2012-11-22

Trip to JA6 land with KX3

As I posted before, I got KX3 in late August this year. However, I could not QRV until mid Nov since I must get station lisence revision pernmission from the national authority. The lisencing process in JA is still bureaucratic and old fashioned. We must revise the station lisence everytime when we add or modify own transmitter. Altough some part of process became internet system, if the transmitter is not the type approved one, it takes long time to pass evaluation by TSS, which is the only one company who is allowed to issue certificate for submitting to the national authority. Japanese amateur radio maker register their transmitter as type approved before they start marketing so that the user can revise their station lisence easier without certificate issued by TSS. Anyway, I finally got revised my station lisence in mid Nov. so that I could take my KX3 to the trip to JA6 land last week. Here is everything that I took for my trip: The preparation was OK. But i had no enough time to operate radio during my trip though. Here are set up at hotel in Beppu Spa. I took 9m wire with 4m fishing-rod. So, I extended the fishing rod from the window of 8th floor of the hotel and 4m wire along with the rod and rest of 5m of wire was just dropped from the tip of the rod. I used 5 of 5m long wire for radials. But SWR is not so good even with KX3's internal tuner. (I must consider better way to get good grounding next time) The 2nd day, our room has balconi so that antenna settin was easier. And SWR is low on 7MHz. But I could operate for short time so that I could not work with any station until the time limit that I must pack laggage for departure. It was not so good trip to enjoy amateur radio. But it was very nice trip to spend time with family. I'd like to share some photos during our trip HERE. 73+88

2012-11-02

Looking for fall colors

As I was off duty today, I've been to Yamanakako Lake with Kyoko expecting to view colorful maple leaves there. Yamanakako is located about 1000m above sea level so that the temperature is always about 5, 6 deg C lower than my living place in Machida, Tokyo. At Yamanakako, autumn leaves festival has been held from last week till Nov.11. Although most of maple leaves are still green, we found some nice colored trees and enjoyed viewing. Mt.Fuji with white snow on its top viewed clearly over the lake. Along the lake side street, we found nice gallery. There are many attractive calligraphy works written by bamboo brush. One of them inspired my heart.