Just after Holi– the Festival of Colours – a Delhidxer group of radio lovers packed their gears and headed in four vehicles to the Land of Kings & Forts – RAJASTHAN fortwo-day SILISERH DXPEDITION – christened by VU3BSE (Alokesh). The destination,i.e., Siliserh Lake is a beautiful lake, spread in 7 Sq.Kms area, located just 165 Kms from Dhaula Kuan Delhi and 110 Kms from Jaipur.It is situated in north eastern part of Rajasthan. The lake was built byMaharaja Vinay Singh in the year 1845, to channel the water to Alwar city. Abeautiful Lake Palace was also built by Maharaja for his beloved wife Shila. Itwas also used as hunting lodge. Now, the Lake Palace is a RTDC Hotel. The Dxped group ofSWLs (Kaustav & Tarveen), Hams (VU3BSE, VU2ORO, VU3DJQ, VU2ATN, VU2OEC),XYLs and Harmonics greeted each other at McDonalds on NH8 and vroomed in theircars to Dxped destination full of excitement with beautiful scenic highwayviews of Rajasthan.
By noon, afterrelishing the Rajasthani cuisine at Lake Palace Hotel, checked in the hotel.Almost whole of hotel rooms were occupied by Dxped group on every floor. Theradio shack on the top most floor with open terrace area, being the ideal placefor radio activity, was suddenly filled with many homebrewed antennaewires/baluns. The longest beverage 100 mtr long was painstakingly installedby SWL Kaustav and his SWL XYL Tarveen with the help of Alokesh, Ranajay & Chittaranjan through the highest most point of Lake Palace hotel to far awayslopes of the nearby hill of oldest mountain range – Aravallis. Multi-Band FanInverted Vee, Longwire, Dipole & Verticals were some of the other antennae.
During the GreyLine time, all were set with professional communication receivers and fewstate-of-the-art portable receivers. XYLs and Harmonics, by now were closefriends and discussed their life matters with especial impetus on their HamHusbands, that is, how they managed everything between family and ham radio. Itwas a mixed feeling with various emotions – Ha Ha Ha...
The logbook,tailor-made by VU3BSE (Alokesh), started showing all good Dx catch. OM VU3DJQ(Raman), VU2ORO (RON) along with Alokesh deciphered & identified almostevery broadcast band, the moment they heard it, as they excelled in it. VU2ORO (Ranajay) had an excellent run with utility logs, however conditions were poor & adding to our woes was the whopping A index value of 68. VU2ATN(Atanu) and VU2OEC (Rajesh) took a lot of interest in monitoring broadcastbands and also amazed at the way the trio went on identifying the radiostations broadcasts in foreign languages. We had few excellent catches from Chile & Japan during early morning.
SWL KAUSTAV and SWLTarveen, also glued to portable Grundig Radio, Radio Shack DX-394, logged allstations heard.
Dxped Harmonics,viz., Amitesh, Eshaan, Srihari, Kushagra, Srilekha, Chittaranjan, too were notleft behind as they flawlessly operated FRS walkie talkies, like their parents.The youngest 2.5 year old dxped harmonic of VU2OEC, viz., Jiya enjoyed thewalkie talkie playing kids and yelled cq..cq..cq..at them. The talented harmonics presented poems,dance, jokes and songs. The FRS walkie talkie game went on till late in night.
Siliserh Dxpedmembers - Alokesh, Raman, Ranajay, Kaustav & Tarveen, successfully logged'N' number of Broadcast Stations from DX Stations till early morning amidst thewhole night dance of 30 – 40 monkeys. Some monkeys played with the dipole, leftteeth mark on copper insulated wires, the new toys to explore. As VU2ATN, andVU2OEC retired early to bed, with not much to sleep, but to monitor 'macaceusbands' – the chorus of monkeys.
The outside morningscene was inevitable as the dipole wire were untied at several places, cutmarks of monkeys visible with many metal chairs tumbled down.
Next morning,Siliserh Expedition paraphernalia was dismantled after breakfast and wholeDxpedition group assembled for a photo session with Siliserh Lake in thebackdrop. Before, departing, the harmonic gang sang 'Kolaveri' song, enjoyed byother tourists there.
As we were about toproceed with backpacks and luggage, suddenly, Srihari – harmonic of VU3DJQannounced that we all are going to see crocodiles. SWL Tarveen was restlessever since we arrived there when she saw the government board “Boating on YourRisk” and cautioned about crocs in the lake. Somehow, SWL Tarveen, aftertalking to local shepherd, could track the place for croc view. The whole groupof hams, xyls, harmonics, quietly walked to the corner full of Kikartrees. To our disblief, there were 4 crocodiles, clearly visible. SWLs Kaustav& Tarveen both adventured through the difficult terrain and kikar trees to take a close view of crocs. Rest werenot allowed to go ahead further.
Thanks to SWLKaustav for leading the caravan. All departed thanking each other. Above all,thanks to Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC) as their hospitalitymatched with slogan “Padharo Mahare Desh”.
By evening, allcars were back on NH8, with memories of Siliserh Dxpedition and especially viewof “CROCs” - the Reward of Expedition.
- Rajesh Chandwani, VU2OEC
Bouquets & brickbats at : vu2oec at gmail dot com
