In an age of instant communication on social media, ham operators were the first who heard about the extent of damage in Chennai after the floods and also how it was limping back to normalcy.
“The cellular network was down. People didn’t have electricity but ham operators, working round-the-clock, relayed the information that was useful for relief agencies,” said Srihari Sriramaiah (VU2UCR), a ham operator and nature lover, who is in Hyderabad now for the two-day Lamakaan Amateur Radio Convention (LARC).
Amateur radio, popularly known as ham radio, is a two-way non-commercial radio communication that has carved a niche for its role during disasters and emergencies.
“This event is an effort to push personal science by curious tinkerers and amateurs who can get stuff done. Big science is driven by corporate agenda with multi-million dollar grants and assistants. But science lives outside the big labs,” said Farhan Ashhar, the organiser of the event that is being hosted at Muffakam Jah College of Engineering.
Showing the possibilities of science were two Class IX boys from Telangana State Model School in Dindi, Nalgonda. While Shravan created an ultrasonic radar that has a range of 45 cm, his friend Siddharth hooked up a small display unit to a device that measured temperature and moisture in the air.
“This is the sixth convention we are having here. A convention like this is an opportunity for learning radio communication and electronic engineering. This is for people who treat communication as a hobby,” said Shashi Bhushan, director of LARC.
