CALCUTTA VHF AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY
On the 29th of October, 1999 Super Cyclone unleashed a reign of terror on the coastal belt of Orissa. Wind speeds ranging from 200 - 300 Km per hour hit the state followed by torrential rain and 7-10 ft high tidal waves leaving behind a ghastly trail of death and destruction By the end of the day power and telephone lines were cut off, all P&T links were down and by midnight all links connecting Orissa to the rest of the nation had snapped.
ANDHRA'S HEROES :
Oct. 30th midnight, barely 24 hours later a station was heard on 14.160 MHz on 20M the most popular ham band: This is Victor Uniform three Romeo Sierra Bravo, handle Sarath operating from the National Control Room at the CM's residence, Bhubaneswar. It was the first link after the cyclone and Orissa's lifeline with the rest of the world. The 10 member team from the National Institute of Amateur Radio had accomplished the impossible. They had reached and set up an Amateur Radio Control room at Bhubaneswar, travelling through a state that had virtually collapsed, to a city which seemed to have reached back to the dark ages and was inaccessible to the rest of the nation after the cyclone. A second group of Hams from the state of Andhra Pradesh soon followed, who, under the initiatives of the Honourable Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Sri. Chandrababu Naidu set up the Emergency Relief Control at the Secretariat Building located in Bhubaneswar. The tentacles of the Ham network were spreading far and fast and soon Ham stations were QRV from Jeypur, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Paradip and even Erasama, a cluster of some 2000 villages which had been worst affected by the cyclone.
CALCUTTA CONTROL :
CVARS opened the Calcutta Amateur Radio Control at the joint QTH of VU2KFR/HFR on 1st Nov. 1999. The station remained QRV from 7 in the morning till midnight and was manned by groups of four members in shifts throughout the day. The equipment consisted of a Drake TR4 HF XCVR, an Icom 751 and the Sunspot 2000 15W 20M SSB XCVR developed by the Mobile Operations Team of the society. The antennas comprised of a dipole and a TH3 (Thunderbird junior - 3 EL triband yagi) 45M from the ground. The group was constantly monitoring/handling messages on 14.160 and 14.135 MHz on 20M and 7.035 MHz on the 40M band. The Calcutta Control handled messages of a great variety. Some came from the Relief Secy. Govt. of West Bengal, All India Radio and a few other govt. departments. NGO's like Oxfam, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission, Barrackpore and the Anand Margs were quick to pounce on to the opportunity. They exchanged vital information with their counterparts in Bhubaneswar as well as the affected districts in Orissa regarding relief requirements, routes to be taken and acknowledgement of arrival of trucks carrying dry food, clothes, medicines, bleaching powder, kerosene, matches and other essential relief materials. The media coverage of the Ham communication links and the Calcutta Amateur Radio Control brought with it a deluge of phone calls from anxious relatives and friends seeking information of their near and dear ones. People came to our control room, many of them literally in tears.
On the 4th of November, National Control Room, Bhubaneswar requested CVARS Hams to set up a Ham station at Jajpur which till then was completely cut off. It was a daunting task. The search for sponsors, the long and exhausting hours spent waiting outside the offices of Calcutta's corporate houses proved to be futile. Finally a five member team left for Jajpur on Sunday, 7th Nov. 1999 on a Tata Sumo. Britannia Industries Ltd., Calcutta was the only company which supported the cause by generously providing biscuits, cakes, cheese, milk powder and other dry food for the team. The entire cost of the operation was borne from personal overdrafts with the understanding that that whatever deficit that would be incurred after the operation was going to be shared equally amongst
SUNSPOT'S DAY OF GLORY :
The HF antenna fitted on top of the Sumo was a marvelous piece of engineering considering the 24 hour notice in which the MOT had to fabricate the entire design. It was an inv vee part of which from the centre feed point was on a horizontal plane and parts of whose open extremities ran vertically through two PVC pipes attached to the front guard of the vehicle. It was possible to load the sunspot 2000 pumping 15 watts through an MFJ ATU with an SWR of 1.3:1. The mobile HF antenna and the sunspot endured speeds in excess of 130 Kmph and during the entire journey to Jajpur (even after we reached the DM's residence in Jajpur) we maintained contact with Calcutta, Bhubaneswar in Orissa and New Delhi . The VCO was exceptionally steady for a home brewed rig without phase lock loop. The frequency hopping was due to the mechanical vibration/rotation of the multi turn potentiometer which formed the main tuning dial.
The CVARS ham team set up a HF link at Jajpur providing the first link from the district to the rest of the nation. The team also provided mobile VHF stations fitted to the Epidemic Control vehicle and the Damage Enumeration vehicle during its stay at Jajpur. The Epidemic Control vehicle relayed vital information on the state of hospitals/health centres, medicine stocks and reports of epidemic breakouts in the affected blocks to the DM's residential office, based on which paramedic teams were despatched immediately and requests for emergency medical relief conveyed to the Relief Control at Kalinga stadium through our HF link.
The plumber's delight VHF dipoles worked beautifully and Jajpur Control covered a radial distance of about 50 Kms on VHF with all the roving vehicles. The HF link enabled DM Jajpur to speak to his counterparts in other districts, the CM, Spl. Secy. to CM, Relief Secy., Revenue Secy. and other high ranking Govt. officials and also the Relief Control station at Kalinga stadium in Bhubaneswar.
The HF station at Jajpur Control was an Icom 751 belonging to VU2PPM (OM Paresh) and we are grateful to him for risking his piece of equipment for this operation. The VHF station was VU2NKI's 5 watt double channel homebrewed base that gave excellent service during the entire operation. The HF and VHF stations ran entirely on the two batteries, one being kept constantly on charge whenever we had power. A standby generator was always running whenever their was a power failure. The mobile VHF stations were Icom and ADI hand-helds that ran from the car batteries with dipole antennas. Life in Jajpur town was slowly limping back to normal. The DM was supposed to receive a SAT phone soon and the team wound up and left Jajpur town on after a very successful and satisfying relief operation at Jajpur.
