8 June 1950 Florence McKenzie was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her work with the Women’s Emergency Signals Corps.

   1914, First Canadian YL Wireless Radio Operator
Miss M. S. Colville, XDD, of Bowmanville, ON

   1915, First U.S. YL
Emma Chandler, 8NH/W8NH of St. Mary’s, Ohio, USA Featured in QST issue Oct. 1916

   1898 - 1982
Eunice Randall, 1CDP and W1MPP
Around 19 years of age, Eunice Randall built her own amateur radio station (ER). In 1919, Eunice became the first
announcer, on-air, at AMRAD (1XE/WGI), broadcasting station, in Boston, Massachusetts.