March 10th 2005: Got the grade-II license (license number 30905). Started operating in VHF with the Kenwood TH-G7A Handy. My first QSO was with Ismael, VU2QNY. Gopan VU3HPF, my elmer and friend left the same day to Dubai, which was a big disappointment. He handed over his inverted-V antenna, RG-58U cables, Astron SS-30M power supply and a host of other tools with me. This was the single factor which helped me get on the air. I was anxious to get into HF. Grade-II requires atleast 100 HF CW contacts endorsed in the license before getting into HF Voice.
Around the same time, I met a new friend Ramesh, VU2YE thru the VHF repeater. He had a ICOM IC-706 for sale and I immediately made a visit to his beautiful house with Rajesh VU3VOC and bought the rig.
Operated HF on 40 meter and 20 meter bands until end of 2006 when the local powerline interference began to creep thru the antennas into the shack. The problem was raised to the Bangalore Electricity Corporation (BESCOM), but it was never rectified. Suddenly, sometime in June 2007, the noise disappeared and I operated again on HF, until September 2007 when RFI started troubling me again.
In Feb 2008, I left Bangalore and since then, haven’t operated radio. I have sold my Icom IC-706 to a new radio amateur and hope to setup my station again by end of 2009 in Bangalore, this time mostly with homebrew QRP gear.