BSNL 3G Datacard Review

As my job required me to login from home (WFH) to the office network, I was looking out for a fastest  yet affordable Internet connection. My previous Internet was an old Broadband over the telephone connection which served my purpose for general browsing, but now I wanted something where I can connect while I am on the move. After researching thoroughly on the Internet I zeroed in on BSNL 3G. I had other options like MTS, Tata Photon, Tata Docomo 3G, Airtel 3G etc but BSNL was the best VFM.

My Dad is an ex BSNL employee and he was kind enough to get one for me when he had some work at the BSNL office. When I went home I saw a TERACOM LW273 Datacard Modem and a BSNL 3G simcard Lying on my Ham Radio shack.

Opened the datacard pack and found a shiny cute little datacard modem which looks like a pendrive, pack contained only the datacard modem and small handy instruction sheet. Installing the Datacard modem was very simple, as per the instruction I just plugged in to the USB slot ran the setup.exe file. All the necessary drivers and a program called Bsnl 3G got installed on my laptop. All necessary connections were created automatically and on the Datacard modem the Red colour LED was flashing.  Every thing was set and tried connecting to the Internet but it refused to connect, although the signal strength was showing 4 bars. The connection status was showing Red in the Bsnl 3G interface program, after a bit of googling I got to know that if the new SIM card is not activated we get Red status and Red LED will be flashing, thus ended my attempts to connecting to the Internet using my new 3G datacard on that night.

Next day morning woke up bit early due to a incoming call from an Ham friend, Since I was already disturbed from my slumber I dragged myself to my laptop to see my luck. Booted my laptop and connected the 3G Datacard. I was thinking of contacting the Dreaded BSNL Helpdesk which is known for pathetic service, but to my luck as soon a I connected the Datacard the LED turned RED to GREEN. Voila the Sim card has been activated, the connection was verified and authenticated. I selected the Internet option and clicked on the connect button for the first time it did not connect but for the second it got connected.
I wanted to feel the speed of the Internet so the sure or my way of testing was playing a video from Youtube.
Just logged on to my FB profile and played a video which was posted by one of my friend. Wow it was superfast, there was no buffering and no stopping of the video in between to buffer, Was able to feel the speed. Wanted see how much speed I am getting so I did a speed test to get some quantifiable numbers.
Below find results.

The first test result I Got.

1st Attempt
PING: 353ms
Download Speed: 0.35 Mbps (358 Kbps)
Upload Speed : 0.06 Mbps (61 Kbps)

2nd Attempt
PING : 356ms
Download Speed: 0.80 Mbps (819 Kbps)
Upload Speed : 0.09 Mbps (92 Kbps)

This average comes up
Download speed : 588 Kbps
Upload Speed : 76 Kbps

The above average speed is in par although it is no where near to 3.6 Mbps for downloads as promised by BSNL. So keep visiting my blog for further updates as I keep using this connection. Your comments and discussions are welcome.

Update on 25\6\2012 : I have stopped using BSNL 3G Datacard as this turned out to be very very expensive option regular browsing for a month resulted in wooping Rs 7000 bill. I do not recommend any of my blog readers to use BSNL 3G.

Cheers
NEO

Contact on second bird HO-68 HOPE-16th December 2010

Pic courtesy AMSAT

After regular contacts on VO-52 it was time for me to work on other birds. I had been trying constantly to work on other birds with out andy success. As I was having QSO with OM Shankar VU2SWG he informed that at 21:35 hrs HO-68 will be switched on. This was an opportunity for me to work on a new bird. Earlier I had worked on U/V mode , i.e, Tx on UHF and Rx on VHF for VO-52, but working on HO-68 would be V/U mode Tx on VHF and Rx on UHF.


After the not so successful VO-52 pass I changed to HO-68 frequency, at first I did not hear any signal from the bird and I patiently waited then after few minutes I started to hear packet on the downlink. Hope for making a contact on Hope was good, Then all of a sudden I heard OM Guru VU2GUR calling CQ then followed by OM Shankar VU2SWG felt so good as this would be my second satellite to work with. After monitoring the uplink for few minutes and making sure no one is transmitting I gave a call to Guru and Shankar both of them responded. I gave them a report of 59 and 59+ respectively; They also gave me a report of 59. Wow that was my second satellite that I worked with and was successful.

Looking for many more birds to work with, now the satellite bug has really bitten me.

My next project is to put up an UHF Slim Jim and to homebrew a Arrow antenna. I will keep posted about my project.

Thank you for stopping by.

73’s

DE VU3NEO

My First Satellite QSO

Pic courtesy AMSAT INDIA.

24th November 2010: It was late evening pass for Hamsat VO-52, The elevation for the pass was good around 87 Degree Max and total duration of the pass was 13 minutes over my QTH. Armed with Dual band handy Wouxun with stock Rubber ducky with ear phone which came along with the kit. The pass was at 20:55 hrs IST, I went to my terrace as I haven’t set up my external UHF antenna yet.  I first tuned to the center frequency on the downlink at 145.900 MHZ with a opened squelch but there were no station heard. After few minutes I tuned down by 10 MHZ to 145.890 and out of the blue I heard a familiar call sign VU2GUR, OM Guru was operation from Chamarajpet around 13 Kms from my QTH. I gave a report of 59 but looks like Guru did not copy me as the bird was well above my head and it was out of reach for Guru. I gave a couple of CQ calls. And out of excitement I gave a couple of calls on the down link frequency itself and then I corrected it and gave few CQ calls. Except guru I did not copy any one. After the pass while exchanging reports on the local repeater I got to know from OM Daya VU2 DPE that I was heard through the satellite via downlink, out of those couple of CQ calls Daya was able to copy me on downlink, thus making my first Satellite QSO ever. OM Daya and Guru congratulated me for my first ever sat QSO, Wow what an accomplishment. It felt great and a since of accomplishment for having made my first QSO via HAMSAT VO-52, India’s first ever Amateur Satellite.


Equipment used: Wouxun KG-UVD1P with stock rubber ducky with ear phone.

My first 2 Way Satellite QSO

25th November 2010: Having made my first ever sat QSO on the previous day and wanting for more I reached on to my terrace to catch the bird. Before working on the VO-52 I checked into “Chandamama Net” a local daily evening net conducted by OM Subbu VU2ZUB,  subbu informed me that HAM from Chennai OM Radha was able to hear me yesterday’s pass, this was anothe feather in the cap. This time I wanted to use two HT’s as I wanted to hear my own voice from the downlink and it was also suggested by OM Daya that using two Handy’s will be effective for working with satellite. I tuned my VHF handy on the downlink center frequency on 145.900 and UHF on the uplink center frequency on 435.250. After the previous days QSO I read about how Inverted linear transponder works but still I was not confident to play with frequencies to compensate the Doppler Effect, rather I waited for some station to be heard on the center frequency. This time again OM VU2GUR was heard strong, I replied to his call but he could not copy me, again I gave my call sign when VU2DPE OM Daya came in through sat and gave me a report of 59, Wow that was a two way QSO Daya was able to copy me and I was able to copy Daya. This time I was able to hear myself in the downlink. Post sat pass QSO’s on the local repeater confirmed that I was heard by Guru as well and thus established double 2 way QSO.

Equipment used: YAESU FT 411E with 5/8th Whip telescopic antenna and VOX Headset, Wouxun KG-UVD1P with Stock rubber Ducky.

Catch you on the bird 73's
DE
VU3NEO