Communicason lab!

“Yahan communicason kaha ho raha hai??”

If Lalooji visits our communication lab and asks such a question, we really don’t have any answer!! Coz, no actual communication takes place here. Only different steps of communication are studied here.

Whenever I was in our communication lab I had great experiences. Some times I thought there must be a relationship between communication and communism! Most of the communist principles must have generated in communication lab only. Concepts like modulation, keying, multiplexing…etc are common in communication and communism. Naxalites have very effectively used radio communication!

Whenever some interesting cricket matches were going on, televisions that are kept on the racks of communication lab have laughed at me. Though we have antennas like dipole antenna, yagi antenna, loop antenna (and a special horn antenna) no one till date has helped us in receiving any TV signals!! [Once I thought of giving a proposal to make the lab as part time TV room!].

Microwave section of the communication lab is the rarely used section. Students (even the instructors) were afraid of entering it. Knowledge of microwave hazards have made them to think that microwave is more dangerous than x-ray, gamma ray etc. Gunn diode was treated like AK -47. [One day I realized that they are not afraid of microwave rather tough microwave experiments]. I strongly recommend that there should be a microwave oven in the lab which can be used for heating the food (In our department itself there are around 10 faculty (including me) and some students bring food from home. The reason is obviously the very high quality food that is available in Nitte).

Students are more interested in digital labs than the analog labs. Sitting in A.C. and typing a known program (most of the time copied) is much easier compared to rigging the circuit and struggling with AFO and CRO to show the output. Since software jobs are less, I thought at least now E&C engineers will concentrate more on communication subjects. Though the mobile communication is a hot area, I find students are more interested in writing the software for the mobile rather than “communication”.

The only communication that takes place in communication lab is “wireless communication” between different batches when they don’t get the output. Kabhi kabhi mere dil me khayal aata hai “Yahan communicason kaha ho raha hai??”