Amateur radio in India

Lore & Background

The first amateur radio operator in India was Amarendra Chandra Gooptu (callsign 2JK), licensed in 1921. Later that year, Mukul Bose (2HQ) became the second ham operator, introducing the first two-way ham radio communication in the country. By 1923, there were twenty British hams operating in India. In 1929, the call sign prefix VU came into effect, replacing three-letter call signs. The first short-wave entertainment and public broadcasting station, 'VU6AH', was set up in 1935 by E P Metcalfe, vice-chancellor of Mysore University. However, there were fewer than fifty license holders in the mid-1930s, most of them British officers in the Indian army.

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the British cancelled the issue of new licences and ordered all amateur radio operators to surrender their transmitting equipment. During 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. In August 1942, after Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, Indian National Congress activists, led by Usha Mehta, contacted Mumbai-based amateur radio operators 'Bob' Tanna (VU2LK) and Nariman Printer to help broadcast messages. The radio service, called 'Congress Radio', began broadcasting from 2 September 1942 on 7.12 MHz and could be received as far as Japanese-occupied Myanmar. By November 1942, Tanna was betrayed by an unknown radio officer and forced to shut down the station.

Temporary amateur radio licences were issued from 1946. By 1948, there were 50 amateur radio operators in India, although only a dozen were active. The first amateur radio organization, the Amateur Radio Club of India, was inaugurated on 15 May 1948 at the School of Signals at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh. The club headquarters was later moved to New Delhi, where it was renamed the Amateur Radio Society of India (ARSI) on 15 May 1954. Partly due to low awareness and prohibitive equipment costs, the number of licensed operators did not increase significantly over the next two decades, numbering fewer than a thousand by 1970. In 1984, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi waived the import duty for wireless equipment, after which numbers rose steadily.

Reader's Guide

Amateur radio in India has a significant legacy rooted in its role during the Indian independence movement, where illegal stations like Congress Radio provided uncensored news and protest music. After independence, growth was slow until 1984, when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, himself an amateur radio operator (VU2RG), waived import duty on wireless equipment, spurring a steady increase in licensed operators. By 2007, there were more than 17,000 licensed users. Amateur radio operators have played a vital part in disaster management, such as during the 1993 Latur and 2001 Gujarat earthquakes, where teams were rushed to provide communication links. In 1991, during the Gulf War, a lone Indian ham operator in Kuwait provided the only means of communication between stranded Indian nationals and their relatives. In December 2004, a group of amateur radio operators on a DX-pedition on the Andaman Islands witnessed the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and provided the only way of relaying live updates and messages to stations worldwide. In 2005, India launched the amateur radio satellite HAMSAT as an auxiliary payload on the PSLV-6, making it one of few countries to do so. The Wireless and Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC) regulates amateur radio, assigning call signs, issuing licences, conducting exams, allotting frequency spectrum, and monitoring radio waves. Popular events include daily ham nets, the annual Hamfest India, and regular DX contests.

Did You Know?

• During the Quit India Movement in 1942, Congress Radio broadcast on 7.12 MHz and could be received as far as Japanese-occupied Myanmar.
• The amateur radio licence examination in India includes a Morse code test for the General grade, with a speed of 8 words per minute.