6. Kavaratti: Following on from our previous topic on the Lakshadweep islands a few weeks back, we come now to the story about the mediumwave radio station on Kavaratti Island.
The Lakshadweep Islands are the northernmost cluster of islands in West Aquamontia in the Arabian Sea off the west coast of India. Actually, Kavaratti Island is the capital “city” island in Lakshadweep, though it is not quite the largest island in the archipelago.
Androth Island is slightly larger than Kavaratti, with just a few more people. Kavaratti has an area of just 1.52 square miles, and a population a little in excess of 11,000 according to at least one authority.
The island has 190 ponds to collect fresh water from the annual monsoon rains, and an additional 1325 fresh water wells. In addition, the Indian government has installed a desalination plant on the island that is able to obtain 26,000 gallons of drinking water from the ocean each day.
The National Institute of Amateur Radio NIAR in Hyderabad has sent several amateur radio personnel on DXpeditions to the Lakshadweep Islands and Jose Jacob VU2JOS has himself participated in three of these DXpeditions. Jose states that on the occasion of his first visit to Kavaratti in 1989, they operated under the callsign VU7APR on Kavaratti Island, and under the callsign VU7NRO on nearby Kadmat Island.
There was no mediumwave station on the island back then. However, a high powered mediumwave station across the waters at Kozhikode on the Malibar Coast of South India with 100 kW on 684 kHz provided evening programming for the benefit of listeners in the Lakshdweep Islands.
There was a longwave radio beacon on the island for use in local navigation by planes and ships. In addition, there were already two solar powered 10 watt TV relay stations on the air. However, most of the residents throughout Lakshadweep prefer to watch TV via the satellite delivered cable systems.
Work on a new mediumwave station for Kavaratti began in 1993 at a location in the middle of the island. This new AIR All India Radio station with 1 kW on 1584 kHz was inaugurated on January 1 of the following year (1994) following a series of test transmissions. Quite by chance, Jose Jacob happened to hear this station on its first day of broadcast, though it took another 9 years before he finally received a QSL letter verifying his reception of this unique island radio station.
Eighteen years after the 1 kW mediumwave transmitter was inaugurated, a new 10 kW transmitter was installed at the same location, a Thompson analog/digital unit Model M2W. When this new transmitter was taken into service on April 21, 2016 on 1152 kHz, the old 1 kW transmitter was retired. However, consideration has been given on occasions to utilizing the old low power transmitter for local community programming.
An FM station with 100 watts on 100.1 MHz began to carry a slave relay of mediumwave programming on December 14, 2012. The AIR station on Kavaratti takes most of its programming as a relay from the AIR headquarters station in the state capital Trivandrum, with a few hours each day of locally produced programming. Jose Jacob also informs us that a 10 minute daily program from the Pune studios of Adventist World Radio is heard via the FM transmitters on Kavaratti, and via the mediumwave transmitter on 1152 kHz.
On a previous occasion here in Wavescan, we presented information regarding five islands in Lakshadweep and for the next few minutes, we catch a brief glimpse of the radio scene on several of the remaining islands in this archipelago.
7. Chetlat is a small island of less than half a square mile and a population of a little more than 2,000. A local solar powered TV station has been on the air here for the past several years.
8. Kadmat also has a local low power TV station that presents a continuous relay of mainland Indian programming. This island of one and a quarter square miles has a population of around 3,500 people. In 2006, two officials from the National Institute of Amateur Radio, Ram Mohan VU2MYH and Jose Jacob VU2JOS, made a fact finding visit to Kadmat Island. Subsequently, two amateur DXpeditions have operated from Kadmat, and they were on the air consecutively as VU7RG and VU7NRO.
9. Kalpatti is a very small uninhabited island and it is the westernmost territory of India. Some years ago it was under consideration for use as an extension to the airport runway from nearby Agatti Island, though this project was never implemented due to wild life conservation. Jose Jacob also visited this island as an assessment project.
10. Kalpeni has a population in excess of four thousand on its one square mile. This island also has a low power TV relay station, and one NIAR amateur radio DXpedition has been staged there.
11. Kiltan supports a population of 3,600 on its .85 square miles of island territory. This island also operates a low power over the air solar powered TV station.
(AWR-Wavescan #544)