A1 Lab. aka CW4EVER (E)

Reviewing 2011

2011-12-30T11:45:00.003+09:00

Reviewing the year 2011,
it was a kind of turning point of my life.

[Jan] Start CW Clumn of CQ Hamradio Magazine
I took charge of monthly CW column of JA CQ Hamradio magazine from 2011-Jan issue till 2011-Dec issue.

[Feb] Sports Club Debut
I became a member of a Sports Club due to my wife and daughter's strong recommendeation.
Although I've been hesitating to go such facility, soon I was hooked.

[March] Natural Disaster & Nuke Accident
On the 11th of March, when the great earthquake attached northern part of Japan
I was in a meeting at 21st floor of my office building in Kawasaki-city near Tokyo about 250km south west from the epicenter.

The 21st floor swayed very much for long senconds after some interval we had bigger shock again.
I've been clinging on the desk and felt this building might be collapsed.
After a couple of minutes (actually may be less but I felt it much longer than some minutes), rolling was stopped.
After that I experienced the wolrd where no electric power, no telephone for long hours.
Only twitter communication through cell phone was barely available.
The most worry was that I could not confirm if my family is safe. (They don't use twitter!)
Since all public transportation means became unavailable and no one knows when the service will be restored.
I decided to go back home on foot.
I left the office around 6PM and arrived at home around mid night.
(The distance between office and home is about 25km or 16miles.)

I've never been experienced such a dark town without lights.
Fortunately my wife and son were safe in the home and listening portable radio with battery.
My daughter who is working at the down town Tokyo and she chould not come back home as it is too far to come back home by foot.
After train transportation restored next morining, She came back home. She cried when she saw my face.

Soon, we noticed that the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Pant had damaged by TSUNAMI. And the situation became worse day by day. And resulted to the worst way as everyone knows.
The radioactive contamination have been continuing since that time and no one knows when it will be stopped and cleared.
It's sure that the problem won't cleared within my life.

[Apr] On the air by Solar Energy
After the March disaster I realized that we have to study about survival skills and should prepare for next disaster.
Japan is geographically located on the most earthquake sensitive place in the planet.
With high possiblity a similar level of huge earthquake will attack near Tokyo anytime.
And we cannot rely on the electricity supplied by electric power company with poor risk management.
As a first trial, I decided to use solar energy for my hobby.
I've been using solar panel and battery to feed power supply to the amateur radio equipment since April.

[May] Turning 50
I turned 50 in May.
I recognize that the aging effects such as ear ringing (tinnitus), eye problem (myodesopsia, presbyopia)
and forget things to do rapidly (amnesia?) are becoming subjective symptoms.
It's sad.

[June] Becoming a member of FOC
Thanks to the kind support of the sponsors, I could become a member of FOC.
For me, FOC was a kind of admiration and final target of my CW oriented ham life.
So, when Bruce, K6ZB sounded about nomination, I said to him "not now".
But Bruce nominated me and kick my back to try the quest.

I was first nominated Bruce, K6ZB and Shin, JA1NUT in last November.
Then, Bert, W5ZR and Jurgen, DJ3KR.
Steave, W7QC also gave me kind intension for sponsoring.
But the G land was quite a big hardle for my small station.
I've been looking for explosion of high band condition.
The high bands have gradually getting better this spring and I was ready to put on a spurt at the end of nomination
period of 6 months.
Unfortunately, the great earthquake on 3.11 made my activitiy almost zero for about one month. I restarted radio mid April but with 100W solar panel and 100AH battery to protest against TEPCO nuke plant problem.
At the end of April, that's almost expiration of the nomination period, band condition on finally 15/17/20 smiles to me.
In the last two weeks of April, I got up around 5AM every morinig and watch the bands carefully just before the time I must go to the office.
Thanks to this efforts, I could worked several G stations and one of them became my final sponsor, Ron GW3YDX.
This 6 months was really exciting quest for me.
I'd like to say thank you again to their continuous support and encouragement on & off the air.

[June] Morse PR SPecial Station
The special event station 8J1MORSE, that commemorates the 220th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Morse and the first successful Morse Code communication across the Atlantic Ocean by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901, QRVed from 1st June, 2011 till end of Nov 2011.
Also, this special station is opened for remembering drop of Morsecode proficiency test from all class of amateur radio operators license exam.
For detailes refer to official website http://8j1morse.a1tokai.net/ and offical blog http://8j1morse.blogspot.com
I planned this project and promoted to CQ Hamradio Magazine and JARL.
This station was operated by members of A1 CLUB http://a1club.net/ .

[Aug] Performance on TV
In August, a Movie "Let Me In" has been road showed in Japan as title of "MORSE"
I was interviewed by a TV broadcasting co, JOCX TV about MORSE.

[Sep] Issue a Book for Morse Communication
A book for promoting Morse Communication "Hajimeteno Morusu Tsuushin" has been published from CQ Publishing Co. Ltd.
This book is for beginners who don't know Morsecode yet.

[Oct] Death of My Friend
One of my old friend who spent our college student days and at the school rowing club was killed by unexpected accident.
It was shock to us all who spent youth days together.
Remembering him and our sensitive young days, the remaining friends reunioned after long years interval.

[Dec] Introduction of Electric Vehicle
Since my 11-year-old Nissan Tino getting aged and worse in fuel consumption, I decided to change my car.
Considering my life style now and to be, I decided to try an electric vehicle.
Nissan Leaf has come just before new year.

-...-
Thus, lots of things were first time in my life even in this age and I feel it is important to keep basic as stable but keep looking and hearing news widely and do not hesitate to change myself if I believe it is the right way.

Thank you evrything in 2011 and I do hope the coming year will be a healty and happy new year to you and yours!

73+88=161
Atsu, JE1TRV

Fall colors in Yamanaka-ko Lake

2011-11-12T21:46:00.002+09:00

Today, I took Kyoko to the Yamanaka-ko lake.
As we expected, the time was a bit too late to see the fall colors here.
But still nice colors there.
After Yamanaka-ko, we visited Kawaguchi-ko Lake too.
A fanous fall color spot in Kawaguchi-ko named "Momiji Kaiou もみじ回廊"　(Maple Leaf Corridor)
That spot was a bit too early for the peak of the color.

View from Hakone

2011-10-11T22:06:00.005+09:00

I have been borrowing some land estate in Hakone, near Hakone Pass where is about 800m above sea level.
I'm dreaming to buid small cottage there to spend weekends after retirement.

Last Saturday I visited there and spend one night in my car.
I could see great view of sunset on the gulf of Suruga on Staturday and shining Mt.Fuji at sunrise on Sunday morning.

Typhoon attack

2011-09-22T21:23:00.004+09:00

The typhoon no.15th attacked Tokyo yesterday 2011-9-21.
More than 30m/s wind was recorded in my QTH Machida-city, south east of TOKYO.
My 7MHz HB9CV anttena had been damaged on its reflector elemnt.

My garded also became messy.

Above kiwi-fruits tree shelf has been crashed down by a solar panel that has been smashed out from roof-top. Terrible...

CW Promotion

2011-09-11T21:49:00.006+09:00

I’d like to introduce some of my recent off-the-air activity for promoting CW.

1) I made presentation titled “モールス通信への誘い” (Morse tsuushin heno izanai )=”Invitation to Morse Communication” at CQ publishing company’s booth in Tokyo Hamfair on 2011-08-27.

2) On the same day, a new book titled “はじめてのモールス通信”(Hajimeteno Morse Tsuushin)=”The First Step of Morse Communication” has been issued from CQ publishing co. The book is written for no-code ham and even for non-ham operator who has no knowledge about radio amateur at all.

3) I also made similar presentation titled “モールス通信を始めよう“(Let’s start Morse Communication) at JARL event corner in Tokyo Hamfair on 2011-08-28.

4) Before Hamfair, I co-operated an interview from JOCX (Fuji TV Broadcasting Co.).
Since there was no enough time before on air, the TV crew requested me to work on my shack and asked real QSO with other ham. I asked my local station JA1HMK, Ron-om to have schedule QSO and showed our chat with both English and Japanese Morse code.
In my small shack, they recorded many scenes for an hour but I haven’t been known how they edited the contents till I saw the result on the air.
Screen shot of TV

8J1MORSE

2011-05-31T21:45:00.002+09:00

The special event station 8J1MORSE, that commemorates the 220th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Morse and the first successful Morse Code communication across the Atlantic Ocean by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901, will QRV from 1st June, 2011 till end of Nov 2011.
For detailes refer to official website http://8j1morse.a1tokai.net/ and offical blog http://8j1morse.blogspot.com

I'll operate the station from June 1st to June 3rd from my home QTH, Machida-city, Tokyo.
Then, on June 4th, we are planning to have field operation event at Sagamigawa-river, Zama-city, Kanagawa-pref.

Opening of Machida A1 Museum

2011-05-25T22:43:00.003+09:00

Today, my 50th birthday.
Since several months ago, I've been planning to open small private museum in my home on this memorial day.
Neither vintage bugkeys nor special paddles.
Just a kind of ordinary keys and paddles that I've been collected during my CW life of 35 years up to now.
I'd like to provide a meeting place to guys & gals who are interested in the CW and wondering what key or paddle is suitable for themselves.
To all CW lovers, If you come across to Tokyo, please stop by and visit my museum.
Please note I'm still full time worker, so this private museum is available only weekends with prior notice. Hi

Let's have eyeball meeting and talk about CW!

Golden Week Holidays

2011-05-07T18:52:00.006+09:00

We had a long golden week this year from April/29 till Mat/8.
I went to short trip to JA3 area (Shiga & Nara) and JA9 area (Fukui) with wife and daughter and my mother who is living in JA3 area (Hyogo) alone.

April/30, we went Shizugatake mountain where located north part of Lake Biwa.

After Shizugatake, we visited the place of my family's origin in Kinomoto town and pray at my father's grave.

We stayed at Kokou-An Inn in Kinomoto town.
It was pretty quiet place and had very nice hot-spa there.

Next morning we visited Shakudo-ji where famous 11-face-kannon (Goddess of Mercy which has 11 faces) a kind of wooden statue.
Photo took at the front passage to the Shakudo-ji temple.

Then we moved to JA9 area (Fukui), and visited Tojinbo where impressive scenic spot facing to the Japan sea.

and Eiheiji-temple. It was a bit disappontment because it was commercialized than I thought.

We went back to JA3 Area (Hyogo) and stayed at my mother's home.

On the 3rd day, we visited Nara.
This is a kind of ancient remains "Saka-Fune-iseki"
The puropose of that shape of stone is unknown. But some says it was used for squeeze Sake.

This is one of a famous temple in Japan, Horyuji temple.
There are a lot of national treasures.

This is "Ishibutai-kofun" a kind of ancient stone grave.

Finally, we visited "Toshho-daiji" temple.
Here also one of most famous temple in Japan and
there have many national treasures too.

It was short 2-day-stay in kansai district, but it was very impressive and happy time with my family.

I'm afraid my 75-year-mother got tired due to many up/down steps and walks.

I hope to go somewhere nice place again with family soon.

BBQ with K3TN

2011-04-17T19:48:00.003+09:00

K3TN John and his XYL Carol came to my home with JJ8KGZ Leo.
I invited local friends and had a BBQ at my garden.
Many frisnds gathered and enjoyed drinking eating and chatting under the sunshine.
It was very nice sunny day. Thank you everyone, thank you nature god for this fine time. May the peacefull time be with us for long!

John wrote about his visit to JA i his BLOG

Spring comes even on the tragedic island

2011-04-13T22:45:00.002+09:00

Hi Friends!
Thanks for your kind and warm message from all over the world both on and off the blog.
After 3.11 of the great north-eastern Japan earthquake and tsunami, we lost more than 28,000 people including missing and still near to 200,000 peopole are living in the shelters. And situation of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been getting worse.
The trouble of the nuke plant was caused by lack of risk management of Tokyo Electric Power compant (TEPCO) and government. As one of a Japanese people, it's shame of ourselves and I'd like to apology all the foreign countries we are worry about contamination of the environment.
After one month of the tragedy, we still have many aftershocks with magnitude 4-6.

Although such situation, spring comes equally.
Cherry blossoms are now full open around Tokyo.

I decided not to use AC mains power sourced by TEPCO for my hobby.
My CW signal made by solar power since April, 2nd, 2011.

No More Fukushima!

QTC from JAPAN

2011-03-14T16:22:00.002+09:00

This is the copy of message I sent to A1 club DX membes;

As you may know, we had a terrible quake in northern part of Japan on Friday afternoon last week.
After three days past, more than 2000 killed and more than 10000 missing up to now.
Also, the neuclear power plants located in Fukushima-pref. is getting serious situation.

We as an amateur radio operator are gathering and exchanging emergency information on the
following frequenies.
Please kindly keep clean these freqs.
3525KHz+/-5KHz　
7030KHz+/-5KHz　
14.100MHz+/-10KHz
21.200MHz+/-10KHz
28.200MHz+/-10KHz
50.100MHｚ、51.000MHｚ、51.500MHz
144.100MHz、145.000MHz、145.500MHz
430.100MHz、433.000MHz、433.500MHz

Thank you for your kind cooperation.

A1 CLUB secretary
Atsu, JE1TRV
je1trv@a1club.net
http://a1club.net/
http://jo1zzz.blogspot.com/

Begali Stradi

2011-01-23T23:56:00.003+09:00

Pietro Begali made another masterpeiece named "Stradivarius".
I love his paddles best.

A Happy New Year 2011

2011-01-01T10:53:00.002+09:00

A Happy New Year 2011

I thank you very much for everything in 2010 and wish your happy and health new year 2011.

This year is;
220th anniversary of Samuel F.B. Morse's birth.
110th anniversary of Marconi's over the Atlantic ocean Radio Telegraphy communication.
And probably the year that Morsecode proficiency test will be dropped from the all class of Japanese Radio Amateur License exam.

Cerebrating this, I will work harder for prpmotion of CW.

As my private issue, I'll turn 50 this year.
I think I'll do my best this year, but after that I want to ask to have some time to think about my life in future.

On the other hand,
Number of Collection of my Morse Keys and Paddles became some extent so that I'd like to prepare a place where you can touch them and talk about CW in my home at Machida, Tokyo.
I named it "Machida A1 Museum".
If you have chance to come to Tokyo, please contact me.

73+88
de JE1TRV, Atsu

Japan will drop Morsecode proficiency test from Amateur Radio exam completely

2010-11-23T18:34:00.002+09:00

Japan will drop Morsecode proficiency test for Amateur Radio completely

On Nov. 22, 2010, Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and
Communications (MIC) announced a request for Public Comment
concerinig drop of Morsecode proficiency test in the amateur
radio license exam.
http://www.soumu.go.jp/menu_news/s-news/01kiban09_01000007.html
The Morsecode proficiency test for amateur radio has been relaxed as follows;

In 1996, Japanese Morsecode was dropped from 1st Class requirements.

In 2005, Reqiured Speed dropped to 25cpm both for 1st (ex. 60cpm) and
for 2nd Class (ex. 45cpm), and Test deleted for 3rd Class (ex.25cpm).

And this time, All proficiency test will be deleted.

MIC will accept public comments until end of Dec, 2010, then
it may take another few months to be finalized and become offical.
(guess it'll be around spring in 2011)

Mystery Tour

2010-11-21T17:41:00.005+09:00

On Nov. 19 and 20, I have attended a mystery tour that my wife and daughter applied a month ago.
The attraction of the tour is that distinations are kept secret until the day of the travel.
The starting place was Shinjuku at 7AM. We got up 5AM to get Shinjuku station on time.
From Shinjuku, we got a bus with 45 other participants.
The bus ran Tomei Express way towards west.
The WX was perfect clear and we enjoyed beautiful view of Mt.Fuji.

At Toyokawa, Aichi-prefecture the bus got off the Tomei Express way then heading north. This is a nice looking brifge called Harp Bridge in Toyokawa.

Around noon, We arrived the first distination.
That was Kourankei 香嵐渓 a famous fall color viewing spot in Tokai district.
The maple leaves are the best of their fall color in this season.

After that, we moved to Kahiko-jima island 賢島　in Shima-city.　志摩市
The hotel we stayed was not so new but the room has ocean view windows and the meals have served to the room. (In this kind of economy class tour, meals are usually served at a restaurant or a buffet style, not served to individual room)

Sun rise view from hotel room.

Morning radio with KX1 and fishing-rod wire antenna.
I could hear many dx sations but no QSO unfortunately.
I hoped to check in the A1 Club On Air Meeting (OAM) from 7AM Saturday Morrinig on 40m band.
But, I cloud not hear the signal from the Key station JP1BJB, Aki this time.
As the but will start on 8AM, I regrettably shut down my portable station before checking in the OAM.

The 2nd destination was, Ise Shrine in Ise-city.

Ordinary people cannot enter the main building of the Ise Shrine.
We can see the main shrine only from very far place.
Only the emperor can get into the main building.
This is Japanese tradition since 1300 years ago.
And amazingly this building had been completely re-building evry 20 years.
It cost about 50bilion Japanese Yen now.
This kind of ceremony had been continued since 1300 years ago.
I thought this is the origin of Japanese Public Works 公共事業.
Many people could get their job for this kind of ceremony.
So it had a good reason to do such a wasting works every 20 eyars.

The last place we visited was Okuni-Shrine in Fukuroi-city, Shizuoka-pref.

It was another nice place to see red maple leaves.

It was a quiet shrine.

My daughter, Yoko picked a Omikuji or a fortune slip, which predicted good fortune "Kichi" for her. I hope it must be true.

Shorinji Kenpo

2010-11-06T18:43:00.003+09:00

My son joined a Shorinji Kenpo club in the university.
On Oct. 23 I and XYL visited his univ to see autumn festival of the univ.
That was his first experience to join a soprts club in his life.
He did very well than we thought.

Fall color in Yamanakako

2010-11-03T18:50:00.004+09:00

Today was Japanese national holday, I visited Yamanakako Lake with wife and daughter to see fall colors.

The WX was very nice and We could see Mt.Fuji very well.

Beautiful red Japanese maple "kaede" or "momiji" leaves!

Yoko & Kyoko looks happy :-)

We love Mt.Fuji

Meeting wid K6ZB

2010-10-10T06:30:00.004+09:00

We had an eyeball meeting with K6ZB, Bruce last Saturday.
We met him at Shinjuku Japanese restaurant with JE1RZR, Manabu.
We enjoyed pleasant talk about ham radio especially CW operation.

Next Sunday, I attended Bruce and his wife Cathy to visit JA1NUT Shin san.
We had precious time at Shin's home.

Bruce at operation desk of JA1NUT.

Then, myself at the desk.

Bruce and Shin

Shin san's Chevron paddle was shining silver.
Surprising observation at Shin san's shack;
1) No PC, hand-writing notebook for log.
2) Very Simple. only FT2K + VL1K amp.
3) Gap for paddle finger tips are much wider than mine.
I can't imagine how to send accurate Morsecode with 40wpm+ speed.

So, my regret was that I could not see his operating scene this time.

After nice talking mainly about politics at living loom,
Shin san took us to Mashiko.
After shopping at Mashiko-Yaki pottery, we moved excellent Japanese style restaurant at Mashiko and enjoyed delicious Kaiseki-Ryori.
Around 9PM we said 73+88 at Utsunomiya.

What a nice experience!

SKCC Pro-Pump Key

2010-09-19T22:59:00.002+09:00

I got NT9K Pro-Pump SKCC Club Key 2010.
Here is my impression;
http://a1club.net/je1trv/skcc/index.htm

Tokyo Hamfair 2010 report

2010-08-25T21:41:00.004+09:00

A1 CLUB booth at Hamfair 2010

A1 CLUB QRM Party at Akihabara, 34 CW lovers participated and enjoyed drinking for 3 hours.

Snap shot of JA CWops, left to right, JL1IRB, me (JE1TRV) and JA8CDG.

Tokyo Hamfair 2010 (Aug-21 &22)

2010-08-15T15:47:00.002+09:00

Tokyo Hamfair 2010 will be held on upcoming weekend, August 21 and 22.
A1 Club presents booth at booth #C-056.
Please refer to following page for details of our exhibition:
http://a1club.net/HAMFAIR/hamfair2010/hamfair2010_e.htm

As to details of our project this year, refer to following page:
http://a1club.net/project/2010/kit_e.htm

Another CW club that I belong to, such as CWops, FISTS and JBA will present joint booth at booth#J-50.
CW communication over Internet is planned at that booth.
For details refer to JJ8KGZ, Leo's blog below;
http://htsukada.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/tokyo-ham-fair-2010/

As to general info about the hamfair, please refer to JARL Web:
http://www.jarl.or.jp/English/4_Library/A-4-6_ham-fair/ham-fair.htm

Lily

2010-06-26T16:46:00.002+09:00

Lilies in my garded got their flowers.
These flowers recall our memory of the travel to Izu last summer with my mother.
My mother became 74 this year and living in Hyogo pref. alone. She lives alone there since my father has passed away 13 years ago at his age of 70.
Fortunately she is still in very good health, but I feel she is getting thin and small year by year lately.
I cannot go home town so frequently so I must thank my elder and younger brothers are living near her home and take care of her time to time.

Eyeball Meeting with DJ3KR

2010-06-05T21:56:00.004+09:00

Today I had nice eyeball meeting with DJ3KR, Dr.Juergen.
He has been attending the meeting of National Institute for Polar Research Tachikawa from June 2nd till June 5th AM.
So we set eyeball meeting at 1PM at palace Hotel Tachikawa.
Two other CW friends joind the meeting at coffe shop near the hotel.

Viva CW communiccation!

2010-05-19T23:56:00.003+09:00

My CW friend and his wife showed on the JA CQ Ham Radio Magazine.
His nice article about his encounter of CW and step up history of CW skills are described there with some piece of photos.

Full Bloom

2010-04-03T23:26:00.002+09:00

Cherry blossoms are now in full bloom at Tokyo area.
Today and tomorrow is the best day to see them.
Today I went to Ikuta Rokuchi Park located near Mukougaokakouen station in Kawasaki city, Kanagawa-Pref.
There are 1500 Cherry trees and all of them are in full bloom now.
These blossoms are going to fall down in a week or so. Japanese people like this tree very much. Of course I love them.

Graduation Ceremony

2010-03-25T18:37:00.002+09:00

Today was the day of the graduation ceremony of my daughter's university.
I took day off and went her univ with XYL. For me it was the second visit to her univ. The 1st time was her entrance ceremony. (^^;;

Unfortunately WX was the worst. Cold rain was falling all day long.
But, I was relieved with her simle and warm words to us.
Congratulations Yoko! おめでとう！
And Best wishes to your new life from April!　４月からの新生活に幸あれ！

Dinner

2010-03-22T22:17:00.004+09:00

On March 20th, We had a dinner at a local fish restaurant in Kamakura to celebrate my daughter's start of job from April and my son's success of entrance exam for the university.

We took "Enoden" Enoshima Electric Train to get the restaurant.

This restaurant is run by a couple who are almost same age with us and always very kind and at home. So I like this place very much.

This is the menu. It's very nice memory too.

EQP 2010

2010-03-15T20:15:00.003+09:00

EQP(Elecraft QSO Party) was held for 24hrs from March 14th 0300JST.
I used K3 S/N 3050 at atound 7030KHz.
I could enjoy s/n exchange plus short chat with Elecraft uer as follows;

S/N logged
JO3HPM,JA1JON,JF1TTN,JA4MRL,JL3AMK/3,JK7UST,JN1RVS,JQ1BWT,JN1SZF,KH6G,JJ1IZW, Total 11 stations.

No S/N logged
JQ2SFZ/M,K7EBW, Total 2 stations.

The score to be claimed;
QSO ponits =11 x 5pts + 2 x 3pts =61pts.
The final score = 61ponts x 3s/p/c x 1pwrmlti =183points

I was very happy to meet many JA Elecrafters, but little bit unhappy that the condition did not allow me to hook up with many foreign Elecrafters especially in US.

Trip to Nikko & Nasu

2010-03-07T10:08:00.004+09:00

We had short trip to Nikko and Nasu from March 5 to 6th with XYL and daughter.

We visited Kegon-no-taki waterfall on 2010-03-05.
It was very fine and warm day, the temp was about 20C that is about 10C higher than usual. So, without snow tires, we could drive up to this water fall and chuzenji lake where located about 1200m above sea level so that snow tires are needed inthis season.

On March 5, we stayed at a company rest house which is located in Nasu Highland, about 200km north east from Tokyo.
The rest house is very popular among our company's employee since we can stay with very low price even it looks very gorgeous.(It was built at the economy bubble period around 1990.
There is indoor pool!

on 2010-03-06 we visited Alpaca Farm in Nasu Highland.
There are hundreds of alpaca and we can feed and touch them.
Their eyes are very cuuuute!

In Alpaca Farm in Nasu Highland. There are not only Aplaca, but also pretty little horse like pony. Their height is only 1m or less even they grew up.

Mimosa-acacia

2010-02-28T18:38:00.003+09:00

Today WX was very cold rain in AM and got some sun shine in PM but temperature was still low.
But thanks to the warm days last week, the mimosa-acacia tree in my garden has opened their vivid yellow followers.
It looks more beatiful and more cheerful under glaring spring sunshine. My XYL loves this flower.

According to the WX forecast, it will not so good WX next one week,
I'm planning to take my family to Nasu in Tochigi-pref. (about 150km north east from Tokyo) on coming March 5 & 6 though.

Rainbow Volatage Checker

2010-02-27T21:34:00.002+09:00

This is one of my work made this weekend. :-)

I made battery voltage checker designed by JA1XRQ. LED color is changed according to the voltage variation.
And LED flicks >15V, alarm buzzer sounds <10V.
For more details are shown in JA1XRQ's webpage

[Addition on Feb/28]
I made mistake on selection of legs of color LED.
The connection of red leg and blue leg were reverse.
I fixed and put it in a small case.

WBL Paddle has come!

2010-02-25T23:40:00.003+09:00

Today's WX was very warm. It was around 20C at noon and still 16C in the mid night now in Tokyo.
The WX forecast said "Haru-Ichi-Ban" or a spring gust may blow from this mid night to early tomorrow morning.
It was happy to hear such spring call today.
Another happy thing was, WBL V22 model paddle has been arrived from Steve, N6TT.
One week ago, we talked about key collections on the air, I said I have more than 10 keys then he said he has 100!! :-)
And he was kindly offered me to try his spare WBL paddle.
WBL model V22 is a vertical two lever two spring iambic paddle.
As soon as I connected it by stereo RCA cable with FT2KD and send some CQ on 7026KHz.

And as I expected Steve replied to my CQ then I could say my sincere thanks to him on the air.

For these few years I've been used to operate magnetic model but this spring model is still excellent and feel silky smooth.

Especially the original owner's callsign was sealed top of the paddle. It's KH7M. I surprised again to find that callsign. Because KH7M, Jim was my code buddy when I applied the code buddy program of FISTS club about 7 years ago.
According to my log, I worked with Jim 4 times on 15m band from Feb to Mar, 2003 as a code practice.
His signal was always decent but mine was not so strong then, we quited our sked soon.
I recalled that days by finding his call on the paddle!

Again I thank you, Steve for your generous offer. I'll love to use this fine instrument as one of favorite paddles.

CWcom has possiblity

2010-02-17T21:20:00.003+09:00

CWcom is a kind of VoIP application to communicate by Morsecode through internet.

I visited CWcom after long interval form a week ago.
Interestingly, young peopole are accessed it.
I met 17-year-old ham in Wales, UK the other day.
And today I met 25-year-old guy in kansas, he has no radio license but he is interested in the radio since his father has been a radio operator at military service.

I've never thought CWcom is used by such a young peopole.
I'm very glad to know some young people still feel Morsecode is cool.
And hope they will be a ham and pound a brass and chat with them on the air in near future.

Sweet present!!

2010-02-15T23:36:00.002+09:00

Sweet present has come!
Unfortunately it's not a valentine's present from girls but a lucky present donated by JG2AKR for A1 Club Wabun (Japanese Morsecode) QSO party.

The 3rd anniversal Wabun QSO Party has been held from year end of 2009 till new years day of 2010.
I could worked only 7 stations and more than 50 guys submitted their logs. So I did not expect any award this time.

So, it's very big surprise for me to get such a nice present.
Thank you Miyamoto-san for your sweet present!

Plum blossoms in Odawara

2010-02-11T18:53:00.004+09:00

Today Feb-11 was Japanese national holday.
Although the weather was not so good, my family decided to visit Pulum groves in Soga, Odawara-city located south weatern part of Kanagawa-pref.
It was very cold with misty rain sometimes but plum blossoms (or Japanese Apricot) are almost in full bloom there.

Lovely! Smells good too!

Poyo (XYL) and me.

Yoko (Daughter)

CWops Mini-test FEB

2010-02-11T18:39:00.002+09:00

On 10th of Feb, I rushed back to the home for the 2nd mini-test of CWops.
I managed to arrived at home just few minutes before starting time 8PM (1100Z).
So I fired up my FT2K without taking a meal.
After few nember exchange on 40m, I made supper break then get back to the radio. Total 9 exchanges have been made. Condition was better than the 1st time in Jan.
Since next day (FEB-11) is Japanese national holiday, I tried to get up for next session starting from 4AM (1900Z).
But, ooops! I woke up 4:30AM. Only 30min are left...
I directed my 40m HB9CV to Europe and searched CQ CWT stations.
Condition this time is not so good for my system but managed to work with 8 stations from Russia, Ukrine and Czech Republic.

KO6U QSL

2010-02-05T23:58:00.004+09:00

I confirmed KO6U's QSL today! Thank you Nathan!

BTW,
Who is the nice guy "Ike-men" [イケメン] on the report side? (^^
I hope the band should improve in good shape so as to hook up with you again.

73! Atsu

CWops as of 2010-Feb-1

2010-02-02T17:59:00.007+09:00

The first newsletter of CWops named "Solid Copy" has been published! [HERE]
The number of members reached nearly 650. Congratulations!
According to the member roster [HERE],
As of 2010-Feb-1,
No. of member: 644
No. of callsigns: 670
(because someone has 5 callsigns!)
Entities:54

Distribution in Continent: NA-478, EU-135, AS-35, SA-8, OC-8, AF-6

Top 10 Countries: W-448, G-31, U-14, UR-14, PA-14, JA-11, OH-10, 4X-9, SM-9, others-71

Snow Fall in Tokyo, 2010-Feb-1

2010-02-01T22:51:00.005+09:00

====Additional photos took Feb-2 morning====

====End of addition===

Today after sunset, cold rain changed to snow, and now 11PM heavy snowing and ground is all white covered with abt 3cm of snow. Wx forecast said that it snows till around 3AM tomorrow and total depth will be 10-15cm.

My HB9CV for 40m band became very high SWR due to snow. HEXBEAM SWR for 20m band seems no problem.

I worry about trouble on the way to the office tomorrow morning,
Traffic infrastructure in Tokyo Met is very weak against snow.

Portable Antenna Trial

2010-01-31T15:16:00.004+09:00

Today, wx was pretty warm so I tested my special portable antenna.
This time special was loading coil which is placed top of the 4m-long fishing-rod.
The loading coil is made by aluminium code about 7m long. The point of my idea is its shape. I wound aluminium code in three parts in different diameter so that they can be fold up very compact. Yes! It is retractable coil. As this idea comes from Japanese lantern "Cho-Chin"[提灯], I named this coil "Cho-chin-Coil".

I'm planning to get pattent for this superior idea. (^^v

Today I worked with JA5 station that is about 600km away on 40m band by 3W output of KX1.

ShiroYama-Ko Dam

2010-01-30T16:53:00.003+09:00

Shiro-yama-ko dam is located northern part of Sagamihara-city, Kanagawa-Pref. It takes about 30-40min by car from my home in Machida-city, Tokyo.
I went there last Sunday looking for good place to test my newly developed portable antenna.
When I arrived there, good place has already been occupied by some group from Yokohama. They installed many antennas and been operatimg on amateur bands.
So I could not deploy my antenna there.
I just enjoyed nice view from top of the dam.
The dam was empty. It seems under maintenance.

After that, I drive down to the Sagami-gawa River and found wide and deserted place to deploy my special antenna.
But, unfortunately ery strong and cold wind was blowing so that I could not stand for more than 5 minutes. :-p

I'll try again when warmer sunny day comes.

CWops' 1st on the air event

2010-01-13T22:21:00.003+09:00

The first on the air event of CWops club held this evening.
1100-1200UTC, 2010-Jan-13.

I came back home 7PM, had quick meal then managed to start QRV just the starting time of CWT from 8PM locat time in Tokyo (= 11:00UTC).

I've been QRV on 40m band only, sent CQ CWT several times but very few response.
The band condition is not good for my system (FT2K/150W + 2EL HB9CV 15mh).

I worked 7 stations in the hour and exhcanged the number with 6 stations.
So, total points are 6x6=36 points.

Thank you for the exhcnage of numbers;
K4BAI, JA1NUT, N6RO, K2VCO, N3RS and KS5A

Unfortunately I could hear only one JA member, it's Shin san, tonight.

I like ragchew better than contest, so hope to talk more next time.

vy 73 see you around *8
Atsu, JE1TRV CWops#141

The Coming of Age Day

2010-01-11T17:35:00.003+09:00

Today January 11 is the Coming of Age Day which celebrate the people who becomes 20 years old this year.
It is called Seijin-No-Hi [成人の日], when we translate the word directly it is "Adult's Day". But dictionaly says "Adult's Day" is wrong translation since it has another meaning. :-p

The attached image is taken from Today's Google Japan.
Many girls who become 20 years old this year dress Japanese Kimono today. In case of boys, it's rare to dress Japanese men's Kimono now a days.

K3/100 Hi-Temp Alarm

2010-01-11T17:25:00.004+09:00

My K3/100 (S/N3050, factory assembled) was in trouble since a week ago.
When I transmit at >12W (means hi-power amp on) within 30min or so after power switch on, Hi-Temp alarm occurs and hi-power amp is shut down and forced to set 5W.
This phenomena stop when the equipment is well warmed up (about 30min or so after switch on).

Other rigs such as FT-2000D, IC-775DX2 have no problem at all even they are transmitted immediately after power switch on.

What's wrong on my K3/100?

New Year Ceremony

2010-01-11T00:20:00.005+09:00

Sagichou [左義長] 　or Dontoyaki [どんと焼き] is a kind of traditional fire ceremony which is officially held on Jan 14 or Jan 15 to farewell the new year gods "Toshigami-sama" [年神様] leaving for the heaven again. We burn Shimekazari [しめ飾り]　and other new year decolation by this fire.

This is an outside wall of my house.
Can you find Morsecode?

Elecraft's reputation in JA

2010-01-08T00:21:00.004+09:00

The other day, the elecraft mailing list was hot about its reputation in JA. I don't know who in JA hams said such complain to US ham and how he/she could correctly explain situation in JA.

As far as I understand now after private discussion with JA dealer EDC's person the other day, their pricing of elecraft equipment is resonable. The reason explained by Eric in the mailing list was almost correct.
If Elecraft wants competitive business in JA, Elecraft should decrease its wholesale price to EDC drastically like KenYaCom do in US.

A new international CW group "CWops"

2010-01-06T23:50:00.003+09:00

A new international CW group named "CWops" has been born this new years holiday.
Conratulations all CW lovers!
I hope this will lead to improve activity of CW loveres on the band instead of on the internet.
I'd like to propose to have board meeting of the club officers not on the internet mailing list but on the air round table meeting. Hi :-)

A Happy New Year 2010

2010-01-01T23:31:00.004+09:00

A Happy New Year 2010!
It was nice sunny new year's day.
This photo is "shimekazari"[しめ飾り] at the entrance door that is a kind of ornament to invite new-years-god "toshi-gami-sama"[年神様] into my house.

Japanese tatami room was full of sun shine.

At "tokonoma"[床の間] a kind of an alcove in a Japanese tatami room, we placed "kagamimochi"[鏡もち] for the place where the new-years-god stays during new years day.

We thank every nature things and pray to the nature's gods "yaoyorozuno-kami" [八百万の神]　then eat special dishes "osechi-ryori"[おせち料理] with family. Each dish has reason why it is placed there, all of them are based on hope for peace and happiness.

At the table, each family member declare their plan of this year.
I hope my family be healthy and happy. In addition I swor myself not to waste everyday since this year is the last one year for my 40s.

Count down to YR2010

2009-12-31T23:41:00.002+09:00

It will be a New Year's Day in 15 min!
Thank you very much for many QSOs in 2009, hope to see you more often on the air in 2010 too!

Everyone, let's go back to the band and pound your brass much more instead of typing keyboard on the internet.
Radio wave is fantastic and romantic and CW is the origin of telecommunications and you can communicate your mind without voice without keyboard but with simple carrier on/off signals.

CW 4EVER ... CQ CQ cq... in 2010

TNX QSL

2009-12-26T18:44:00.002+09:00

Hi Marcia! Thank you very much for your QSL card. It was arrived at Tokyo today. I'm very glad to know that our QSO was your first ever QSO with outside north America.
I thought that the condition was not the best shape but your signal was decent and I could solid copy your signal pounding from FT1Kmp with Windom antenna.
Let's do it again in 2010 too!

CW 4EVER....CQ CQ CQ cq

Seasons Greetings

2009-12-24T23:02:00.003+09:00

This evening, My lonely CQ calling has been absorbed into the sky.
Two Russian guys kindly gave me a rst report with rubber stamp QSO.
It was a silent christmas eveing.

Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all CW lovers.

CW 4EVER ... CQ CQ cq

NB. Photo from http://www.ghdkey.com/

FT-DX5000 Price

2009-12-19T22:54:00.002+09:00

JA CQ Hamradio magazine issue 2010 Jan shows price of FT-DX5000 series.

FT-DX5000MP:715,000JPY
200W with 0.05ppm OCXO, 300Hz roofing filter & Station Monitor

FT-DX5000D:650,000JPY
200W with 0.5ppm TCXO & Station Monitor

FT-DX5000:620,000JPY
200W with 0.5ppm TCXO

FT-DX5000M:620,000JPY
50W with 0.5ppm TCXO

They say it's a kind of premium HF transceiver with 6 pole christal roofig filter, 112dB of dynamic range, +40dBm IP3 and completely individual dual receiver.

The delivery date is not fixed yet.

Today's QSO -- N5JB & KO6U/m

2009-12-15T23:41:00.004+09:00

The domestic condition was poor this eveing so that we closed regular round table with domestic CW friends on 40m band very shortly.
After that I called CQ with bug and paddle and then bug again on 7026KHz as usual. I confirmed by the Salt Lake City Webradio that my 150W+HB9CV signals are falling in Utah, USA with decent strength.
Wow, N5JB, John called me. His KW+3ele Yagi signal was very strong, it was real S-9 on my FT2KD s-meter with VRF+IPO on.
It was 1st ever QSO with him but he kindly introduced his job before retirement and it was very interesting because he was an engineer for microwave telecomunication network system design like me. And His companies were competitors of my company. :-p
We finished our QSO promising next one.

After that QSO, KO6U/m, Nathan called me. It was long interval to see him again on the air. Unfortunately his signal was too weak and unstable to enjoy chat. But anyway it was happy to hear his vivid pounding from car on the way to his office.
Hope to see him again soon in much better condition.

They made my day! MNI TNX!
.....CW 4EVER.... CQ CQ cq..

NB. Photo from QRZ.COM

Outdoor Stove

2009-12-13T18:41:00.003+09:00

This Sunday I tested an outdoor stove.
This stove is called "Tokei-gata" or wall-clock-shape.
It is made of stainless steel.
The material thikness is very thin so it looks cheap (actually it cost only 10K-JPY), but seems good enough for enjoying outdoor cooking.

Radio Bike -- my boyhood dream

2009-12-13T18:24:00.004+09:00

This is a kind of my boyhood dream in late 60 to early 70's.
There was neither internet nor cell phones.
The radio communication was the trend and cool thing.
Time flies. Now a days, boys and girls sneers my dream bike as if an odd thing.
Let's go back to my radio room and pound my brass alone.

Today's QSO -- K0ALT

2009-12-10T23:54:00.002+09:00

Today I called CQ as usual on 7026 by using bugkey.
After several CQ calling with 200Watts QRO, K0ALT Christine kindly called me!
Her signal from 100W with loop antenna was not so big here in Tokyo but the 40m band was fortunately quiet this evening so that I could solid copy. :-)
She said temp is minus 25C.
I doubt my ears and asked her "Do you live on the top of montain?". She said she lives in valley but it is *000FT. (I couldn't copy 1st digit due to QSB but any way higher than 1000FT(or 300m). According to Google map her QTH silt, CO is very mountaneous area and seems very high altitude.
Since it was 1st QSO we finished with very short rubber stamp + alpha QSO but it was very nice meeting on the air. I could imagine the landscape of Silt city of Colorad where I've never been.

CW 4EVER .... CQ CQ ...

NB. Photo from QRZ.COM

Reading QSO by WebRadio

2009-12-09T23:34:00.004+09:00

About one hour later around 22:30JST(UTC+9), I heard Shin-san JA1NUT is chatting with Nathan KO6U/m on the same freq. by Webradio in Utah, USA.
JA1NUT Shin san's signal is much bigger than KO6U/m Nathan's one.
Accutally Shin san's sig heard by Webradio is much better than those heard by actual radio in Tokyo.
Also, Natah's sig is too weak to read by actual radio in tokyo but could be copiable by web radio in Utah.

Calling CQ from web radio

2009-12-09T21:57:00.003+09:00

This is my signal calling CQ from Tokyo Japan received by Web Radio in Solt Lake City in USA on 9th Dec.2009. I'm using FT-2000D running 100W into 2elements HB9CV up 15m. It was 2140JST (UTC+9hr) in the eveing in Tokyo.
Even I called CQ NA several times, there was no call back unfortunately. I'm lonely CQ man....CW4EVER CW4EVER... CQ CQ cQ

A1 Club Year End Party in Akiba

2009-11-29T23:53:00.003+09:00

We had a pleasant year end party with 13 A1 club members at AKIBA 秋葉　or　AKIHABARA Electric Town in tokyo on 2009-11-28(SAT).

Due to heavy drinking I had hangover on Sunday.
I managed to woke up before 7AM and checked in JBA's RT30.
Thank you for nice short chat Leo-san JJ8KGZ.
After that I have no energy to entry CQ WW Contest CW at all. Hi

At 5PM, I checked in FEA's NET part-2 on 18.085KHz today.
I was the only one who checked in today. Thank you for nice chat Manabu-san JE1RZR. I'm very interested with new toy that he will get soon. It's something related to his KW license.

FTDX-5000 Debut!?

2009-11-25T12:29:00.003+09:00

In JA, details are still unveiled.
Today I found Enlish Catalog posted on KC8QVO's blog.

Here is the PDF Catalog of FTDX-5000.

It'll have 600 & 300Hz roofing filter!?
Is yaesu changed their design from up-conversion to down-conversion?

Elecraft News

2009-11-25T12:22:00.002+09:00

Here is the Elecraft News Update received on 2009-11-25 07:46AM here in JA.
I've been interesting when they release linear amp KPA500, 800, 1500, etc.
Unfortunately they are not shown in the news.
But, Panadaptor P3 and Watt Meter W2 are also interesting though.
Good luck Elecraft!

===QUOTE===
Elecraft® News

Elecraft news is sent from time to time to keep you updated on our latest
developments. If you would like to unsubscribe from Elecraft News, please see the
bottom of this email and click on 'manage your subscription'.

Nov. 24, 2009

What's new at Elecraft? - K3 & K144XV 2-m module, P3 Panadapter, W2 Wattmeter

There's a lot going on at Elecraft, so we thought we'd get you caught up on our new
and enhanced products. Thanks to you, we have had our best year ever. We've also
just celebrated our 10th anniversary since shipping our first K2, and we have also
just moved into a larger facility.

In less than two years, the Elecraft K3 has set a new standard for high performance
HF/6-meter transceivers. It's one of very few rigs to offer true diversity receive,
giving DXers the edge they need. The K3 has also become the rig of choice for many
DXpeditions.

The world's top contesters have also given it rave reviews, thanks to its
unsurpassed close-in dynamic range (see, for example, www.sherweng.com/table.html).
Yet the K3 is still the most affordable rig in its class, starting at just $1899 for
the K3/100 (no-soldering kit; also available fully assembled and tested). And at
only 9 pounds, it's also the ultimate rig for Field Day, lightweight travel and more
casual outings.

But the K3 just keeps getting better!

-- Starting in early 2010, we'll be shipping our new P3 Panadapter.

The P3 is a stand-alone DSP spectral/waterfall display unit that's a perfect match
for the K3. It has a built-in, high-contrast color display (LCD), point and click
QSY tuning and better integration with the K3 than is possible with PC-based
panadapters. P3 features include signal averaging, peak hold, adjustable gain and
adjustable reference level. It also includes a buffered IF pass-through for
support of additional processing by other peripherals. for pictures and more info,
see: http://www.elecraft.com/K3/K3.htm

-- Also shipping in December is the K144XV, an internal 2-meter module for the K3.
With the K144XV you can now also use your K3 for 2M weak-signal and FM operation. It
has outstanding receive specs, power output of up to 10 W (typical) in all modes,
and can be used with both the main and sub receivers. With a K144XV installed, the
K3 provides all-mode, full 160-2 m coverage.

-- New K3 firmware features include dual receiver diversity reception, synchronous
AM detection with VFO auto-tracking; 1-button press automation of often-used switch
sequences (such as SPLIT with VFO movement); selectable extended bass response; and
enhanced noise reduction. For the latest K3 firmware downloads, see:
http://www.elecraft.com/K3/k3_software.htm

We are now shipping the W2, our new autoranging HF / VHF / UHF Wattmeter/SWR bridge.
Its microcontroller-enhanced feature set includes PC-readable power and SWR,
programmable alarms, and free firmware upgrades via the internet. The W2 uses remote
sensing, with up to two sensors that can be automatically selected as you transmit.
Sensors are available in several power and frequency ranges (1.8-55 MHz up to 2 kW,
and 144-450 MHz up to 200 W). The W2's compact size makes it ideal for tight spaces,
and while it's styled to match the K3, it will work with any transmitter or
amplifier.

Finally, we're offering a special price on the completely updated 2010 ARRL Handbook.
This is in honor of the K3, which received the League's top rating in three of its
"recommended transceiver" tables (Handbook pages 14.10 to 14.13). The limited time
special price of the 2010 ARRL Handbook is just $29.95. To order, see our Books
Page. http://www.elecraft.com/books/books.htm#hbarrl

For further information on all of products, including th eK3 and our three
complete-kit transceivers (K2, K1, and KX1), VHF/UHF transverters, and mini-module
kits, please visit us at:

http://www.elecraft.com

You can see our price list and order on-line at:

http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_prod_list.htm

You can also reach us at our new phone number: (831) 763-4211, or email us at:
sales@elecraft.com

73,
Wayne, N6KR
Eric, WA6HHQ
This message was sent by: Elecraft, Inc., PO BOX 69, Aptos, CA 95001

Email Marketing by iContact: http://freetrial.icontact.com

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===Unquote===

Kinubari-yama 衣張山

2009-11-24T00:07:00.002+09:00

Today I and XYL went to Kamakura and walk around a small mountain called Kinubari-yama that is located anout 20 minutes walk from Kamakura station towards east side through Tsurugaoka hachimanguu.
鶴岡八幡宮の東，鎌倉駅から徒歩２０分程度に位置する衣張山に登りました．
It's height is about 100m but view from the top of that mountain was very nice.
We could see Enoshima-island.
Unfortunately We couldn't see Mt.Fuji.

　

HEXBEAM

2009-11-22T00:16:00.004+09:00

Today was very nice weather after cold rainy days.
My ham friend JF1OSL who is also my big boss at office has been planning to install HEXBEAM since several months ago. However, he could not isntall it due to his busy work or bad weather, etc.
Then, finally today, the HEXBEAM has been installed on his roof top.
I visited his house 9:30AM, then started assembling.
Another friend JR1NHD joind around 11AM, then we could finish assembly before 1PM.
After that pro-worker made final installation on the top of the mast.
Around 5PM, it's up and running successfully.
Congratulations & FB DX!

G3SED

2009-11-15T22:16:00.002+09:00

I worked with G3SED, Mike. He is the 1st G station on 40m!

QRG:7010.3KHz, CW.
He was 400W rotaly dipole 28meters high.
My power was 150W with 2 ele HB9CV.

Condition seems very nice and fortunately noise level was very low this eveing here.

I hope band condition will be much better and more stable, and then the day that I can do long chat with G stations and other deep European countries easily will come soon!

Mt.Fuji from Yamanakako

2009-11-15T18:02:00.003+09:00

Today, WX was very fine from the morning, so we decided to go Yamanakako lake through Doushi-keikoku valley road.

Autumn leaves were best at Doushi valley but already finished at Yamanakako. View of Mt.Fuji from Yamanakako was wonderful.
My wife and I have been refreshed!

Place:Lake Yamanakako, Yamanashi-pref. JAPAN
WX: vy fine, temp 13C at noon but wind blowing down from Mt.Fuji was very cold.

The voice "Samui!" (or "Cold!" in English) is recorded at the end of video. :-p

Evening glow

2009-11-14T17:02:00.003+09:00

After long rain, it became clear this afternoon.
And look! What a beautiful eveing glow here!

Here is viedo clip　360 deg view from roof balcony.
At 16:30 Locat time.

9M2ADX

2009-11-14T12:44:00.003+09:00

My friend Kazu, JH8PHT is staying 9M2 for his business and recently got 9M2ADX.
Today he and his friends in JA tried 1st ever QSO with his new callsign.

Unfortunately his signal was not so loud today, we barely worked on 20m band but cloud not work on 15m band.

Hope to see him on the air in better condition soon.

Here is some sound file of our QSO.

CW QSO on 20m band (Wkd wid 9M2ADX)

SSB on 15m band (JA only)

Hida-Shirakawa-Kanazawa Bus tour

2009-11-02T23:59:00.013+09:00

Last weekend, I've been Hida-Takayama, Shirakawa-go, Kanazawa, etc by bus tour with XYL and daughter.
We got up in the ver early Saturday morinig and went to Shinjuku terminal by train then get on the tour bus there. Tour started 7AM from Shinjuku.
Before 1st destination Takayama we short stopped at a parking near Kamiko-chi. The mountains are already covered by colourful leaves.

At Takayama, we ate Takayama ramen.
Delicious!

Then we walk around Hida-Takayama old town.

Very nice red leaves of "Momiji"a kind of maple.

Next we visited Shirakawa-go, a wolrd heritage, where old Japanese houses are preserved.

Next day (Sunday), we visited Kenroku-en, a traditional Japanese Garden in Kanazawa-prefecture.

Here is Kanazawa-jo castle.

The last one is Higashi-chaya-machi, a traditional amusement center in Kanazawa.

HIGASHI means EAST.

Finally we drive along seaside of Nihon-kai or Japan sea.

It was very short but concentrated trip. It was fun but tired. zzz

XYL operates CW Contest

2009-10-25T19:11:00.003+09:00

Today XYL tried CW contest for the first time.
It was Let's A1 Contest, only straight key is allowed to use.

I was busy for logging :-)

HB-1A QRP Rig

2009-10-25T10:12:00.006+09:00

I bought HB-1A, a 3-band (40/20/30m bands) 4W QRP transceiver, made by BD4RG.
It was 24800JPY including transportation and handling charge through ICAS Enterprises.

Its clear LCD display indicates,
- Frequency with full digit.
- input DC voltage,
- S-meter level

Inside view, mostly SMD is used.

Comparing with similar concept rig, KX1 side by side.
Size: KX1 is smaller than HB-1A
Weight: KX1 is lighter tha HB-1A.
Material:HB-1A's case is made of iron.
KX1's case is made of Alminum.
Functions: No RF Gain control on HB-1A
Continuous RF Gain control on KX1.

4 filter setting (900/700/500/400) on HB-1A.
Continuous setting from 500Hz to 2KHz on KX1.

KX1: Many commands are available for user
HB-1A:Very few commands are open to the user.

Following video clips were recorded on 40m band.
HB-1A have inter-mod from to strong broadcasting signal.
ATT must be on for normal operation under strong signal in the same band.
KX1 has much better inter-mod performance.

Alberto I1QOD Bug

2009-10-17T21:04:00.003+09:00

I1QOD Alberto makes excellent bug and paddles in Italy.
I found his reputation on eham.net 3 mmonths ago and I ordered one of his bug keys.
3 months have been passed and the key finally arrived at my house last week!
It is all brass standard version. It's shining gold on my operation desk!

This is the first time to use double lever type for bug key.
I need more practice to become familiar with it.
But I can't wait to show up on the air :-)

Calling CQ (1)

Little faster! This is my max. speed (^^;

I used this bug key only few hours so far, but it is obiously the most excellent bug key that I have ever used.
This bug key is the best for QRQ operator.
Since I'm not QRQ operator now, I must keep K4VIZ Right Angle Bug for ordinary speed operation.

Yesterday, I worked two US stations on 14050KHz, I called CQ SKCC there, I put QRV info on K3UK SKED PAGE

ACAG Contest from Nagano

2009-10-11T20:49:00.005+09:00

On this weekend Oct-10th & 11th, 2009, I went to JA0 area with 7 friends from A1 Club.
During this weekend, All City & All Gun Contest, one of the major domestic contest is held by JARL.
We operated A1 Club station JO1ZZZ at wonderful cottage owned by one of my friend.
The cottage is very large and land estate is wide enough to deploy a full size 160m band dipole.
As expected, we started drinking before start of the contest...:-p

HAMFAIR 2009 report

2009-09-02T17:47:00.004+09:00

Japan's biggest ham festival HAMFAIR 2009 has been held at Tokyo Bay area international exhibition center "Big Sight" on 22 and 23 of August.
A1 Club presented their own booth and distributed an original CW tuning indicator kit, also demonstrated Morse Code especially to kids and beginners.
At the club dinner so called "QRM Party", 36 members were gathered including F5EIC Jean-Luc from France and VR2XMC Johnny from HongKong. It was really a kind of "QRM" party. Hi
Some of photos are shown in our Japanese page as follows;
http://a1club.net/HAMFAIR/hamfair2009/hamfair2009.htm

I hope to see more participants from overseas next year!
See U then!

Below is a photo of CW friends. From the left, JJ1TTG Aki, me, JJ8KGZ Leo and JA1NUT Shin.

Atsu, JE1TRV

QSO Party in Expanded 40m Band

2009-07-12T10:10:00.003+09:00

From July, 10th till July 20th, Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL) helds QSO party in the expanded segment of 40m band.
Since March 30th, 2009, The Japanese amateur 40m band has been expanded from 100KHz (7.000-7.100MHz) to 200KHz (7.000-7.2000MHz) and the QSO party this time celebrate it.
Rule of the QSO party is shown in the JARL website [HERE].

I cannot find English version of the rule but DX station may participate this party.

Dear all DX amateurs!
Please tune your xcvr to 7.100MHz and up and please call JA stations, they are calling "CQ 7QP".
Required exchange is just RST only.

Thank you in advance and see you on 7.1MHz and up!

de JE1TRV, Atsu

A1 Century Club Award

2009-06-15T17:55:00.003+09:00

QTC to all CW loveres!
On the day of 2009-06-13, A1 CLUB announced in their homepage that they starts A1CC (A1 Century Club Award).

There are two categories, Special and Original.
"Special" may be applied by all amateures, "Original" is issued for A1 Club member only.

The rule is very simple, in case of "Special" category, you should just make CW QSO as many as possible and in the application you must include at least 1/5 of A1 Club member.
Award is issued from 100 points by 100 point step.
In case you apply A1CC-100, you must make at least 100 CW QSOs with different callsigns, and at least 20 QSOs shall be A1 Club member.

In case of "Original", all QSOs must be made with A1 Club members only.
So you need to work with at least 100 A1 Club members for "Original-100".

For details please refer here.

New K3 arrived!!!

2009-05-23T06:50:00.002+09:00

As I wrote the other day, my K3 #1070 had problem on receiving even after repair work in Elecraft.
I could not believe that, because the symptom is clearly observed only when decent real antenna is connected and receive real signals.
First I reported the fact to the person who carried out the repair work.
In response to my report he started to ask me "what is the symptom".
I thought "Oh please stop such story again?" so I just say the symptom is just the same as before repair and I sent same symptom report that was made before repair.
After that, no reply from that person.
Then I sent e-mail to a person in charge for the Sale department asking replacement of equipment. But no reply at all.

Then I deceided to sent e-mail to to-management both Eric & Wayne.
Wayne, N6KR replied immediately even it was midnight there in USA.
After several correspondences, Wayne decided to send new K3 for replacement.

It was arrived 3 days ago．
As soon as I opened the box, I connected power and antenna then received 40m band.
The receiver was OK!. But... transmit...problem again!! "END" message is always pop up on the sub LCD and cannot transmit.
What's happen!? Give me a break...
I read the operation manual but no instruction about "END" message.
I made initialize (EEINIT) but no change.
It was already midnight in Tokyo, so I took the symptom by video and reported to Wayne before sleep.
Next morning, new firmware version 3.15 had been arrived in my mailbox.
I installed the new F/W then the K3's transmit function became normal.
I sent e-mail telling everything seems OK to Wayne then rushed to work.

It was very log time and berden plus some extra expenses.
I regret why Elecraft could not find the symptom at the first repair.
It is clear that the repair return had been a wast of time and cost.
If they connect decent antenna placed outdoor and receive real world, I believe they could find the problem.

On the other hand, I really appreciate Wayne's great support.
He is really a trademark of Elecraft!!
Now I'm happy and can keep good impression on Elecraft.
Thank you very much Wayne.

PS. I hope Elecraft will not charge transportation cost for this case :-)

Spider-Beam Antenna (3)

2009-05-18T21:53:00.009+09:00

This is the 3rd time post about the Spider-Beam after some months silent.
I've been no work on that antenna since it was cold for outdoor work. But after spring, I was reluctant to work with that antenna.
Beacuse I must measure and cut all 9 elements (3ele for 3 bands) from one signle wire reel. Also, instaruction manual is not so kind enough for me.
However, I managed to measure and cut and terminate all elements and other parts including KW bulun, etc the week before.

And finnaly, I found a nice wide open space near my home in Machida, Tokyo, So I tried to assemble the Spider-Beam on the ground.

All booms are assembled. It took more than one hour. And I gave up to continue assembly since the lenghth between blun and 15m & 17m band's radiator was too long and needs re-work on mounting of blun on th mast.

After trial assembly, I found the base hub plate had damaged as shown in the photo below. The hub plate seems too thin to support moment during installation.

K3 returned after repair but...

2009-05-05T21:49:00.002+09:00

On May 3rd, my K3 #1070 has been arrived from US after repair.
The TAT was 39 days including go & return transportation lead time.

According to the Elecraft's repair report, they replaced RF Board and confirmed all performances meet their published specifications.

HOWEVER, UNFORTUNATELY, I found that the K3 still has problem.
Very high noise and terrible intermodulation interference on all bands except 20m band is still observed.

I was totally disappointed.

Yesterday, I reported this info to the Elecraft's enginner who wrote the repair report.
Today, I received reply from Elecraft engineer and he is asking symptom. I sent all correspondences that I communicated with another Elecraft man before repair, since the symptom is not changed at all before and after repair.

Google Top Page changed for S.Morse's B-Day

2009-04-27T13:10:00.002+09:00

Today April 27, 2009 is the 218th Birthday of Samuel F.B. Morse who is an inventor of Morse Code.

What QRJ stands for?

2009-04-20T12:37:00.003+09:00

I read an article written by JK1OPL on the latest Japanese CQ Hamradio magaizne (May 2009 issue). In the article, he introduces Q-code "QRJ".
I've never heard such Q-Code "QRJ".
In the article it is explained that QRJ means "Your signal is too weak to continue QSO." something like that.

I searched "QRJ" by internet and found the site where ITU regulations are listed:
Here
According to this site, QRJ stands for
"How many radiotelephone calls have you to book?" in question style.
"I have ... radiotelephone calls to book." as answer.

Which one is correct?

K3 Forced Repatriation

2009-03-22T16:38:00.002+09:00

After one week investigation at local K3 holder's shack with Elecraft engineering support by e-mail, my K3's trouble is found as serious.

Following video clips are the comparison of bad K3 and normal K3 submitted to Elecraft engineer for their reference.

[Case-1]
my K3 upper, my friends' K3 lower.
receiving strong signal out of filter bandwidth.
First upper then lower and repeat.

[Case-2]
Same setup with receiving strong signal within thefilter bandwidth.
Swiching bad K3 and normal K3 vice versa.

I appreciate Elecraft enginner's patient support everyday.
But unfortunately, no improvement obserbed.
I deceided to send my K3 to the factory.

Marconi TRX1A

2009-03-17T18:23:00.003+09:00

After long silence since Hamfair 2008 (Aug/2008), Marconi-Japan has finally announced their first products on 2009-03-08. That is a HF Transceiver Case Kit "Marconi TRX1A".
http://marconi-japan.com/default.aspx

It is Not a Transceiver kit but a Case kit.

It includes prefabricated case, knobs, fly-wheel drum, meter, connectors for RF and AF signals, power socket, cooling fan.
No PCB, electronic components for transceiver is included!

At the time of Hamfair2008, the guy at the Marconi booth explained that they will provide transceiver kit.
Since I have been interested in their presentation at Hamfair2008, I've been confirmed the progress of their preparation time to time and I saw that they have been reducing their plan guradually and finally they decided to sell only CASE KIT.
It's disappointing.

The sales price of the CASE is 88200JPY. Expensive!!
They are going to sell 30 sets only without having stock.

I've been confusing the company name with the famous telecommunication company of "Marconi plc" in UK that had been bought by Ericsson few years ago.
But Marconi-Japan seems no relation with that. It looks like a private workshop or personal company.

My K3 should go to hospital

2009-03-14T21:27:00.002+09:00

Yesterday I took my K3 to a local friend Aki, JA1NLX who also has K3.
We made side by side comparison and found that my K3 is something like a compeletely different radio.
I left my K3 at Aki's home last night, according to Aki's report today, my K3 has too much distortion on all bands except 20m band.
He guess DSP board is suspicious and he suggested to contact Elecraft anyway.
So, I sent an e-mail to the Elecraft support today.

My K3 is very poor

2009-03-08T21:38:00.003+09:00

I made apple to apple comparison between K3, FT2000 and K1.
The band is 40m and the time is eveing in Tokyo Japan.
Above shot is a band scope snap on 40m band when I made the test.
The biggest peak around 7330KHz is a Broadcast whose signal strength is +60dB over S9 on my FT2K s-meter.

And here is the comparison movie, 1st one is K3 vs K1, and the second one is K3 vs FT2K vs K1.

K3 is obviously very noisy and poor. FT2000 is much better than K3 and K1 is the best in three radio.
200-dollar raido beats 4000-dollar raido!
Is this only on my K3?

Graduation Ceremony

2009-03-01T14:11:00.000+09:00

My son graduated from the high school today.

HEXBEAM works on 6m band

2009-02-26T23:46:00.004+09:00

I've been a happy user of Traffie Hexbeam for about 5 years.
It works pretty good without any adjustment and any maintenance upto now.

This antenna has very unique hexagonal shape but realizes both very small foot-print and high gain at the same time.

Although the price for 5-band type is around 1100USD not so cheap, but it is reasonable when you consider the total system cost including tower, rotator, coaxial feeders, etc. You can enjoy 5 band with one antenna, one coax and small tv rotor with very low height! (see photo above which is extracted from Traffie's website)

In addition not only specified 5 bands (20, 30, 17, 12 and 10m), it can be used on 6m too! See the SWR plots for 6m below;

Amazing!

SWR Plot by DMU-2000

2009-02-11T23:37:00.003+09:00

The DMU-2000, a band scope for Yaesu FT-2000, has a function to plot SWR of the antenna connected to the FT-2000.

This is SWR plots for 40m band, antenna is Create Design AFA-40, 2-el HB9CV.

The left edge is 7000KHz, the red line is 7100KHz.
The SWR seems pretty low between 7000-7100. But above 7100KHz, it becomes very high.
So, I must use antenna tuner when I will QRV at above 7100KHz from coming April after the 7100-7200 band is permited in JA on 2009-3-30.

Here is the SWR of 20m band , antenna is HEXBEAM.

I bought normal setting HEXBEAM so that the SWR is optimized for phone band.

FT-2000 new firmware

2009-02-01T17:32:00.002+09:00

The latest firmware has been released in Jan,2009.
Firmware update procedure is not announced officially in JA market.
That means Yaesu dose not allow Japanese cutomer to update the firmware of FT-2000 by themselves. If we did it, warranty of that equipment is terminated immediately, e even if the warranty period has not been finished yet.

Besides, in US it is opened and the latest firmware can be downladed free of charge from Yaesu America Website.

Update procedure is little bit complicated, but the step by step procedure is described in the Yaesu website, and my local friend, Jun/JQ1BWT who is an active electric engineer kindly helped me to do it.

After istall of the new firmware "PEP2000", my FT-2000D has been re-born.

FISTS/SKCC SKED page by K3UK

2009-01-17T09:27:00.004+09:00

K3UK's SKED page for FISTS, SKCC, etc. is very nice!
I could hook up with some of FISTS and SKCC members in USA with help of this page.

This is the screen shot of this morning.

FISTS page is always almost empty;

On the other hand, SKCC page is always crowded.

Why?

A Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-02T21:24:00.002+09:00

As a CW operator I must send new year greetings by Morse Code, Hi Hi.
Sorry for my rusty fists...at last I gave up sending by straight key...

New Year's Eve

2008-12-31T21:27:00.003+09:00

Today the last day of year 2008 has been passed peacefully here in Machida, Japan.
On the way back from a local hot spa which is located just 10 min drive from my home, I could see beautiful silhouette of Tanzawa mountains and head of Mt.Fuji on sunset.

Unconsciously I thanked to the god for our health and safe in this year and prayed for good luck in 2009.

Fine Paddles

2008-12-23T17:26:00.002+09:00

There are many kinds of fine paddles in the world.
So, I've been collecting some of them.
Among those paddles I've ever used, following two paddles are the best of bests and it is hard to decide which one is better than the other.

Chevron Morse Key
Begali Graciella Vertical Paddle

I wrote some report on these paddles before.
http://a1club.net/je1trv/key/

Spider-Beam Antenna (2)

2008-12-20T11:03:00.007+09:00

I'm enjoying assembly work of the spider-beam antenna.
It takes time but it's also a kind of fun to measure and cut from the scratch.
At a very initial stage, we must fabricate the Guy Lines.
A special fibre rope "Kevlar" is used for the guy line.
Once Kevlar is cut, the end of rope become feazing. Like photo below;

The instruction manual says to melt the ends with a lighter.
However I found that the melted ends became thicker than original diameter then it will not go through the 3mm hole of the plastic insulatiors.

So, without melting the ends, I wind thin & tough wire like photo below;

Then go it though 3mm hole of the plastic insulator then pulled it out.

I needed to make this kind of work 16 times, (^^;;

Memorial Ceremony for JA7SSB

2008-12-16T23:45:00.002+09:00

According to Fukushima CW association (FCWA), Memorial Ceremony for JA7SSB Jun-OM will be taken place on 2009-01-18 at Fukushima, Japan.
Before that, they are asking to send memorial message about Jun-OM.
If you have special memory on JA7SSB, please send message by text or word or PDF to the secretary of FCWA, JI7VBW Ms.Yoko Horikiri by 2009-01-12.
E-mail address is shown in the following link;
http://www.roy.hi-ho.ne.jp/hamradio/fcwatop06.htm
If you cannot read & write Japanese, please send me je1trv@a1club.net so that I will transfer to her with translation.

Let's Use YYYY-MM-DD Format

2008-12-08T17:32:00.001+09:00

Let's use international standard numeric representation of Dates

How do you usually express date?
For example, what dose the date 08-12-07 mean?

08-12-07;
For American, it means the 12th day of August in 2007.
For European, it means the 8th day of December in 2007.
For Japanese, it means the 7th day of December in 2008.
(I'm not sure but, some other asian people recognize
as same as Japanese dose.)

The ISO (International Standard Organization) specifies
the numeric representation of Dates in ISO-8601.

===QUOTE===
ISO 8601 advises numeric representation of dates and
times on an internationally agreed basis.
It represents elements from the largest to the smallest element: year-month-day:

Calendar date is the most common date representation. It is:
YYYY-MM-DD

where YYYY is the year in the Gregorian calendar, MM is the month of the year between 01 (January) and 12 (December), and DD is the day of the month between 01 and 31.

Example: 2003-04-01 represents the first day of April in 2003.
===UNQUOTE===

I'd like to recommend that we as an internationally recognized licensed amateur radio operator, must use the expression recommended in ISO.
That is, 2008-12-07 for the 7th date of December in 2008.

JA7SSB SK

2008-12-03T23:41:00.003+09:00

Today I got an very sad news from JI7VBW Ms.Horikiri who is a secretary of FCWA (Fukushima CW Association).
Her mail said JA7SSB, Jun (Mr.Junji Saito) has been passed away last night (2008-12-2).
He was 77 years old but he was very well and active on the air just before he died.
He has been maintained a nice website "The Hamradio" since 1998.
He has been revised the DX news almost everyday for 10 years on that website.
Also, he was a big boss of hamradio community.
I personaly met him on 1997, when I moved to Fukushima-prefecture due to my job rotation. I joined FCWA and enjoyed and learned many things with him and FCWA members in Fukushima.
During my stay in Fukushima, I was inspired by his activity on hamradio community and it leads me to found A1 CLUB in Oct.1998.
Now a days, A1 CLUB was grown up as a biggest CW fan club in Japan with 1200 members.
He was a really great elmer of our hamradio operators.
I'll keep his memory forever and we must keep his wishes "Don't forget amateur spirit, don't forget to challenge, don't forget to study"
Thank you Jun OM, nice dreams there!

73 de JE1TRV Atsu

Spider-Beam Antenna (1)

2008-11-30T23:52:00.008+09:00

An international percel has been arrived yesterday from Germany.
It's 14-18-21 version.
Today I opened the box and made innventory and assembled its center plate.

Eyeball Meeting in Miura

2008-11-24T17:54:00.002+09:00

We had a wonderfull eyeball meeting at JE1RZR, Manabu's home in Miura-city last Saturday.
Local CW related friends gathered there.
The main purpose was to confirm how quiet (low noise) his location is compared with those of my location in Machida-city.
As the conclusion, His loacation is obiously quieter than mine.
Therefore, I believe K2 with wide filter setting is confortable very much for long ragchew than using K3 there.
I think K2 is the best CW rig under the circumstance of no interference.
K3 has nice fuction to fight against heavy QRM & QRN, So it's the best in contest.

Friendship & Hosptality

2008-11-18T20:00:00.006+09:00

In March, 2007, I had a chance to visit USA on business trip.
That was 2nd time to visit USA. (1st time was about 20 years ago as my honeymoon.)
I stayed in Dallas, TX. At that time I have no friends in US yet.
So I searched internet and found amateur radio club near dallas.
Then, I've sent an e-mail to the secretary of the club.
Soon, I cloud recieve kind message. They are welcome me to make an eyeball meeting there. What a nice peoples there, I thought.

Today by chance, I found my callsign in their club news,

I recalled warm friendship of US hams
Thank you Irving Amaeture Radio Club!

New Band Plan for 7MHz

2008-11-16T22:03:00.003+09:00

MIC(Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) of Japan published a new band plan for amateur band.
7MHz will be extended 7000-7100 to 7000-7200 from April, 2009.
However, CW ONLY segment (7000-7025) will NOT be extended.

CW 7000-7025 --> 7000-7025
CW+Digital 7025-7030 --> 7025-7030
ALL MODE 7030-7100 --> 7030-7200 <+100KHz>

CW is very weak when QRM from Digital or Phone exists.
So as a CW man, I strongly request to extend CW only band.

The MIC accepts public comments until Dec/12/2008.
I know MIC might not change their plan easily even they get against comments.
But anyway I'm going to write my opinion as one of a CW operator.