FinallY!!!

Made my first Amateur Radio call during the Lonavla field trip 26-27 Jul 08, at SWL Yogesh Gulati's bunglow.
I had been very apprehensive about getting it wrong and getting it mixed up for my first call on air. This fear had literally held me very tight from opening up in any way during the meet with other OM on the field. I was very keen to get myself up and running but the keenness with the anxiety to understand and get everything right got me thinking and put me in an observation mode most of the time.
I had landed with Yogesh on Friday late night around 2130 hrs. IST at his bunglow, (after a pretty interesting office team meeting at Whispering Woods resort in Valvan, about 2.5 km from Yogesh's location in Tungarli).

I was not aware as to what the activities would be on the field trip.

I have very faint memories of my earlier and first field trip during a DXpedition with the St. Paul Radio Club, (courtsey Twila Greenheck) in the twin cities way back in 2000. But at that time, I was still a rookie after having passed my Technician's license exam in the US. So I had still not paid full attention to how I would take this hobby up further.

So coming back to the scene this weekend, I was not sure what I should look forward to, but the time spent through Friday night into the wee hours of Saturday morning were absolutely rocking. The team SWL - Manish, Yogesh, Jayesh, Jagdish who landed up at Yogesh's place around 1030pm were a team united for a cause and had an awesome camaraderie amongst them. Manish and Jayesh were like the proverbial fuse and bomb - for each of these used to trigger the other to get the whole gang blow up in explosive laughter. That is one night worth remembering. Thanks Manish and Jayesh in particular.

So the big opportunity to make i-ball contact with several veteran HAMs came up right the next day.
I-balls galore with
- OM VU2SFH - who got me in touch with this field trip team and compiled the well coordinated event;
- VU2SFN, the technical guide for the HF antennae, carrying a very well maintained antenna making kit;
- VU2UBP Ullas, - who helped me make the first contact on Mumbai Night Owls Net with coordinator YL VU2PJM on 144.1 on the Mumbai repeater;
- OM VU2NXM Basappaji, an RO of caliber, a veteran in CW and very down-to-earth who helped me check into VU3BBK's Sunday net on 40m/7.085 on 27-07-2008;
- VU2UGO who got me to understand bits and bytes of digicomm;
- and the key individual through whose blog (stumbled upon on June 12th 08) I was able to get this far- OM VU2SGW.

Apart from them there were cool guy Akshay (VA7AAX - an advanced level operator in Canada), Dilip (VU3DGB), Mukesh (VU2OMV), Feroze Patel (VU2FEO), Zarir (VU2VPQ), Zyros (VU2ZRS) who added the element of advice and knowledge to the event.

All in all it was a great event with a lot of learning and knowing other fellow hobbyists.
I made my first calls on the VHF 2 mt. and the HF 7 mt bands and learnt the online lingo sufficient enough to get on by myself next time.
Jut waiting for my ticket to get back renewed.

But I hope I can find some more opportunities for me to get out and do some antenna rigging.

The only thing in such events that really makes me get to the edge is the amount of garbage that we all produced, with plastic cups and spoons adding so much of non bio-degradable waste to the already depleting pure rural countryside.