For the five of us
from Calcutta (
Tripti Ranjan Basu, Babul Gupta, Supratik Sanatani, Sudipto Ghosh, Alok Kundu and Prodyut Banerjee ) the new year
really started with a bang. A time most people (meaning non-DXers) are usually
busy wishing each other or licking stamps to send out their greeting card, we
were
planning out the final details of our coming DX Camp. The site we choose
this time was CHANDIPUR, a newly developed beach resort in the State of Orissa. The zero hour
drew in on the 6th of January and we set out loaded with wires,
receivers, tons of excitement and of course overselves.
LOCATION: Chandipur is about 20 km to the east of
Balasore, the latter a small town in the North East corner of the State. Apart
from Tourism, the town of Chandipur
is also a port for inshore trawlers. Even as we approached Chandipur, the warm,
sea-smelling air greeted us-a true feeling of being in the tropies. The beach is
one of the best I have seen so far, a wide strech of sand gently sloping into
the sea and lined with a belt of knee-deep water !!
We put up at the
OTDC Hotel, whose manager Mr.B.G.Mohanty was very helpful in arranging our
ideal QTH and understanding our funny requirements. Our room overlooked the
Casaurina trees extending into the sea with excellent antenna space and natural
support in the direction from North East thru South East.
ANTENNA: For the first day we used a length of 200
metres in the direction of Papua-New Guinea and a small length of 60 metres
approx North-South. On the second day we rua out 400 metres length in the
direction of Central Japan and for final night we ran out 600 metres (joining
our earlier antennas) in the direction of North Philippines and Taiwan. The
last antenna was grounded at the far end via a 500 carbon resistor.
Erection of these
antennas was a real achievement for all of us and involved lots of acrobatics.
I personally thank OM Babul Gupta for his ingenious “Rigging-made easy” ideas
and active participation. For supports we used the Casurina trees providing
excellent height and direction. We used G.I. wires to keep the wires pulled up
and applied PVC piping insulation at contact points.
BUDGET: The whole camp of 6 days worked on a
shoe-string budget and still had nothing lacking anywhere. In fact, for all of
us it was a pleasant holiday as well. OM Alok Kundu was our financial manager
and armed with a small calculator he would monitor 
each day’s expenses even in
paises ! Thank “Big Man”. For each of us the whole 6 days cost only R. 300/-
including transport, lodging, food, chicken roasts, fish delicacies, countless
cups of tea…. for more details drop a line to OM Alok Kundu !! 
HARVEST: Our
DX catches were quite fantastic for us. Indeed, using not so sophisticated RXs
we had achieved quite an amazing lot. This meet was also a great experience in
the field of using longwires and their “air-an-shoot” principle.
ACKNOWLEDMENT: We are very greatful to the Orissa State
Tourism and especially Mr. Mohanty for his generous help. We also thank the
skipper of the Trawler “B.T.” for kindly allowing us to use his boat’s compass.
Our thanks also go out to the people of
Chandipur for not being inquisitive of our activities and lastly to all the
Tourism minded people for not choosing Chandipur as their abode during this
week.73s de
- PRODYUT BANERJEEE
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