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CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE
Raymond Francis
Somebody is not cut for
marching
CHIANGMAI
TRIP 24-28 AUGUST 2017 |
I am a little
critical though I tried to be as objective
as possible. Praises were rained on the POTO
for being the best travel agency, I would
not easily agree with the others. On this
trip there were two promises that were not
fulfilled. The first was the promise of
refunding on the bag that was not taken,
and secondly, one day was taken away from
us. Try to imagine how much we could have
missed from the lost hours. POTO blamed
Malindo Air for the mishap.
The
plane that was supposed to go to Chiangrai only stopped in Bangkok.
Accordingly Malindo arranged the Thai
Lion to fly us to Chiangmai. And from
Chiangmai we took a bus to Chiangrai.
Otherwise we would have to travel by bus
from Bangkok to Chiangmai or Chiangrai which will
kill some of us. It could have taken us
more than 24 hours and I believe Photo
will not hesitate to do that while
blaming Malindo Air all the way.
Where did
we go in Chiangrai ? To a small opium
Museum, a boat ride to see the Golden
Triangle. It stopped at a shopping
center on the brim of the river. We were
told it was Laos. There was no landmark
to show that it was Laos, only stalls
that sell goods from China. If you ask
me whether I enjoyed it, I would say NO.
It was
drizzling and wet.
Having finished the sight seeing we
started to move to Chiangmai. It was
another hectic ride. There was one thing
good about the people. They enjoyed the
trip and the ride. Nobody complained. We
woke up at about 4 am and ended the day
trip at about 9 pm.
We have
two tour leaders, the local from
Malaysia and the Thai. The local was
Qila and the Thai was Mohammed. Both of
them were charming and helpful guys.
Mohammed is married. I don't know about
Qila who is 22 years old.
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In Chiangmai
we visited two temples. We rejected the 3rd
one that we were suppose to go on the last
day. We went to the Mong village shopping
place, the most enjoyable elephant village
and the Royal Garden. We had almost the
whole day entertaining ourselves with
elephant show, riding raft, elephant and a
bullock cart.
Our group
consisted of 24 Malaysians including a tour
leader and a Mohammed. A big number were
retirees like the ex-teachers and school
principals. There was a family of four, two
and couples. From my assessment all were but
me were loaded and well to do. There were
four young beautiful ladies still singles (
on the front row ) and two young unmarried
men ( on the left of the picture ). All were
well verse in English.
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Enjoying
tuk-tuk around town |
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We
prayed everywhere, from the mosque as shown
in the picture on the left to the open space
floor at the airport. This particular mosque
was full of Chinese writings as it was build
by the Chinese in 1916.
When
we arrived we noticed quite a crowd at the
mosque. This is located in the Muslim area
of Chiangmai. But this is the only mosque
that we made a visit though there were
several more.
Over all the trip was quite a fun despite
some mishaps. There is one thing that I hate
most is passing the buck to others. I have
observed several time of this habit of
running away from responsibilities. If
Malindo Air had to change the plan then it
was Photo who should bear the responsibility
to the customers. They must be compensated.
Cheating though seem to be minor is never a
trivial affair. Travel agencies should not
parade any form of pecuniary greed.
30/08/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
SARAWAK
REPORT WAS TRAPPED |
Sarawak Report is almost a one man show,
smaller than David trying to fight against
the world of Goliath, not a single giant.
The government of Malaysia under Najib's
administration is a huge and monumental
machinery containing all units and
departments like any other major countries
like the United States, China, Russia and
Israel too. While at War against the enemies
the strategic planning and meetings are
ongoing. Why can't a complex government of
Malaysia beat a tiny Sarawak Report once and
for all.
Najib has thousands of players around him,
people with doctorates and foreign experts
and consultants. And he has a huge sum of
money to pay off mercenaries to fight for
him. After all he is the finance Minister
and he could do anything with the money in
his coffer.
I have traced several traps set out to
create disinformation under the headings of
leakage materials. They were not at all
leakages but released like a leakage. I
noticed several social media including
Sarawak Report published them thinking they
were feedback from the anti-Najib group when
they were all secretly disguised and came
from the special unit of Najib's office.
These were about how the 1 mdb's money were
spent, to show that the money was not used
by the Prime Minister. I noticed these too
were published by Sarawak Report.
Seeing the tricks worked they then sent out
on matters of Najib's 90 million corruption
to PAS. SR bought it.
If you ask me whether Najib gave money to
Hadi's family members and other PAS
leaderships I would say YES but I don't have
proofs like Najib cannot show proofs that he
is the son of Abdul Razak. To UMNO's court
circumstantial evidence does not exist. To
them if you don't see God then the Al-Mighty
does not exist. That's why Najib asked Leong
Sik to show proof that he stole the SRC's
money that was in his account.
He has local and foreign lawyers to advise
him, to design plans to put others into
guilty mode as what was done on Anwar
Ibrahim. What lawyer has SR ?
It is true that SR is very small entity.
Winning over the case does not make the
Malaysians believe Najib is good and clean.
Many have not read SR from the days when it
was first came into existence till now.
Najib sacked Mahyudin and Shafiee Afdal was
not the doing of SR. They just asked about
the 2.6 billions which Naib could have told
them they were from Arab donation and for
the strength of UMNO. I saw People from MOF
resigning, also nothing to do with Sarawak
Report. I saw FVG took a deep dive, negative
economic competitiveness with other Asean
countries, declining ringgit, thousands of
Malays sacked from their jobs, Malaysia
selling interests and properties to China.
Those have nothing to do with SR.
The government asked us to believe in
Bloomberg that said our ringgit is the
strongest in the region when we are paying
RM1k for 700.46 Bahts.
Do you think Najib will be the Prime
Minister forever ? He has to setup the
Premiership must be from his family. If he
fails the next Finance Minister will start
to smell stinking mud in his office.
His friendship with any of the world leaders
will not wash up the financial woes of his
making. Like him exposing Mahathir's Forex,
the prceding PM will expose his probable
crimes. When Malaysia became a vassal of
China it will be his own grand children who
will be cursing him.
The game played against SR and American
President is not to save the nation but
himself. Mahathir, Sarawak Report and old
people like me have nothing to lose but the
Malays and the Malaysians will have to
suffer.
03/09/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
FINAL
DESTRUCTION |
Each person thinks he/she is the smartest of
the lots, having the highest mental prowess
and superior in all aspects of human
ability. By his countenance, behaviors and
speech we could see what kind of a man he
is. It was base on my experience and
observations I come to this conclusion which
shown to be true by many critical issues we
are facing today.
My school, the Vocational Secondary School
Alor Setar, rose up to be a bench marking
school over several years due to the over
all performance and environmental setup.
From 1990's upwards we won all sort of
championships at the district, state and
Federal level. Even the city counsel chose
us to be the best school with creative
landscaping in the district.
The success was not on me but on my
dedicated teachers and workers. I applied
the concept of Participative Management
which I picked up during my one half years
of schooling in the United States. The
landscaping was very fantastic, planned by
my workers and teachers. Our restrooms were
of the modern airport standard. Our concept
was simple; go green and conducive learning
environment. Let the students study in the
school of aromatic garden.
It really worked. Waves of visitors came to
our school including the people from JPA and
MOE. I was called personally to the Ministry
of Education to receive a special awards.
But my nature is not a good one to talk
about, for I am stubborn and recalcitrant. I
have my own belief and philosophy. Once I
wrote a letter to the Ministry of Education
to give back my ordinary teacher's post
instead of being a school Principal just
because of my disagreement with the big boss
in the Ministry, Dr Wan Zahid, about
perfection and zero defect, to which I said
that perfection was impossible. Nobody is
perfect. Every good man has enemies and
every bad man has friends. He sent someone
to investigate my school. The man was very
puzzle and amazed with my school. "How bad
some people could be," the officer told me.
"I am very impressed with your school. But
please, name all your plants."
They wanted to convert my institution to
Technical School. I believe that the
Technical School is for the high achievers.
Our system must also cater for the low
achievers and late developers. I asked to go
out of the school after 20 years of being a
Principal. My request was granted.
A new administrator took over. At the
national meeting held in the school he
boasted that it was him who planned for all
the successes. Slowly later he undid what we
had been developing. Trees were cut down.
Cups and winning trophies were cast off and
were not recoverable. Computers which I
purchased for the students were said to have
bad influence on the students. The concept
of green
started to vanish. After him there were other
new Principals. Everyone brought new changes. Then
they knocked down the restroom wall so that
they could watch the smokers. More green
disappeared. Structures erected up by the students
were torn down.
I was not surprise when the teachers were
asked to visit Taiping and school headed by
Mary Yap in Sabah years later. This school
ceased to be the benchmark. Both said they learned
what had transpired in Alor
Setar.
Why the changes ? Because each thinks he is
better than the rest with a superior mental
prowess.
It is hard for me to figure out their
visions, thinking perspective and ideals.
That is the world of education. It is more
puzzling to what is lingering in the world
of politics. When I believe politicians must
be well educated in Malayan history so that
they will not repeat the same mistakes, we
have politicians who only passed the Lower
Certificate of Education and Vocational
school. At least they could have seen how
the British took over the Straits
Settlements and eventually the whole of
Malaya. In fact they are so crazy that they claimed
themselves as immigrants to the Malay
Peninsular. So much so it looks like that no
indigenous person is running this country at
all.
In short the Malays are so very stupid,
stubborn and shameless. You can see
stubbornness in Noh and Nazri, stupidity in
Keruak and Anwar Musa and shamelessness in
Rosmah Mansor. When we say that they are
selling the country to the Chinese they
strongly denied it, refusing to look at
Tibet, Zimbabwe, Sri Langka and Pakistan.
When we say the Chinese showed disrespect
towards Najib in Pekan, Nazri defended the
Chinese. Najib thought he could play USA
with China and got his way out.
Mahathir is 92 years and I am 70. We have
been here since our childhood days, not in a
glamorous palace of elites. We were not
in the air conditioning room but on the bare
ground, running around in mud and marshes. We see the progress. We see the
difference.
However I finally believe that wisdom is not
innate though partly it is of God's
providence. Virtue and knowledge has to be
acquired through patience and resilience. A
man has to learn science, history and
philosophy. Else he would be destructive
beyond repair. He can destroy an institution
and his country, his race and his people.
02/09/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
DO YOU
TRUST CHINESE GOODS ? |
Chinese goods are darn cheap. The last I
bought was a video camera costing me only
a RM100. During my trip to Chiangmai I did
capture several scenes using it and when I
came home to peruse the movies they were all
of the lowest standard. The image was fuzzy,
unclear and not worthy of keeping it.
Prior to the camcorder I purchased a
spyglass, a spy watch, thumb drives and
Baofeng walkie-talkies. One talkie went
haywire after 4 days, all chargers were not
functioning after a week but UV5R seemed to
be okay till today, more than a month from
the purchase date. The hard disk that cost
RM180 could not be re-formatted, and the two
pen-drives did not function as the ones I
bought from the local shop.
Encountering with either the fake Chinese or
the low quality goods I am now having a
phobia of whatever comes from China. When I
went to the phone stalls this evening, I
refused to look at Hua Wei or Lenovo.
Instead I was focusing on the Asus Zenfone.
I have a cheap Zenfone 5 with me that I took
with me to oversea trips without any power
bank. The battery would last me the whole
day, even could go 24 hours more per fully
charged.
It is not all products are bad but we
wouldn't know which are the reliable stuffs.
Whatever you buy you have to take a great
risk, even of the well known smart phones.
The most trusted products are from Japan and
Korea. They may be expensive but you will
always be satisfied with them.
Whatever, we have to be beware of the fakes
that carry brand names like Toshiba, Apple
or Sanyo. A few friends had paid a big sum
for fake Iphone 4 and the iPads.
Things are getting worst as the Chinese are
exporting plastic rice and fake foodstuffs.
FDA officers in Malaysia MIGHT pass the sale
for a few pittance. The Chinese philosophy
on the power of money came much longer than
our Prime Minister's Cash Is King. Najib
thought he could twist their arms like what
Zahid Hamidi is doing on the illegal Chine
workers. In no time the Malaysian leaders
will have to unknowingly bowed to the
Chinese.
China is smart enough to have outlets for
the various products through DIY and
the Online shops. They are all over the
country, which can threatened the survival
of the Japanese and Korean commodities. We
can keep them alive by paying more for the
Japanese, Koreans and Malaysians items.
Motorolla in Malaysia produce a good quality
electrical and electronic products. But the
price is 10 time higher than the Chinese,
mainly because the cost of labor is high in
addition to our tax policy. Some firms that
operated in Malaysia moved out for two
reasons, namely the increasing labor cost as
set by our minimum wage policy and secondly
due to the negative perceptions of our
leaders by their dishonesty and bad
characters.
Since Najib owes so much to the Chinese he
had to agree to some of their demands. Many
Asian and African countries thought they
could outplayed the Chinese but they were
damn wrong. And Najib thought he is smart
enough. Whatever happened in Pekan was an
indicator of his submission. Under his nose
the whole ceremony was in Chinese. It was
pertinent enough for Chua to ask what money
was used to pay to IPIC recently. Was it
from China or from Malaysian taxpayers. If
it was from China then we could have guessed
what is more to come.
When I was in Hong Kong, the people were
cursing the mainland populace including the
leaders. The life in Hong Kong was becoming
harder. I believe the life of the Malaysian
Chinese would be threatened as well.
01/09/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
COURT OF
IMAGINATION |
The home of
the court of imagination lies in the weak
and helpless people. This is common in
countries where the rulers are strong,
powerful and oppressive. Dictators will
always say that what they do and the policy
formulated are for the good of the people.
While they enjoy the luxury of life the
oppressed lamented in their hearts of the
agony they suffered. The court of
imagination began to take shape, where the
cruel leaders are brought to face the judge
and the prosecutors.
Those who
have watched the trial of Saddam Hussein of
Iraq would imagine similar proceedings where
Saddam denied to all the charges of the
murders and strongly argued to defend
himself. He was finally hung. Imagination
would even punishes the accused through the
most demonic form torture other than death.
As imagination has no limit the form and the
nature of punishment could be of utmost
severity.
But the
viscous prisoner in the minds of the people
remains unperturbed. He will continue to
plunder the country with his iron hands. The
court of imagination never cease to vanish.
The hatred grows. There is a hope their
imaginations would come to life.
Who are in
your mind that have been found guilty and
have been facing the punishment ? I have one
though, a big fat lady who is called Clyde
by the many who regards all the populace is
in her palms. She thinks she is the greatest
ladies in the world. My court found her
guilty despite the loud rhetoric. The
sentence is she is
to sleep with mice for one month.
That is what
the most the helpless people could do, make
their own court and pass their own sentence.
The court of
imagination is just an imagination. It is
not true and it hurts no one. Yet Imelda
Marcos has a fear in it. She said, "I don't
want the people to say bad things about me
when I die." And not only Imelda, we too
don't want people to despise us after we
leave this world. Only the shameless and the
people without feeling will ignore it. Some
may penned the perceptions down as history.
Even the most
powerful will die. The signs are very
visible. The hair has grown white. Wrinkles
began to show. The expanded girth is
translating the amount of sins to be carried
with in the grave. No amount of money can
corrupt the God Almighty.
The court of
imagination has passed the sentence. GUILTY
AS CHARGED for theft and lynching.
31/08/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
BAD NEWS |
These few
days have not been a lucky day for me. First
of all two storage items I purchased through
Lazada could not save many files and when I
tried to reformat it gets no higher than 6%
no matter how long it stays in the format
mode. Lazada asked me to fill in the form
which I refused as it takes so much of a
hassle. I choose not to buy through Lazada
again.
Secondly when
I wanted to buy the Thai Bahts at the price was
7.46 to 1 of Malaysian currency. I cursed
Najib from the shop till my home. Our
currency is getting weaker and weaker by day
yet the Prime Minister boasted that ours is the
strongest in this region. Major economic
implications will follow soon. And Najib will
invent more lies to cheat the people. On the 24th I
will be going to Chiangmai Thailand. I
decided not to change any and will not buy
anything for anybody. I have about USD120
which I thought ample enough to buy
food like bake beans and corns by the
roadside.
Thirdly today
I heard the news of the demise of my buddy
Choo, 9M2HC. Choo has been a long time radio
friend from his working days in Alor Setar
to his retirement in Ipoh. Choo took up
shooting as his activity beside hamming
during his retirement life. I knew him as a
healthy and a strong man. I never heard of
him being
ill. Nobody informed the radio
fraternity except when he passed away.
We can't
avoid death and human treacheries. The
Chinese are not only good in selling fake
stuffs but also are exporting clone
foodstuffs to the world. They export plastic
rice and other food to countries in
Southeast Asia. Corrupt officers in corrupt
countries would allow those to pass them. The FDA units are all over
the world to validate all the imported food of
their originality. I remember well that when
we were lamenting about planting our own
food and agriculture land must me preserve
our UMNO leaders said that we were not to
worry about it. We import food from outside.
The folly of
both Mahathir and Najib were causing the
country to suffer. The economy is diving
down at a great speed.
23/08/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
CONDOLENCES
TO CHOOS'S FAMILY |
Choo passed
away today. It is a sad news to me. He was
my buddy for many years when he was in Alor
Setar. He was a health officer in the
General Hospital and was still a SWL when we
came to know each other. I don't quite
remember the event of how we started to be
friends.
We ran
several field event activities. He would be
bringing a battery and me, my FT101. At one
time he wanted to test his one transistor CW
transmitter from his home at Taman Lumba
Kuda. WE did the test and I could hear his
very faint signal with full readability. He
already knew Morse codes even before he got
a license.
To me Choo
was healthy and strong. I never imagine that
he would leave us first, for I never heard
of him being attacked by any form of
illnesses. In fact these very few weeks I
had been thinking of seeing him again at
Ipoh.
I remember in
1980s when I switched on my radio after a
long leave that I heard him and Zainal
chatting. They were there almost everyday. I
did not know about the demise of many hams
and the withdrawal of the active hams from
the band. But Choo accompanied 9M2ZA to
maintain the frequency. Only a few years
later I joined them.
I remember
him giving me life through much encouragements
when I narrated to him about my heart and
other fatal diseases that strike me.
I feel so
sorry that I could not attend his funeral as I
am to make a final preparation for my trip
to Chiangmai day after tomorrow. I send my
sympathy and condolences to Choo's family.
May he Rest
In Peace.
20/08/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
THE MALAYS,
WHO SPOIL THEM ? |
The history
of Malaya did not begin around 1402. Before
there was Parameswara, Tengku Abdul Rahman,
UMNO, PAS, Mahathir and Najib the Malays
were already here. Most were along the
coastal area as they were moving from place
to place by sea, to nearby and distant
places and islands. There have been effort
to trace the origin of the Micronesians and
the relationships between the Polynesian
race. We can't exactly say how many were
farmers in the hinterland.
When states
were formed and rulers came into being there
was no UMNO or PAS either. There wasn't
Mahathir and Najib. The annexation of Malaya
were welcome by the rulers. UMNO was not
there to challenge the British. The affair
of Malaya was under the control of the
British. We did have vocational and
religious schools and the other day schools
set up for the locals. The Chinese set up
and ran their own education.
How many
Malays died of starvation and poverty under
the British occupation ? Among the elite
schools like College Sultan Abdul Hamid and
Malay College Kuala Kangsar are still
standing there with traditional pride.
Mahathir was one of the students. UMNO was
not even heard off or known during those time.
I am not
citing anybody by stating the fact of life.
It was a reality. We don't have to talk of
pre-1402. Even after 1402 till 1945 nobody
had the idea of PAS and UMNO then. So how
could someone says that the Malays will not
be here without UMNO ? Do I need to say more
? I don't want to compare the era before
independent and NOW, today. It can turn some
mad people madder.
I have one
simple question; who spoil the Malay farmers
and the fishermen ?
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FINISHING REMOTE CHAT PROGRAMS |
Hello, I am
back again. I have been away from my blog
for quite some time, after making myself
busy with testing a Visual Basic programs on
Windows 7. At first I developed a software
to be used by any tour agency. Having
completed it, I incorporated the basic
accounting on income and expenditure. And
then I thought it would be wise to attach
something like a chat program so that the
users can communicate among themselves or
with the customers.
Many years
ago I used the ASP codes to communicate
using the websites. In fact I rent a server
to do the remote database experiments. I
became interested in Winsock, studied the
basic concept and tried scan the IPs with
different ports. I was shock to see a lot of
CCTV stuffs from all over and many secret
things. And I wrote malicious codes to peep
into other people's machines and controlled
them by a certain extend. I felt guilty and
decided to do away with them. As for the
chat program I stopped improving it for two
reasons. Firstly I thought I was not a
professional and there are other better
software around. Secondly I took account of
my age. I was not sharp and smart anymore.
So I decided to quit. And over the years I
forget many things.
When I
started again, I begin at the age of 70, a
gruesome age waiting to rot. I plucked in a
winsock ocx. I did it step by step and stage
by stage from the beginning, one was to
listen and another for connecting. Then I
proceeded to multiple chat from the server
and client communication. Thinking process
taxed me very much. I slept at 3 am. The
trickiest was to get the user ID of the
chatters and to check the list when someone
leaves. Did I copy or read how to do it ?
NO. I would not understand even if I
read them.
I need to have a server to host
the server chat. The server I hired said
that they could not host it.
I tested with
my Windows 7 machine and discovered they
could shake hands within the wifi zone.
I have yet to
find a way to resolve the remote chats. In
the meantime I was thinking of users saving
their views in a database at the server and
other people could view it by going into the
server database. I don't have to use the
winsock and I don't need the client and
server application. The software is shown
here.
In this
program one just type a message and stores
in the database. The other person can use
the same program and go to see the data in
the storage. What the hack of all those
hassle. Why not I make whatever was typed
would appear by itself. With some coding
tricks and maneuverability it became just
like a chat program. Isn't it great for me ?
I am just reinventing the wheel., a stupid
move. But never mind as long as it satisfies
me.
10/08/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
WRITING CODES
AGAIN |
It has been a
long time since I left writing computer
coding. I am still using the Visual Basic
as it can be used to develop beautiful and
fantastic software. Windows want to kill it
mainly for financial reasons. New Windows do
not support the old Visual Basic anymore. It
was yesterday I tried to run the VB program
on Windows7. To my surprise I could run it.
But I could not use the Windows to develop
software with the old codes.
As I am a
conservative person, keeping the old laptops
with the XP vintage, I started to plan for
travel agencies. I have been complaining
that my travel agencies do not have proper
storage and do not keep data of their
clients. With the software they can retrieve
all forms of data with a single stroke of
a keyboard. I started at noon yesterday and
almost complete it at 3 am. I ran it on my
Windows7 and it worked without a flaw.
The next few
days I will try to incorporate the financial
parts, where the companies could know all
the income and expenditure to date. I am not
an accountant. I will only use my common
sense. It would be very beneficial to a
small company because their employees may
not be scattered. There will be no
estimation of the overhead cost but the real
value spend out on salaries and utilities.
Such a program has been written before for a
car workshop run by a friend of mine.
Writing codes
may take months or even years. People are
willing to pay only a few hundred ringgit
for the use longer than 10 years. Actually
it is not worth unless the market is wide.
Everybody wants it for free. Sometimes you
may encounter with someone who hardly pay
you even RM200 for a huge jobs of
modification. To them the pittance is
monumental enough. One school did not pay me
until today and I am running from the
school.
This one is
not for sale. It is merely to refresh my
mind. I remember some fellow hams were
shouting on the band calling me stupid. I
did not know for what reason. May be they
generalized that the senior hams were all
stupid. And kids had been thinking that I
was stupid too that they rejected all of my
advices and told me not to decide on their
own future. They went their own way.
Developing
software do not show that you are smart.
But millions of you can't do it just like
those who can't do Morse codes. It is just a
mental exercise that always draw your inner
logic with the tools given to you. It
contains strategic planning as well. As
others it is easy to criticize but it hard
to produce even one for a hundred years.
Mind you
again I am already 70. You can't expect
wonders from an old man.
cont. |
GOOD
GOVERNMENT BAD GOVERNMENT |
Is the
government and the leaders good or bad ? I
got the answer from the government itself.
The current UMNO government and the leaders
are saying the old government was bad. On
the other hand the leaders of the past
government is saying the current
administration is bad. We the denizens have
our own views but presently suffer the
worst economic woes ever.
If the old
government was bad and the current
government is as bad or worst than the old
one, they cannot be good. They are pointing
fingers at themselves. It mean they have
both to be bad.
Then how on
earth the people still vote for them ? Then
the people must be stupid and bad too. Don't
the people know that bad people always tell
lies ? And they always contradict themselves
? Can't you trace what sort of lies they are
telling you right on your face ?
In the past
nobody called our government as THE
GOVERNMENT OF THIEVES. Today our leader is
branded as Kleptocrat.
Foreign TVs broadcast the story about the
purchase of diamonds using money traced from
the supposedly development fund. Recently
the Arabs were telling the Malaysian
pilgrims not to vote for Najib. It implies
they knew the story about desperate Najib
coaxing the Saudi King to admit of the
donation.
Effort to
counterbalance the fallacies by paying
foreign media and journalists were very
costly. The income tax department even
claimed the unpaid tax from the dead people. A
very bizarre and inhumane mentality of Najib's specie. Under his nose Najib has to
pay to an IPIC two times, one to the bogus
and another is to the true one. It is not a
dollar but billions. Is it not a clear fact
that the man in charge of 1Mdb who is well
known as MO1 has been swindled ?
They are all
at war, the ex-government leaders and the
current ones. Surely there have to be some
truth somewhere. Therefore both have to be
bad. We have to throw both of the leaders
out. But one leader is already out. The
other refuses to budge and to defend his
innocence in the court of law.
It has been
reported and seen that the spouse of the
current leader is the Real Prime Minister,
an invisible hand that rules the nation. She
has an office in the Prime Minister's
Department, flew on the government jet
without the present of her husband for
shopping spree, calling Vladimir Putin
directly and commanded funds for her
undertakings. DOJ traced that pink diamonds
were bought with 1Mdb's fund. She herself
approved the design of the pink diamonds.
The workers in the PM department had been
complaining about her special program. She
herself said that she had no time to play
badminton as she was busy in managing the
country. Her aide denied and said 99% of the
accusations were untrue but 1% is true.
As a layman I
am saying that Thaksin was spoil by his
wife. Najib too is ruined by his wife.
Najib says he
is the nation and the government. Mahathir
and the World say he is a Kleptocrat. I saw
several videos of Rosmah. I hope they truly
have proofs using a video footing showing Rosmah slapped Najib. The public anger
towards her seem to be much greater than
towards Najib. They believe Najib is under
her control. I don't believe in the
rumors at
all. I think Najib has been listening too
much from the people
around him, people who strive either for the office or for some
gold bread.
The
mudslinging seem to confirm that the
government under Mahathir and Najib
characterized the nature of our government
under the rule of UMNO. They were both bad.
One has the role of a woman and the other
hasn't. The top guns have nothing to lose
but the Malaysians as a whole will
eventually suffer. Between the two evils one
is the mother of all them all.
Foreign
intervention will occur if the local
populace seek for their helps. It can
threaten the political stability unless we
turned the national battle away to the
individual battle. Did Mahathir call himself
a nation ? Whatever it was, it was the
tenure of UMNO. Whatever it is, it is under
the tenure of UMNO.
Take the
greedy, the stubborn, the crooks and the
thieves out of the government, we can revive
the good name of Malaysia. The
welfare of the citizens should be at the
fore.
29/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
IN MAKING A VIDEO CLIP |
Video editing
is hell. It takes a long time to work on an
hour clip. The higher the resolution the
longer time you have to wait. I was thinking
that I need to have a high speed computer
with graphic capability and a professional
software to do it. My longest video posted
to the Youtube was 5 minutes long. The first posting before
this was
less than a minute.
If the
capture resolution is greater then 1024 X
720 even a short clip will have the size of
above 1 gigabyte. To transfer a file from
the source to the PC itself will take a long
time. Imagine if you are capturing the whole soccer
game. There is quite a
substantial sum of money that we have to
invest for the proper job, both in equipments and software.
I don't even
thought of going close to be a pro. It is
not a job for an old man. I just want a
clean and nice clip up there in the Youtube
to be satisfactorily perused by friends and public. I
began by making an order of a couple of 1,5T storage from Lazada as they were cheaper than Lelong.
Lazada may take 5 days to 4 weeks to
deliver, while Lelong takes just one to
3 days. In the meantime I am trying to
gather as much information as I can from the
editing tasks.
Free editing
software has a lot of limitation. Many would
not allow the conversion of big files and to
the MP4 format. Many do not have the
external live inserting of your own audio.
You may need to describe the operation of a
certain machine while watching the video. In
several occasions I need to read the script
for each of the operation.
The most to
bear is the patience of waiting while the
rendering process. Even the 5 minutes video may
take two to 4 hours to render. The 50
minutes clip may take as long as 8 to 20
hours.
Mind you, you
need to do a lot of planning, in term of the
timeline and the story board, and to plan
the capturing sequence very well in order to minimize
the big hassle. Better be systematic and
keep files on each of the task done. For an
amateur like me the sequence of capturing
will help a great deal. So far I have none
of those.
Now I realize
how much effort and money were poured in, to
produce a movie of even 1 hour and 30
minutes duration.
I remember in
the old days when I did my video editing in
the video camera itself, where I can make
texts scroll upwards or downwards after
making a movie. Then I just made a CD out of
it. I don't know about the modern video
recorder. Anyway I will go to the electronic
shops to find out.
It has been
many long years I did not watch my TV except for
soccer, and has been many days that I did
not the downloaded movies. But occasionally
I did watch the Youtube clips. Many were
were good and amazing. I will try to produce
a few good ones.
|
THE
SOCCER GAME TONIGHT |
I had not
decided whether to go to watch soccer at the
stadium tonight. The match is between my
state team, Kedah and Kelantan FC. Our state
team was recently beaten by visitor 3 - 1.
Several teams had disgraced us since we won
the FA Cup. New players replaced the champion
team. And that lead me to write about
Spoiling The Champion Team in my last
article on soccer. Not long after it
captured my interest again when I saw all
the import players were back again in the game against
Penang. Today, 4 days later, we fielded the
same champion team but the goal keeper.
I thought of
watching the Youtube for live streaming from a
fan whose streaming is called TV Ayam. I
don't know this person. But I know live
streaming is a little costly. He has to
have the standby batteries for the continuous
transmission and to pay for the high
internet speed. This man has done a good
deed to most of the fans. Even though the game would start
at 9pm, I was still at home by 8.30pm. I was
hungry then and did not have my dinner yet.
It was after the prayer that I made my move
for my dinner.
I told myself
that if there are free parking space
available I would go to have my meal at the
stadiums. There were many stalls open around
during the soccer night. In Malaysia our
matches all start at 9pm except when the
game is played at the stadium without light.
Indeed there
were many parking space. I guessed there
were lesser crowds as the team showed a
great deterioration. Instead of rushing to
the food stalls, I went to the ticket
booyh. The tickets were still available.
It cost me RM20. It shows the declining
value of Malaysian currency. I never
experience the bizarre phenomena during the
tenure of other Prime Ministers. I entered
the stadium with empty stomach.
Seats were
not all filled. Empty seats were sat by the
ladies handbags or foods and drinks as if
those stuffs paid for the tickets. The
ladies were selfish, inconsiderate and
without any courtesy at all. I cursed them
deep down in my heart. They were not
football fans at all but the filthy witches.
I sat on the dirty step.
My main
objective was to test my spy-glass and to
record the whole game. I want to know the
vision and it's clarity. Also I had wish to
see the full champion team, which mean we
have to have all the import players. I
noticed the way they play the game, not so
much to to dribble and greedy to make goals.
I love to see they passed the ball to the
right person.
The game was
very entertaining. Amazingly they play as a
team. The local full back were as careless
as ever. At least 20% of the time were seen
to be passing the ball precariously to the
opponents. Badrol wasted the good chance of
scoring several goals though the balls were
prettily placed for him. To me the scorer is
unimportant but as to how the whole setup
were created for the strikers. There were 80% of
such a setup. One to one chance failed to
beat the opponent's goal keeper who
performed very well.
It is true
that we can't keep players in the team
forever. But we don't alter them every
now and then before the
season is over and while the team is on the
winning spree. As for tonight I was happy
and satisfied. Only a few passing errors
were made. Kedah won 5 - 0.
The recording
I made is not good. I am doing a little
editing as I am practicing in some movie
making procedures to post to the Youtube.
|
CONTRADICTIONS |
Who is
sabotaging our economy and how was it done ?
If our economy is being sabotaged then how
come our economy is the best in the region
and the best among the Muslim nations ? If
our ringgit is the strongest behind China
then how could our ringgit value plunged
from RM3.5 to RM4.5 to USD1, and from RM300
to RM350 to IDR1 Juta, and the from RM8 to
RM12 to THB100 ?
The second
puzzle is why China has a very great
interest to invest in Malaysia while the
rest withdrew and are moving somewhere else
? Which investors listen to Najib and which
investors listen to the Pariahs ?
Our
government has consultants and the
administration itself went across the world
to sell the country, to attract investors
and to woo for foreign funds. Our effort has
been surmountable. Who is going to listen to
Mr. Nobody ? Najib is bold and
strong enough. The world would be listening
to him.
If the
investors by a special power could be fooled
by Lim Kit Siang, the later would have
sabotaged Mahathir too when he was the Prime
Minister. Despite the iron hand rule of the
former Prime Minister, I did not feel worse
off in the cost of living for the whole of
his rule. To me the explanation is simple.
Mahathir did not steal and he was the Prime
Minister. Now I don't know who is the real
Prime Minister. It is the grand and great
power of a Malaysian Prime Minister and a
powerless small man, is the intelligent
people want to follow the later pariah ?
Remember
of the same contradiction we are making. We
are saying two things at the same time, The
first we are economically the strongest.
Secondly our economy is bad because our
people are sabotaging it. Do I need to say
more ?
Please be
advice that you must not try to cheat GOD or
treating the ALMIGHTY as a person that you
can pay the money to approve your deceiving
the people. What you are doing is just that
act, nothing more. First you steal for your
family. Then when known you distribute to
others so that they would approve your
theft. You can get away in this world but
you will never get away from trying to cheat
your Creator.
What you
touched did not become gold but mud. Mention
1001 projects you did. They all become mud.
I can't even get your housing project, which
moved like a sleek leeches.
When
people eat too much, they become fatter and
fatter, and becoming uglier and uglier. But
I see it in a different way. Fatness is the
visible sins accumulated to be seen by the
public. Try to engage experts and doctors to
slim you down, which I think you have tried.
If nothing happens then it is proven that
God has turn away from you. Your pungent
odor spreads far and wide. And will be
buried together in the history of this
country.
The ghost
of Najidi, Altantuya and Kevin Morais are
haunting us. Even the less educated Malays
ask as who ordered and agreed to the murder
of the Mongolian lady. Even a small man
asked me about Najidi. And almost all relate
Kevi Morais death to the same motive.
Someone came up with phrases THE GOVERNMENT
OF THIEVES.
A question
then follows; which is bigger, heaven or
hell ?
At least I
am lucky. I will die soon. I won't have to
continue paying the GST and all other taxes
as long as Rosmah lives.
There are
three immortals in this part of the world;
Mahathir, Najib and Rosmah. Their battle
will continue and most of the old folks like
me will go first. They will live till the
end of time. Believe me.
25/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
VIDEO
FOR THE YOU TUBE |
When my old
software went missing it was a heart break
for me. I never like to follow the moving
trends of anything as long as I can survive
with the existing technology. This very
article that you are reading is written
using the old Acer with Windows XP. If usage
could be categorized into several levels, I
am within the lowest level ever.
I don't need
a sophisticated software for my work. I use
the old simple Photoshop just to resize my
photos to fit my web pages. I never
want to latest version. It is too
complicated and takes much space. But when my daughter
came home I could not find those stuffs
anymore at the places where I kept them. I
felt very disheartened. Without those disks
I would not be able to do my pin badge and
many other projects if my present PC break down.
My interest
in computing does not die altogether. I may
stop developing soft wares. That does not
mean it is the end of computing. I need to
process my videos and post them to the Youtube. The old Microsoft Movie maker was
simple but it was an excellent tool. It is not
available anymore. I do not blame anyone for
the problem. I had to struggle looking for
any free video editor. It was not easy.
Somehow I finally got one but
could only use the basic part of it. For an advance
use it involves some cosr. If the
soft ware is sold by Lazada, at least I
could make a purchase. I do not have the
credit card to do the international purchase.
I foresee
that I will be doing a lot of video work.
For instant I saw the video clips on how to
program Baofeng for the repeater, and found
they were long winded. I discovered a short
method to achieve it. By making a clip and
posted it to the Youtube many others could
share it. In fact in my recent visit to
Jakarta I managed to post a couple of clips
to the Youtube. They were too messy. But at
least it was a good try.
Things are
not so easy as some might have thought. I
have to plan the best ever display so as not
to confuse the viewers. I think I need a
small lab to do it. But it has to be well
planned. Then I have to get the usable video
editor or a movie maker to process the whole
movie. It is hard to start. It would be much
easy for the consecutive jobs. At the moment
I am using a simple and cheap camera to
capture images and events. After all I am
not a professional. I need to pass my time
in a useful ways.
I like to
view my videos using a big TV screen that I
have. I was a little surprise that it cannot
read the avi format. I need to convert it to
the MP4 format. The current soft ware does
not allow free conversion unless I use the
full pay version.
Video
processing takes a lot of time. At my age
and being alone, I have all the time. I can
let the computer runs it while doing
something else. I play around with plenty of
gadgets. When I got tired I went to sleep. I
am past 70 years old. But I know I am less
active than the Western people though
actively stronger than most of the local
Asians. Yet I still enjoy doing all these
jobs.
I have not
planned yet what to do in the future to make
sure my important stuffs are not thrown out.
I kept bottles of mineral water. That too
went missing. My two thumb drives, the 32
gig and the 16 gig also went missing. I
don't remember what else I put in the box.
All were thrown as garbage. It really hurts
me. That's one of the main reason I prefer
to stay alone. Or I even may leave this
house.
|
WE SPOKE
IN ENGLISH |
Amateur Radio
had been in Malaysia long before the
independent. As far as I can remember the
Telecom Department was taking care of this hobby,
conducting tests in English. If one was not
an English educated one would not qualify
for this amazing hobby. The examination was
of essay type, and there was no chance of a
guessing game in the objective type of
multiple choices.
To us English
was a plain language as ham radio has always
been at the international level. We spoke
English all the time even between the
Malays. There was nobody talking Chinese or
Tamil. That was the standard and that that
was the practice, Though 40 meter was
considered a local band where local hams
gathered and had their daily chats,
international stations began to join in; the
Philippines, the Japanese and most of the Asean countries. It was some sort of a net.
Just at the
brink of the class B license was at the
lobby stage, intruders began to come in,
commenting about the use of foreign
language. But when the remarks were
consistent I hurled back asking the guy not
to use foreign cars, gears, dress and home
utensils. "You must not even wear shoes or
pants. Throw away the watches, bicycle,
motor cycle and car. Go and remove the
traffic light. Destroy the busses and the
plains. They aren't Malays," said I. From
then on he never came back.
But today
there is a total transformation in Malaysian
amateur radio. Nobody dares to come on the
air in English though I would use it on
MARTS repeaters talking to a non-Malay
operators. I felt very comfortable that way.
And I still had a CW contact with 9M2ZN,
Mazwan, in English till today. That was our old habits.
You don't
find the non-Malay old hams on 40 meter band
now. Language is a part of the issue. There
is bound for someone to intrude and yell at
those who speak in English among the
Malaysians. There had been new comers who
were so rogue that they used the radio band
to wage war and spearing an attack on
others. I got it once. They even ridiculed
the old hams on the band among themselves.
In other words the quality has been greatly
debased without CONTROLS. The essay test in
English was one of the controls to rid the
bad people. The
mandatory Morse pass is another form of
control.
How about
working with the Indonesians ? On the DX
band especially on 20 meter, 80% of our
contacts were in English. On 40 meter and
there were Indonesians who only wanted to
speak in English. But unfortunately the old
hams seemed to have been vanished from the
band. They were not heard on 40 meter
band anymore.
It looks like
as if there is a transformation of amateur
radio in the whole wide world too. It is for the
simple reasons that the new people heading
the radio hobby were not the full pledge
hams who themselves had struggle to sit for
all the amateur radio tests. Their thoughts
were diverted to different perspective. They
see things in different ways. They put the
new ingredients in the amateur radio arena that
made it losing the original philosophy and
structure. In this country it is no more a
hobby of the English educated.
I remember an
Indonesian station who would call foreign
stations and spoke Indonesians to them. When
he persistently did that the fellow
Indonesians broke in to scold him. The next
day he was not heard anymore. That had
brought a great shame to the country and the
Indonesian hams as a whole.
I don't ask
you to speak English on the band. But you
must not be a preacher or a commander to
criticize others who do so by calling them
traitors or unpatriotic. Else you need to
discard all the foreign inventions and use
buffaloes as the mode of transportation. I
am just telling you that way back before the
license B came into being the old hams use
English as their lingua franca.
24/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
LET'S GO FOR
MORSE CODES |
I am happy to
know that the President of Kota Setar
Amateur Radio Club is encouraging the
members to upgrade themselves to the 9M2 by
going to the Morse test. It is the positive
attitude that I admire most. In the United
States I noticed there are younger people
who are looking for elmers to learn Morse
codes. It is a tradition that we must not
let to die. I believe it is a religion of
Ham Radio. It is not about relevancy to the
modern world but about the identity and the
tradition.
One 9W2 said
that asking the 9Ws about Morse everybody
said it was a difficult thing to learn.
Mixing with the 9M2 everyone said it was an
easy thing to acquire. He passed the test
within only three months, when I had to do
it within a year. Most young people could
learn the skill between 3 to 6 months.
In the new
world which is full of amazing electronic
gadgets many things become so easy. We don't
have to go out to pay bills or buy goods. We
can do a thousand and one things while
idling in a sofa. We can download the many
Morse codes software for free. Unlike my
time where internet was unknown learning was
hard and costly. A person could easily keep
a Morse soft ware in his smart phone and
learn using the Familiarization Method.
Familiarization Method means what it says,
to get familiar with the sound. One can
choose what characters one likes to hear and
listen to the sound repeatedly days in and
days out while driving or staying at home.
The constant repetition will blend the sound
in his mind and eventually without one
realizing it, the ability to decipher
emerges within oneself.
Many great
men say that good things don't come easy.
Yet people are racing to avoid the hurdles
and the obstacles and asked for free things.
They went their ways trying to get the 9M2's
tickets without having have to sit for the
Morse test. After all to be in the hobby the
two meter communication is ample and good.
The audio is good and there is no problem of
QRN and QSB. And the equipments are light
and cheap. Going mobile is a great
happiness.
Else one has
to work harder for the upgrade. That is the
solution, not by unnecessarily making
enemies with the 9Ms, cursing and hurling
curses at them for nothing. There are 9M2
who are ever willing to assist and advise
the new learner in ways that they can
contribute.
Well, if you
decide to stay put there is nothing wrong
with you. It does not make you any inferior.
But just don't go about and call the others
to stay away from CW or to campaign hatred
against those who have upgraded themselves.
I don't expect a man of 60 to easily acquire
the skill. But the younger ones are still
fresh and quick to learn. It is a strive.
But fun to try.
|
FREE IS
ALWAYS BETTER THAN PAY |
The Minyak
Cap Lang is not cheap. A large bottle costs
about RM15. A fat lady who processed my
Jakarta ticket and hotel purchased asked me
to look for a dozen of the massage oil. I
hardly found it in the place where I lived,
the Gelodok area of Jakarta. Gelodok is well known for
it's electrical and electronic stuffs. I was
lucky to have found a few bottles at the 24
hour shop like the 7-Eleven. I bought 4 big
bottles and 7 smaller ones. I paid
approximately IDR440.000.
Today I went
to the travel agency's office telling the lady that the oil
was a little expensive. She had to pay for
it. She was hesitating, looking up and down.
I knew she wanted them for free. Then I told
her that she could have one or two for free
but she had to pay for all the bottles. She took two
the two big bottles and thanked me.
It was
alright for me. It only cost me about RM30.
To her free stuffs are better. I was not
worried about the extra bottles. I
could always give to other friends who need
it. And I could also use it for
myself.
Free is
always better than pay. I remember when I
was in Spain another ticket seller
persistently messaging me to buy a Real
Madrid jacket and the whole suits. The price
was more than RM700.00. Of course I had no
intention of buying for someone I hardly
knew. Instead I was
thinking of buying it to my student's son.
I myself love
free things. But I would not dictate to a
giver to provide me with things of my
choice. What more if it involves a lot of
money. Yet there are plenty of selfish
people around.
I had had
much bitter experience in searching goods
that people asked me to buy. And I took time
looking for the said oil. And the same lady
who asked me to buy the Real Madrid attired
messaged me for souvenirs.
What did I
buy for myself ? NONE. I was just lucky to
win a lucky draw for the two consecutive
days. Both were the Baofeng UV5RA walkie
talkies. Those were valuable enough. At
least I had the chance to monitors the radio
activities in Jakarta. They were free. And
to get free things were better than buying.
20/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
SCORPENE |
It is
confirmed that there was a kickback in the
purchase of Scorpene sub-marine by the
Malaysian government as two individuals in
France were found guilty in the dealing and
had to serve some time in jail. People
linked the murder of Altantuya to the
commissioned demanded by her on her role in
the dealing. And they also saw this killing
as related to the death of Najadi, Kevin
Morais and those others who could threatened
the Prime Minister. They were either
poisoned or murdered by gangsters under
direct order or by officials or body guards.
To the
French government the takers were known. As
to whatever happened to the money was
immaterial. Any conjecture to the death of
the Mongolian lady was never wrong. And by
the words of law those who were involved in
the murder were all killers and could be
charged as the first or second degree
murder. To God a murder is a murder,
regardless of any other man-made category of
it. You don't blame the gun for the killing.
Having
have no shame and no morality is one, having
have no fear of God is another. They
continue to kill one after another to
protect themselves. The robbers and the bad
people do that.
We can
hide ourselves from the fellow Malaysians by
lying to the them but not to France,
Switzerland, USA and the Singaporeans of our
crimes. Even we try hard to close their eyes
by giving them millions and billions. They
would know of our ulterior motives. We would
always be remembered as filthy criminals
when we die.
The
question always asked was "Who ordered the
murder of Altantuya...." The spirit of the
lady shouts out loud the culprit and who
were involved in getting the C4 and ordered
the killing.
People had
known about the guilt of corruption. The
French court had just confirmed it.
We have
the propaganda unit used to challenge God's
teachings. We manipulate the truth and to
tell lies to the people, not to protect the
nation but to ruin it without realizing the
outcome of our persistent lies and
propaganda. It is a great lanrk that we are
not Muslims and an Islamic country. What
else we could expect the body to lie about
the Scorpene and the death of Altantuya.
20/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
THE LOST
DAY TODAY |
Today all my
plans were ruined when I took my Viva to
Produa Service Center at 9.30 am to ask them
why I had a yellow sign looks like an engine
on the dashboard. The counter guy said that
they will check the engine. About an hour
later he told me that the engine was fine.
They would continue to check other possible
faults. I waited and waited an waited till
almost 5.30 pm. "Your ECU needs change. It
costs you RM580," said the man at the
counter. I agreed to change a new one in
October during my servicing time.
I planned to
go to post office to settle my electrical
bill, to distribute the muscle oil to the
travel agent and do a little things here and
there. The long wait ruined all the plans. I
also had no lunch. Lucky I got people on the
Whatsapp to accompany me. Friends asked me
to go home and leave the car at the service
center. How could I go back without a
transport. I did not want to bother others
though Yasir offered to take me home.
Should I be
angry ? Why should I. It was just one of
those things in our lives. I remember
yesterday at the Jakarta airport when a
young man was angry at the delayed flight.
As he went away his Chinese Indonesian
mother turned to me and said, " Sorry, you
are an old man now. Never get angry and
never scold anyone like my son. He was very
angry and wanted to buy a new ticket. Don't
be angry...na.."The mother was about my age.
She took I was much more older than her. She
could not walk well and had to be assisted
by his son. She kept silent as his son came
back.
True, I
should not be angry as an old man. After all
I have a few more years to live. I can
always make up the lost hours. Tomorrow I
can still go to the post office and the
travel agent and to the money changer. But I
expect a package from the Post Laju. I
cannot tell whether the good is going to be
delivered in the morning or late in the
evening. You can't tell this post office and
the post laju. They workers had been seen
sleeping in a garden during the working
hours. I hope to settle everything by 9.30
am.
If I can't
finish by tomorrow, I can wait till Monday
or Sunday. The post office opens on Sunday. The
money changer on Saturday and the Travel
Agent on Sunday. Of course if I could avoid
a day of wastage so much the better. I also
need to know the price of the ECU and where
it is located in the car. It is better to be
busy than staying idle.
I sent my old
Kancil for overhauling. "Make it new again,"
I told Maniam, the mechanic. Maniam is not a
Hindu. He goes to church. His son is still
studying in one of the universities in Kuala
Lumpur. I hope he can finish the work not
earlier than January. My saving dividend
will be used to offset the very heavy end of
the year expenditures on car insurances and
road tax, the annual payment for the village
security, the RM1.2K for mosque donation and
other community fees.
I hope my
ruined day today would be compensated by
tomorrow starting with the morning
activities.
19/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
JAKARTA
TRIP |
I just
entered my house after traveling a long
distant from Jakarta to my home town, Alor
Setar. It will take me some time to edit my
video on the CW competition held at the
Jakarta Amateur Radio Fair, on the 15th
July 2017 at Ancol Beach City Mall. My sole
purpose was to enjoy the event.
It has been a
long time that I did not travel alone. For
many years I took the trips alone to the United
States and had much experiences over many
things, like being mugged in Los Angeles and
enjoyed myself in the dream world of Las
Vegas. On the later days I followed tour
groups to places in Europe, USA, China,
India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Then I went
with my radio friend, Rusli, to Bangkok,
Indonesia and Japan. Now I am already 70,
trying to venture alone like a young man.
I studied the
places where I plan to stay and go. I chose the Fave Hotel at LTC Gelodok. LTC is a
commercial building. And Gelodok is well
known for it's electrical and electronic
equipments. I told myself that I wanted to
have good food and full relaxation while in
Jakarta. To facilitate my plan I went to
Jafila Travel, asking the company to buy the
flight tickets and the hotel lodging for me. The
price quoted for the journey was approximately 1K from Alor
Setar and back plus four nights of stay at
the hotel. I immediately agreed.
The Jakarta
Amateur Radio Fair would be held at the same
location as last year, at the famous Fantasy
Land, Ancol. At Ancol there are several
theme parks and the Sea World. The distant
from the JARF center to my hotel was about 8
kilometers. I could either take a taxi or a
tuk tuk, or even walk. Walk you say ? 8 km ?
Why not, I have been walking about 5.3 km
per day at home. I studied the map
carefully, including Tanah Abang. Tanah
Abang is a huge commercial center where all sort
of things are sold.
On the first
day I asked around the way to JARF venue at
Ancol. When I took a taxi the driver drove
the wrong way, an opposite direction. I
asked him why he didn't follow the route and his
excuse was to avoid the traffic jam. The
meter showed IDR260.000 when arriving the
place. The real price is IDR30000 as I
discovered from another taxi which took me
home on the second day. In fact on the first
day, because there was no taxi, I walked
home. It was far, I realized, probably more
than 8km. I could walk that far mind
you. That made me so tired
that I went to sleep early on the night of
15th July.
The first
person who greeted me at the fair was an Indonesian whom
I met last year. Then Deen Atan came and we
talked over a little before Rabin, and
9M2MDX, Werut and 4 other amateur operators
from Sabah joined us. At about 12 noon they
moved to check in their hotels. I asked Deen to watch the CW
competition. Like the rest, he said he had
not check in yet. I stayed on
watching the stage show. From time to time
there was a lucky draw. My call sign was
announced as one of the winners. I got a Baofeng UV5RA.
I figured I was lucky as I had another
Baofeng on the second day draw.
From 1 pm to
almost 4.30 pm I was up there on the 1st
floor watching and recording the
competition. I remember they had four
categories of the competition, the slow, medium and a high
speed and free for all. I asked a
friend beside me about the price. He said
that it was a cash price of RM1.5 K. But I
forget to ask him which category. Khon Champ
from Thailand later told me that he did
joined them before. Last year the
participants wore red. This year they wore
white shirts.
After having
taken photograph the challenged began. The
codes sounded like a sine wave, moving up
and down, with noise and full of strong
echo. You have to be good at hearing to
comprehend them. I did the video recording
with a few others.
When they
finished the 'Lumba CW' I decided to return
home, back to my hotel. Taxis were not
around. I was determine to walk back. With
the help of the GPS on my Asus Zenfone I
managed to find my way through. 8 KM was not
too bad I thought for I had been walking
more than 5 km each day. I felt the
distance. May be the place was not familiar
to me. It was merely psychological. But I
enjoyed walking at the same time studying
the environment and trying to get familiar
with the area.
As soon as I
reached my hotel I ordered Fish & Chip.
After having a good dinner, I went
horizontal. The hotel was quite comfortable
but the food was a little saltish,
especially the friend stuffs like mee and
nasi goreng. I did survey the food stalls
around the hotel and found a Nasi Minang and
on the later night the Nasi Padang. I had a
delicious Nasi Padang on my last night in
Jakarta, for only IDR18000m, about
RM5.
Below my
hotel were the electronic shops. It was here
that I met Weerut and the gang, buying radio
equipments home. I bought nothing knowing of
the tough time I could have with the custom.
Without the import permits they can wrest
all the goods purchased. Furthermore I
prefer to travel light. An Indonesian ham
coaxed me to by a 20/40/80 homebrew
transceiver for RM1.3K but it was just a
little bigger than my backpack. Instead I
spent a little of my money buying some
fabrics at Tanah Abang where I took a taxi
for IDR30000 and a few plastic bottles of
muscle oil required by the ticketing agent.
There were too many stalls to go about.
I reserved my
last day to look for things to buy home. The
JARF ran on the 15th and 16th July. 17th
July was my free day. Shops opened at about
10 am and closed at about 4.30 pm. It was
too short a day for window shopping. I did
not know where to go either but Tanah Abang
because I already went there last year with
Rusli. I did not know Mona which was just a
walking distance from my hotel. Even the oil
was purchased at the normal shop akin to 7
Eleven. I could not get a dozen as
requested. I just felt sorry. Imagine I
brought about 5 millions rupiah and had
about 4 millions left over. So much so I
paid extra to the taxi men, and ate at the
airport without computing the food price
with Malaysian ringgit. The only drawback
the local money changer only wanted to buy 1
million rupiah for less than RM300.00. I
prefer to keep the money, who knows for my
next trip. Changing ringgit o Rupiah in
Jakarta the rate was 3.6 indicating the real
decline of our money. We have been lied
constantly by our leaders.
What did I do
with my Baofeng ? I fixed them and used them
to monitor the VHF and the UHF stations.
From 144 to 149 I did not hear any ham
talking. Frequencies below and above it
there were numerous unknown stations with
call sign using numbers. So was with UHF
where no Indonesian call sign was heard. I
was just making some intelligent guess as to
what is happening to ham radio in Indonesia.
Things really change with the new FCC
regulations which were being the bench
marking for the world.
The UV5RA,
Baofeng, is Lupak by the Indonesian brand
name. I was glad to win a couple of sets,
not so much on the radio, but on the
charger. I bought 3 chargers from China and
all went haywire. I believed the damage was
due to the excessive heat during the
delivery process. The prizes relief me very
much. Remember, that some sellers are not
really reliable. I used Lazada to buy them.
I didn't mind
the IC7300 that needed
the purchase of coupons for the lucky draw.
I couldn't find the coupon sellers. But
one of the Sabahans the rig home. I heard it cost 1K cheaper
in Indonesia than here. I hope the custom
guy was good enough not asking him to
produce the import permit.
I was happy
with the trip though I had no intention to
go for sight seeing nor for shopping. I had
had a good vacation despite my long walk. I
hope to be able to attend the radio fair
again next year.
19/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
WHAT'S
IN A FAME |
I never care
about a fame, to be a celebrity or to be
well known among others. But I am just
puzzle why I did not exist in the past.
Neither did I want people to know that I was
there among the crowd witnessed by people
who were there with me. In Ham Radio I came
quite late, passing the exam around 1975 or
so. I could remember names who had help me
and those who were active on the local band.
By local band I mean the 40 meter band.
9M2MW and 9M2FK were the two amateurs who
had help me in talking over their radios
when I was still a SWL. Malcom, Eshee,
Avartar, Idris, Ari, Chong, Chow, Eustace,
Hock, Peng, Phang Choo, Loke, Ibrahim
Oxford, Rajamani, Nick, Yaacob, Datuk Tan,
Bill, Rashid Sultan, Dhalan, Khoo, Kuan Khew,
Leong are among the names that I can still
remember. Aziz, Manan, Marzuki, Choo and
several others came later. Zainal was still
in Germany and came home with 9M2ZA call
sign.
In the North
we had two big events ever held in this
region beside the normal JOTA activities.
The first was the Thai-Malaysia Border
jamboree where Eshee came up here for help.
And the other was at the University Utara
Malaysia at Jitra during those years. Eshee
and Manan joined hands to help me in setting
up the station and ran the event. Any other
annual jamboree chores were always organized
by the scouters in Jitra. I remember Jamal,
Wan and Kamel very well and the late Cikgu
Khalid who would call me up to help them.
Most of the scouters are now a licensed
operators. Kamel and Mr Khalid have passed
away.
During the
Tsunami I and Marzuki, among others in the
Nortg, stood by to retransmit messages
from Aceh area to Jakarta. And I had a daily
contact with the Tsunami stations. I also
helped to pass some traffic messages of the
Malaysians in Aceh back home to their
families and HQ.
What was
there to brag about. Those were not the
contributions at all as far as I am
concerned. Those were just the normal duty.
Did I ask for a certificate or a recognition
? None, Nothing to lament and nothing to
complaint. But mind you there is a new
licensed operator whom I never knew decades
before he gets his ticket had the audacity
of telling people he constructed an antenna
system for me. That made me blink a little.
It was a big puzzle.
Is there a
problem in ham radio today ? You figure it
out yourselves. But by the literature posted
on the alternative media, I smell the writer
believes that there is a problem. It was the
same person who wants to have a few millions
radio operators here. Today he has probably
more than a few millions inclusive of
legalized pirates, and tenths of thousands
of handheld owners talking as though they
are licensed amateurs. I wonder whether he
knows that more than 70% of newcomers do not
know what an RF choke is or know what a
balance modulator is used for. Yet everyone
can go on the air. Would that barred them
from transmitting on the air ?
I always
talked of human character and education
before the licensing condition. Human
behavior will determine the sanctity of an
organization. The attitudes and their mental
setup will determine the future of amateur
radio. If you choose not to safeguard the
integrity of this hobby then it will surely
fall on the ground. It will become
valueless.
If you relate
this hobby with pecuniary gain and as a
source of money factory then it defeats the
original purpose of amateur radio. You will
knock down all the barriers like a woman
prostituting her entire body for money.
If the wall
has been broken down then there is nothing
to lament about. You reap what you sow.
Many old hams
prefer to stay away from the rough seas. I
love to run away from a braggart. To us
what's in a fame. 'Ais Kacang plus durian'
is far better than the fame.
|
MULTIPLICITY OF DEVIOUS HUMAN SENTIMENTS |
If I can, I
do not want to owe any obligation to anyone.
To some every extended help comes with a
price, the price that you do not know. And
they either equate that with the value of
money or something you have to give in
return. In the traditional society helps
given were always sincere, without
expectation of the return favor nor they
equate them with money value.
I would
reject a gift or help with price tags
accompanying them. Such an insincere deeds
have no place in the community of good
society. Ham Radio in Malaysia used to be a
Brotherhood Ties. Old hams helped each other
and the new comers to make them come on the
band without any pecuniary gain. I remember
getting co-axial plugs and cabled for free,
and giving away free things to people.
I had always
have a great fear that amateur radio in
Malaysia will be spoiled by the new generations
if they were not thoroughly checked. Without hurdles
and walls even the bad dogs could jumped
into the ham radio frontier. True indeed when
walls were broken down bad dogs did jump in,
turning the world of amateur radio upside
down.
There are cheaters and opportunists now. There
are braggarts and bad apples. And people who
love to bully others.
The villains
do not display the true faces but you can
always see one through their talks and
speeches, parading their prowess. showing
their goodness and friendliness. I never
expect one to run away with my money. May be
he wanted me to pay back the
kindness he did for me. If that is the case
then I would say I have given him more than
what he had given me. It is better to reject
any kind of help from any other people. In
this way we are free from any obligation.
There are
people who may give you a single help but
would demand for a series of unending
assistances, one after another and a hard
one too. When I make a trip overseas there
are people asking me to buy this and that
for them. How could I when I didn't buy anything for
me myself,
to avoid the trouble of packaging and
carrying them. I just love to travel as
light as possible leaving more room for
comfort. On my coming trip to Jakarta, one
person asked me to buy not ONE bottle of oil
but a dozen of them. Fortunately, none of
the visitors today requested me to buy
things for them.
I just think
a person who puts money value in his
ostensible help without
telling you is a devious scammer. They are numerous
amongst us. But not everyone is having that
bad.
Mankind tend
to satisfy his ownself without considering
the welfare of the others. I have seen their
selfishness all the time. Persons who were
invited to take some Rambutan from my
trees would take the whole tree off without
thinking even of me, the owner. I saw in my wife
relative, the Indonesian maid and a few of
my friends. The last to come was my student.
She came with her family. Seeing the almost
the whole tree was empty, I asked her to fill
in 4 sacks to give to my four neighbors. What made me
so unhappy was
that I had to collect back the pole, the
plastic garbage bag and the chair. They
should have put them back at the proper
place. It had been the same with the
Indonesian maid and my wife relatives.
I tell you,
it was 99,99% of the fruits were taken off
from the tree.
If they would
have thought of the others and be
considerate enough, they would have not left
the tree bare. And people would not ask me to
buy massive goods for them. Or abscond with
other people's
pittance. Of course not to forget the sneaky snake who
demanded payment for their help.
How would you
expect to have a good society with the
multiplicity of devious human sentiment ? It
just like living in a Golden Triangle or in
Colombia where everything is filthy. The
Malays seem to turn evil, greedy, arrogance
and inconsiderate. It is something
unthinkable and horrible. They have lost the
senses of good and bad, shame and morality.
It is hard to
trust a radio friend these days. If you want
to know who among them who would charge you
with an atom of favor do ask me personally.
When my wife was alive, I always told her
about people's characters. She laughed as
much as I did. It was somewhat hilarious to
see how they acted and behaved. It was a
real pity for those who were stung by these
vultures. The victims deserved it like the
voters who chose scavengers among them as
their leaders. The laugh became a cry. It
was sad and pity.
The wider the
frontier you are in, the more challenges and
hostilities you would be encountering.
We can reduce
the risk by limiting the size of our
frontier by choosing a few friends within the
God's House, and a very few left of the very
old ham friends and a few wise and highly
educated people.
Really, this
is an amazing world.
13/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
VILLAGE
PATROL |
Finally I
handed the Baofeng 888S to the security
guards looking for our kampong, modifying
the first channel. This channel is regularly
used by people unknown. It is safer to shift
to two KCs up. I chose this model because it
does not cover a big area. I figured it
might not even cover our locality. One of
them has to be some sort of repeater in case
of a certain reported emergency like theft.
Thieves use
to prowl and broke into houses in this
location. I was so sure they were young
Malays who ganged themselves up and doing
mischief around. While some come from our
village a few were from outside our area.
Crimes usually happened during the night
time.
Stories of daytime robberies were sometimes
heard but rare. I suspected the Indians and
the Malays preying their victims using their
motorcycles.
We can't
afford to have the all round 24 hour
surveillance. Some people refused to pay the
fees and hope to benefit from those who
paid. I would pay for the whole year, RM360,
which may be too high for some guys.
The security
company did provide the workers with the
walkie talkies. When they got a more
permanent jobs, they would leave without returning
the radio. I thought the communication would
be more effective using the radio units.
The first
thing I heard from the transceiver was that
somebody was singing and telling stories
about me handing them the radio sets. I
asked them to check the transmission and
reception, whether it could cover the
village area. The report was positive. From
then on the hanky panky stopped. There was
no more singing. They knew someone was
monitoring them.
You see the
ideal and the dynamic are not always the
same. Ideal is full of wonderful talks, like
our politicians. In real life things may be
different. Najib said, "Under my eyes we
will not lose our sovereignty.." Yet he did
not know what he signs on the 1 Mdb
documents and where the million rinngit came
into his account. Similarly if you hear the
persons in the community members talk you
will be impressed by them. The security of
the village is secured and safe.
As I observed
the security guards need to be push to
patrol and to be aware of cars that move in
and out. If you don't they tend to be a
little indolent. I hope to communicate with
them once in a while to awaken and activate
them. These are young people without regular
jobs yet.
Baofeng is
cheap, about RM30 a piece. It cost me about
RM120 for four pieces. I hope to get involve
stealthy and to see the patrolling is more
effective. I don't think that I will be
informing the committee members of my
decision. It is a usual community work.
You can't
expect the police to patrol your village for
you. And you cannot expect everything from the government. All the government wants is
your money.
11/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
The
incident at the college gate REVISIT |
I thought my
relationship with the College was over. The
last I was asked to sign a visitor's book
when I went to provide a free service in
their biometric attendance system. I was
called for help and I was asked to abide by
their regulation. But I have my own
regulation then. If the College needed my
help they have to abide by mine. I wished
them good luck in finding a new software. In
fact they have already bought one.
To my
surprise they called me again today, saying
that there is a problem with the
system and they want me to look at it. At
the same time they need a few more of new RFID cards to be
writtened. "I thought the College has a new
system ? " Said I. "Sorry I won't go there again." They
are willing to come to my house. That relief
me.
In the
previous incidence I was viciously attacked
for being selfish and egoistic. I must
signed the book they said. I didn't go to beg
or seek for a favor. Neither it was on my
own accord. I simply had my own
policy.
When they come tomorrow, should I ask them
to abide by my regulations for it was my
invitation ? I am not a savage to
behave like one. My house is not a College
but it is a home, though it is an honorable
abode full of mystery. Nevertheless I always
keep my gate close.
It is alright
to label me as a stubborn person. I admit I
am one. Even if my own kids yelling and
shouting and scolding me like an animal, it
will never be forgotten no matter what. I am
not a God nor a prophet nor a Sage. A cut
will never disappear. You know the state of
mind of an elderly men like me. We don't
easily forget. It is wiser for me to
stay alone. Nobody would hurt me.
The story is
about a computer software which I developed
for the College many years ago. One of them
was a biometric attendance system which is
very complicated as it has several
utilities. You either use your finger or
swapping an RFID card at the scanner. Your picture will appear
and the computer will wish you the necessary
things. If you have a birthday it will wish
you Happy Birthday. You may be prompted with a
certain message. Messages may be for a
single person, a few or for the whole
staffs. And there are many more facilities
which I don't wish to narrate here.
From year to
year new staffs will come in. New RFID cards
have to be written. I gave the software for
the card but somehow they still seek for my
help. Then a new head of the College came to
replace the old one. She set up a new rule
as I was told. Among them is that nobody is
allowed to go into the school
without signing the Entry Book.
By
co-incident I was called to the school to
print a new card. On entering the gate the
guard said that I must sign the book because
of the new regulation. I went home
immediately. I was fiercely attacked. Of
course I lost nothing. I would not have to
sacrifice my time and energy anymore just to help. I
am happy as nobody is bothering me again.
That was the incidence.
I don't know
how many and who would be coming tomorrow. But I don't plan to talk of the
past. I have something to serve them. While
it will take a few minutes to prepare and
execute the cards, they can have some food
and refreshments. I am glad at 70 I am still
of use and can still serve those who seek my help.
10/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
Three persons came to my house. The teacher
in charge gave me about 15 cards to work on.
I asked them to eat and drink while I was
writing the cards. One man went out to get
the Rambutan fruits. 15 minutes later they
gathered into the house and we had a chit
chat about old friends. Then they went home. |
TOUCHING 21ST
CENTURY |
I never dream
of living until 2020. And I never know when
I am going to die. I feel death is so very
near. Deadly disease has struck me several
times and here yet I am still standing,
going for daily exercise more than 5 km walk
each day. Next year is just a few yards
away, coming very soon. It will
be 2018. I am about 7 years older than Najib
and 5 years older than Rosmah. While we are
getting older, the two immortals will be
ruling the country. What will
2020 be like ? Will the dark cloud continue
to hover over us throughout covering the
whole sky ?
My wife went
first at the age of 65. I feel that her spirit is
accompanying me all the time, that I do not feel miserably
lonely. I just feel that she is
around, filling my days, pushing my life to
breath the fresh air for a few more years. But
21st century never crossed my thinking when
I was a young boy. Those were the days
without TV, and a radio was a luxury.
Today the
world produce three D printers which
everyone can buy for less than 2K. It is an
amazing invention, 3D TV for viewers at
home, spectacles and watches that can record
videos and snap pictures. The gadgets are
more than what Dick Tracy used to have.
Sometimes it made me wonder why God chose
the White man to be genius, inventors and
futurists than the Malay folks.
But at the
dawn of my life I began to see shameless
people all over the world. Men married with
another men. Ladies chose spouse of their
own kind. National leaders squeezed the citizens
to fill their own bellies. Instead of preaching
religion of God, they want people to believe
in the power of money. Their value
system has changed. Even the Hajis vowed to
money rather than to God.
These are the
21st century that I am seeing. By 2020 I
will only be a functionless spectator, weak
both in mind and body.
But I predict
we will be no better than the Thais,
Indonesians and the Singaporeans. While
others are shinning with full of glittering
happiness, the Malaysians will be facing a
more bleak future. I just saw a video clip
on why do we have an evil ruler, which
suggested that it is us who are evil. We
choose devil to be our leader. We bow to him
and make him our God. The video clip quoted
the verses from Koran about the evil in
mankind that elect a devil among themselves.
If 2020 is a
vision of what the 21st century would be
then let us wait for a few more years to see
the events, the happenings and the new
perspective.
At the
beginning of the 21st century I already saw
young kids staring at the I-pad almost the
whole day, people using hover boards to fly,
and people purchasing on the streets using
electronic payments, To the people of
yesteryears their fantasy has become reality
in the modern world. Living until 2000 was
good enough. Living until 2020, is what God has
bestowed upon many of us.
As the wind
of physical environment and technological
progress is taking place there are people
who want changes in their traditions and
culture as well. But in real life many still
wants to cling to filial piety, respect the
elders, stay away from greed and avarice,
honesty, sincerity and the act of gratitude.
But mankind has been vicious from their
beginning till today. Their greed are
insatiable. They take what were not theirs.
But 2020 is a
year targeted by the people of the past in
the past years. At that time it was set as
the year of expectation, a year where Utopia
has to be achieved. Amazingly Mahathir who
started the vision 2020 is still alive
today. When he set the goal I told
everyone that I won't live to see the day
and Mahathir too will not see the day.
While having
one or two more years to live, I enjoy my
smart watch, smart phone, spy gadgets and
exploring the on-line shopping. Mahathir is
20 years older than me but he is busy with a
man whom he believes to be a Kleptocrat. It
happens in the 21st century.
05/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
HOW GOOD IS
LAZADA ? |
What I don't
like about the traveling and other online
agencies is that they need your money NOW
but they will abide by their procedure in
refunding to within a month though it is due
to their own failure to
honor an agreement. Imagine an online shop Lazada which told me that the merchandizes
from overseas may take more than 2 weeks to
arrive though the delivery dates published
were much earlier. The other day I
received a merchandize from Lazada sent by a
man driving a normal car. I would have
thought a van with a sort of carrier logo.
The goods were in a box. They were blazingly
hot. Luckily the items were still working.
I noticed
that a cable plus a driver for Baofeng
walkie talkie in the Lelong.com took a
maximum of three working days to arrive and
the vendor is from Kuala Lumpur. The one
from Lazada was ordered on 18th of June and
now it is already 3rd of July. I have yet to
wait for the merchandise. I remember
ordering materials for the pin-badge from
Kuala Lumpur which took more than 7 days to
arrive.
Of course the
seller will say that we are not forced to
buy from them. True we have to stop dealing
with them. Then don't buy from them.
Anyway we can always try looking for the
better online shop. The best is to buy
directly from your home shops though it is a
little more expensive. You can use the
commodities immediately.
Once I had a
problem with Poto Travel which I had to
spend RM2.5K more for missing an airplane.
The tour leader or the travel agent did not
phone me up to remind me of the time and
date of departure. To them an email was
ample. I never experienced that with
Reliance years back before. The tour leader
would inform us of the departure a day
earlier of what to
bring and what not to bring. And Poto took
things very lightly. And again they have to
change the travel plan to Chiangmai this
coming August blaming the airline for the
problem. They could have compensated the
time lost in rescheduling the plan. Anyway I
did talk to them about the time
compensation. And Safirgo Travel took a long
time to reimbursed my 1K down payment for
their cancelled trip.
The customer
is always on the losing end.
I did read
complaints about the cheating that went on
the On-Line stores, payments made but the
company went missing. Unknown companies do
cheat as well. But it was not so bad as
those taking money for pilgrimage to Mecca
and went missing. These are the Malay
companies, supposedly to be God fearing and
pious in their outlook.
I have to
play wait and see the performance of Lazada
and other famous online stores like Lelong
and Mudah dot my. The agents might be honest
and sincere but the suppliers were not. The
carrier of the merchandises may be poor
too. But the point is we have paid to the
company the moment we made the order.
My experience
with One Communication in Shah Alam was a
good one. I paid today and I received the
goods the next day. At most it would be 3 days.
Now I am eyeing for IC7300 and already knew
from whom and where to get one, much cheaper
than the well known online store.
03/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
SPOILING
THE WINNING TEAM |
Most
officials and officers are arrogant and
incalcitrant, dismissing views and advices
from people of the lower ranks without even
giving a thought to them. Though some may hold
water and some may not, at least their views
must be scrutinized.
I was a
champion in Pantun competition while in the
Technical Teachers Training College. My
partner was good enough though he was a
little slower than me, just probably a few
seconds lagging behind in replying to the
opponent but he was fast enough. We had
several encounters with other teachers
colleges and we performed very well. My
partner's name was Jaafar Sidek. Because
we
were so amazing the college called for the
local radio station to air a competition
with another teacher's college. It was
to be broadcast nationwide.
The Committee
Members decided to drop my partner and
replaced him with someone else whom to their
assessment was better than Jaafar. They
refused to see that Jaafar and me were in
the winning team all the while. That angered
me very much. If Jaafar was not good we
could not have won the championship.
So during the
evening when people gathered for the event I
went out to watch a movie, running away from
those culprits who were high handed. I was
told that they searched for me high and low
but to no avail. They combed the whole
college but failed. Then they had to look
for a replacement. As far as I was concern I
didn't mind not being a celebrity. I had no
desire to be one. I hate people who were
spoiling the winning team.
I wrote about
spoiling the winning team in my blog and the
Facebook, giving the focus on soccer teams
that altered players and coaches after
becoming a champion. I knew of the mentality
of the Malaysian Malays pretty well, from
the laymen to the politicians. A few knows
what humility is. The rest are braggart and
supercilious, gloating around of their
prowess.
Kelantan and
Pahang football association had created the
mistakes.
And now Kedah. I was never in agreement with Nizam Adha being promoted as a coach. I
insinuated the reason of my repulsion. I was not wrong in my
prediction. He changed the champion team
with new players, disregarding the
philosophy of the winning team. He failed to
see what had made the team won, who were the
main scorers and the idea of the teamwork.
He spoiled the winning team by his poor
decision. That's what the price they paid
for for choosing the less illiterate to head
a winning team. In fact the whole people
attached to the Kedah's team almost share
similar ideology. They discount the minor
details of vital facts.
There weren't
much different between changing my Pantun
partner with the changing of the soccer
players. We don't change players of the
winning team abruptly and immediately. We
would spoil the winning team.
03/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
BAOFENG 888S
IS NOT FOR HAM |
Baofeng
888S is a toy for the kids to play with. It
is also good to bring along when you are
going camping or going to the theme
park. Or even while convoying of a few cars.
It is cheap though, which you can pick one up
for just RM50.00 or so. It operates on UHF
from 400 - 470 Mhz. It has 16 channels which
are preloaded with frequencies around 462
Mhz. You can use a computer to set your own
frequencies.
If you
need a handy-talkie for a more serious job
get Baofeng UV5R or UV82.Both have the VHF and the UHF. Though UV82 claims that it
can transmit 8 watts, a test has shown that
it only sent out a little below 5 watts.
Baofeng
888s said that the talking range is between 3 - 5
km. You have to take it as only 1 km the
most. It is
good for the construction sites or some of
the uses I already mentioned. Certainly it is not for a ham
radio operators.
Business
people use them to communicate between shops
or from a stall to the house nearby. The
vendors would set the frequency and tone for
the them so that it could not be intercepted.
In Alor
Setar CB Electrnics is selling it for RM70
each and are already sold out. UV5R is
tagged at RM330, whIch you can actually get
for about RM125.
It is not
a recommended set for radio amateur users.
02/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
WHAT'S NEXT ? |
This is not a
new question. It started after the missing
MH370 and continued after the subsequent
national misfortunes fell on us. I was
asking whether what befell us were due to
co-incidence, causal effect, karma or the
air of bad luck that clings over a person,
which is something mysterious. If the black
events happened in the old days people would
immediately pointed it out to the evil of a
witch.
I argued that
co-incidence may happen but only once, twice
at the most. Not a series of them, Then our
money flung, FGV went down moving towards
below a dollar, investors moved away and the
world is discussing 1 Mdb issue. Now Saudi
Arabia is under a crisis. I never expect the
world is talking about Rosmah and the pink
diamond. Go to this url and see how the
other part of the world is talking about us.
https://youtu.be/JZABOpi68HY .
The denials
by our Prime Minister is only good for the
Malaysians who do not follow the money trail
and how Najib used the tax and 1 Mdb money
to appease the selected groups. And the
media is used to convince the citizens that
Malaysia will not lose her integrity and
sovereignty by selling her interest and land
to China, seeming to show them that we are
still controlling those assets. What do we
stand to gain ? It is the Malays who
will suffer most by the display of
deceptions. Several thousands of young
people were losing their jobs, not only with
the foreign firms but also with the local.
Inflation is
too bad now. A nut that cost RM4.50 is now
RM11.40 within a short spell of time. Those
who have been doing the grocery would know
what the is the value of our money now. And
travelers suffer the most. The exchange rate
is too bad against our ringgiit. Many
countries do not accept our currencies
anymore. This is a bare fact, a reality that
met with lies and bluffs by the people in
Najib's camp/
Is this be
the end ? I don't think so. I suspect there
will be more fatal attack on us by nature
and by men, We would not know in what manner
and by which men. Already we are behaving
like small kids. The whole world is watching
us. We can't think straight. I always remind
about Saddam and Gadafi, the two popular
figures among the citizens who finally met
with a grim death.
Just observe,
what's next to happen.
02/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
ONE OF
THE SPECIAL MEN |
Whenever he
comes back to his father in law's house he
would drop by to see my ailing wife. Even
with the demise of my wife he still came to
have a chat with me. People say he is not
like any other normal man. My neighbor
accepted him as the daughter was getting
older without any pursuer.
Sorry to say
that I do not remember his name. I will ask
him when he comes to see me again.
He is quite
stout with full of appetite. He would smoke
after every meal. Looking at him I would say
his sex drive is strong and he seems to be
well endowed. His wife must be a happy
woman. Moreover he is pious and honest. A
man like him does not need higher education.
From the casual talks I did not find him
stupid or lack of knowledge.
He came to my
house on the 4th day of the Id at 9 pm. I
don't mind night visitor as long as I am
alone in the house. Nobody disturbs my wife
anymore. One of the topics we talked about
was on soccer. Surprisingly he expressed a
view which is similar to mine. His analysis
of the game and the players didn't show that
he is an ignorant person. He is not stupid
nor a moron. He beats me in many things
except in distant traveling, education and
my programming language. From the Islamic
point of view he is a heaven's man.
We talked and
talked until almost midnight. He enjoyed the
remaining dishes and the Lycee fruit juice
served to him. To me he is a special man.
I have been
with people with disabilities before. They
impressed me much. They seemed to be better
than any other normal people. One even
taught me how to use short cuts on
computers. I remember of a man called Harun
Gila ( Mad Harun ) who would don black cloth
and red headscarf. Every person in Alor
Setar said Harun was crazy and mad. Yet I
sometimes saw people sitting and talking to
him. A few said that Harun spoke like any
other man, no sign of madness in himself.
But this man
is not crazy nor mad. People might say that
he is mentally disabled. From the
conversation I could confirm that he is like
any other man. Our only main difference is
that I am 70, he is about 40.
Mixing with
men of equal status is more fun. We have all
the freedom we want. It is different when we
are with people higher echelon. We have to
watch our words and every now and then we
have to address them with Datuk and strain
ourselves to make sure we do not cross the
border that we may offend them.
The best
conversation we can have is with children.
Many a time you will discover that you don't
know things that they know especially on
modern technology. Once in a soccer stadium
I asked a young boy about 5 or 7 as to where
about of some of the players. He did tell me
a long narration about a player going back
to African and will later be joining the
team.
There is one
person whom I will not want to say anything
at all even a million offered to me ie
Rosmah Mansor. Najib YES. Rosmah NO. Why ?
She is more than a wife of a Prime Minister.
She is a god.
02/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
WE ARE ALL
MEN |
If your
belief is like an atheist that there is no
God and life after death no heaven or hell
then you must be a smart and rational
person. To know God is through faith and
feeling, not via rational mind. A person does not have to be
intelligent or be a university graduate to
have faith. Being an atheist you
should also be intelligent enough to compute
your longevity and how long more you are
going to live, and able to analyze the nature
of happiness and satisfaction.
Try to think
that you are going to die next week and you
are a disbeliever. What would you do from
now till your last day ? A believer who had
committed a lot of since and doing a lot of
mischief will occupy himself in repenting,
asking God to forgive him. A good man is
willing to accept the fate and waiting for
the time. If you aren't one
? And you have all the money and expensive
diamonds, what will you do ?
I can put
forward the question but I would not know
the answer. I would have guessed some people
may try to offer his money to God to save
him from hell.
People who
pursuit for happiness can be likened to a
game of soccer. The players are running for
a ball. Once he got the ball, sooner or
later he will kick it away, then he would
chase it again. You think happiness lies in
the money. You chase after it. When you get
it you do not find it fulfilling. Then you
for diamond and jewelries. You got them.
Soon the happiness vanish. You keep on
hunting one after another. It does not end.
There is always a diminishing utility of
happiness.
Happiness is
not what you have but whatever you can give
to help the others. It does lie in the
wealth and in comfort that we may have.
There is no place for greed and self
nourishment, no fighting or quarreling with
other people, no cheating and lying.
Basically we
are all men, creatures of God. When we die
we will be like everyone else. To the living
we will either be remembered or forgotten.
Nobody will
carry us on s golden chair to heaven or
hell. Nobody will call us Datuk, Datin or
Tan Sri.
If you are an
atheist you will still see the same thing
after a person has died. He is just nothing.
01/07/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
DON'T BUY
THIS WATCH |
If
you are thinking of buying a walkie talkie
watch from China, please don't. You better
spend the same amount of money for a couple
of Baofeng UV 5R or UV 82. You don't waste
the same amount of money on these watch that
claims you can have a five km communication.
It is good for a hundred yards or so.
The worst
part is the audio system. Using the external
speaker or earphone give the same sound. You
can't figure out what the words are. With a
bad sound, unreadable and hoarse, it is as
good as useless. It is not even for kids to
play with. It is indeed a junk.
It came with
a rechargeable battery and a charger. The
instructions says that when the battery is
weak we can see the battery icon on the
watch. You need to charge it for 6 hours the
first you use it and the subsequent charging
will only be 3 hours.
When you
first attach the watch to the charger, the
charger will show red light. After a few
hours the light turned green. But the icon
is still there. Which one is right to
indicate fully charge; the icon will vanish
or the charger light turn green ?
Another thing
is that the instruction manual mentions S
button so many times. You will not be able
to find the S button on the watch. I have to
assume the SCAN button as the S button.
I paid RM251
for a pair of this useless junk. Baofeng UV
5R cost me RM250 a pair.
How do I test
the distant covered by myself ? I put my
watch to transmit on 462.700 to a receiver
at home. The output goes to Baofeng UV 5R,
which is set to 458.450. With the VOX on it
will transmit at this frequency. Together
with my wrist watch I brought another UV 5R
set to 458.450, which will receive any
transmission from my home. While driving my
car I talk to my watch with the VOX on. The
watch transmit the signal 462.700, supposed
to be received by the receiver and feed into
the home Baofeng. That's how I know the
performance of my watch.
|
THE EVIDENCE
ABOUT THE OBVIOUS |
In this short
article I have to don the dress of the devil
and will talk like a savage. May be I am one
of the kind. My first profane and vulgar question is
'Show me the evidence that your father fuck
you mother to get you'
You only
have two answers to choose from,
"I don't have an evidence to show you" or "I
am the evidence"
"If you can't show the solid evidence does
that mean your father does not fuck your
mother ? Or your mother was fucked
by someone else ? "
"If you are
the evidence how would you prove that your
father fuck your mother ? Is it not your
mother let other man fucked her ? Or you
were being picked somewhere ? "
Since this
is a private blog not for public perusal I
think I am offending no one to release my
anger.
Things
that you don't see do not mean they are not
there. No one had ever seen gravity or
atoms. Newton said the evidence of gravity
was things drop to the grown when released.
Gravity pulls. I don't remember him talking
about the weight of the objects. We ever
seen balloon moving up, and the smoke
towards the sky. The circumstances of the
happenings may be called circumstantial
evidence or in plain language "obvious".
If you
want a hard and graphic evidence than you
show a hard and graphic evidence of your
father fucking your mother to get you.
Sometimes
we need to be vulgar to encounter with the
vulgar person who knows not what morality
and shame is.
29/06/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
SIGNAL REPORT |
It was
yesterday that I heard on an ASTRA repeater,
"You have a very strong and clear audio, 4
by 9..." If you are not involve in
amateur radio you may not know what is meant by 4
by 9. The numbers mentioned are not the two
digit lottery number nor describing the
beauty of a woman. It is a signal report
given to a station telling him how he sound
like from the other end. The report follows
a system called the RST. R stands for
readability, S for strength and T is for
tone. When the communication is using voice
(phone) the RS is applied, with the Morse
codes RST is used.
If we can
understand the whole sentence or all the
words clearly we say the readability is 5.
The signal may be weak or strong, totally
understood and readable is always 5. If we
know that the other guy is transmitting,
there is an audio but we cannot make out
whatever he is saying at all, then we say
the readability is 0. Radio band is up and
down and full of all kind of noises.
Sometimes there is an intermittent splatter.
We cannot copy all the messages. We can give
the readability between 1 to 4 depending on
the percentage we can read.
The second
number is to indicate the strength between 0
to 9. There is a meter on the radio that
will show the number. The indicator on the
meter may move above the 9 marks and shown
as 5,10, 15, 20 Db. DB is decibel, a
mathematical value of gain. Commonly for a
loud and clear signal we reported as 9. But
fellow hams usually joke among themselves.
Their signal report may be as follows, "You
are five nine plus ploos plus", "You break
my S-meter". People do give signal report 59
but with malaria effect. New amateur
operators may say five nine with sandy
audio. The Indonesian were heard to say five
nine medium treble or high treble.
There were
hams who did not use RST in voice
communication. They adopt another system
using Q (stands for quality). In giving a
report one might say "Yours is Q5 and
strength nine..." Forgive me for not
remembering about such a system that was
laid down in detail in a literature. I think
we should not jump to wrong them. Now people
are coming up with RSQ report to be adapted
to digital mode of communication as well.
As far as I
am concern five nine, five and nine or even
fifty nine does not matter as long as I got
an honest signal report. Five five or five
by four is good enough so long as he can
read me well. And I would not be bothered to
please him with 1 kilo watts.
Often I came
across stations that gave me a 599 report
and asked me to repeat my call signs and
names several time saying the noise and the
disturbances were too high. Funny.
28/06/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
SHAME AND
MORALITY |
Morality
is a principle concerning the distinction
between right and wrong or good and bad
behavior. It needs special characters to
return expensive jewelries, awards and other
gifts knowing they were from the illegal
money. We would look at Miranda Kerr (picture
left ) and De caprio with high regard. Hadi
Awang will be a symbol of Islam that will be
used to prove how good or bad the religion
is. Hadi is seen as an Islamic cleric who
defended the wrong.
At least we
do know now that not all people can be
bought with money. These are the people with
the high standard of morality.
If
we are trying to prove that the 1Mdb money
is in good shape by showing the amount of
money in the coffer deliberately, we would
not be able to fool everyone. Documents and
money trail show money were siphon out and
where they went to. Instead of addressing
the gist of the issue we were yelling and
shrieking 'USA is interfering with our
national affair', 'the West conspire to
destroy Islam', 'USA has a political
agenda'.
The world is
observing us, our moral values and
characters. What De Caprio and Miranda had
done made me so shameful. I fear the world
would generalize all the Malays having identical
characters, a race without shame, ethics and
morality.
28/06/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
DO I NEED
HELP ? |
Rating my own
ability from 1 to 100, one being the worst,
I am somewhere between 20 to 35. I am short,
weak and soft-muscled. Not cut for an
athlete nor a tough labor. A woman can
always pinned me down and throw me out of
the window. I am not brainy either, as I
said between 20 to 35. It goes the same with
my economic status.
But I am a
very stubborn man, from the childhood days
to my late adulthood. At 70 I am as stubborn
as ever. That's why I am not a smoker. No
friend can convince me to smoke. I want to
make my own decision and do things my own
way. Though I hired a maid to do some
domestic work, I do not allow her to wash or
iron my cloth.
In Ham Radio
I maneuvered myself to set a radio station
and the antenna system. I chose the simplest
antenna which I can do singlehandedly
without help. The inverted V dipole is the
simplest as it needs no climbing. A single
pole of wither an aluminum rod or bamboo
with a small pulley and a rope is light
enough to be hoisted up in a few seconds. It
does not need a muscle man to do the job. In
the course of a time a friend did drop by
and fixed a dipole without my asking for
assistance ie 9M2PZ, Manan Pawanteh. After
the poles was brought down by my neighbor's
car, I setup of the inverted V once again.
It would be a
very rare and remote occasion when I request
friend to send a gift which is less than 50
grams. Once I did but he lost it away. And
my students sent me to the airport and a
railway station. After that I transferred to
those places on the way to overseas.
But some
people are simply helpful by their nature. I
remember several time my wife fell down and
people rushed to pull her up. Her body is
big and heavy. She could not stand nor walk.
In such a situation I may call for help. She
had ever fell in front of my house and I had
to call my neighbor to help me. And another
radio friend insisted to help me in cutting
queue for cataract operation. If I could I
would surely decline to accept the help.
Nevertheless
we have to remind ourselves that there are
helpers with malicious intentions, not
helping you with a sincere motive. You may
not see the ulterior motive until the time
comes. You need to pay back to them either
with money or doing a repetitive service to
them. There is nothing wrong requesting for
for a return favor as long long as it was
not deliberate.
The
procurements of the ham gears were done by
myself. In the old days rig was difficult to
find. We had to look for the used stuff or
found a way to bring back from Singapore.
Things were quite a hassle. I never asked
anybody to buy a transceiver from oversea if
I knew he was on a visit outside the
country. Rigs were large and heavy to carry
or even to pack it as a luggage. Whatever is
large and long enough is beyond my audacity
to request a friend to procure for me.
I am glad
that I stood alone to manage and set up my
radio station and antenna system. It is not
as grand as it should be, with a tall tower
and sophisticated antenna, amplifier and
HiFi audio system. It is below the average
point. But I feel the honor and satisfaction
of being able to stand alone.
27/06/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
SILENT KEY |
There is a
different between the word dead
and a silent key. The word
key denotes a Morse key used by
hams in communication in codes invented by
Samuel Morse. In Malaysia the old hams would
be pounding the Morse keys at least once a
week on every Sundays while others were more
regular. Electronic keys are considered as a
new invention.
We would be
wondering if we did not hear Morse codes
from a certain station for weeks, neither
would he came on voice. His key
was silence. If the silence would be forever
due to his fate to meet God then his
departure was termed a Silent Key.
Morse codes was synonymous to Ham Radio. The
phrase is more appropriate to be applied to
code-hams.
To others it
might be normal but to me it is something
odd to describe an anti-Morse person who
does not touch or own a key as Silent
Key on his passing away. He is dead
or he passed away is good enough. However if
we insist on using the phrase there is
nothing anyone can do. It is just not
appropriate. In a democratic country one can
do whatever one likes as long as one does
not physically or mentally inflict pain on
others. What I am doing now is to explain
the term and to assert my view. It is not to
ban anyone from adopting the word to
describe any death in the world.
When a person
is dead, he is dead. Islam forbids the
living Muslims from cursing and talk bad
things about him. But a few would not
tolerate an excessive praise to a cruel
dictator or a person with filthy mouth. They
may stay sullen but without any empathy.
Amateur Radio operators who abscond with
people's money could not be forgiven and
forgotten, and I suppose there are a few with
such a character.
If you want
your death to be mentioned as Silent
Key then buy a CW key, practice it,
sit for the test and make yourself heard on
Morse codes. Of course you won't be
wealthier by mastering the skill or gain
more respects but it gives you satisfaction
and fulfillment. Your soul will be at peace
knowing there is no faking in the name
calling.
27/06/2017 ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
MY SET UP |
I have not
heard the direct sampling radio to provide
further insight of the noise issue though I
believe it can cut a lot of high noise and
making HF radio communication more
comfortable and less strain. Friends have
been complaining that they have problems
coming on the band due to the intolerable
irritating sounds of all sorts. In Ham Radio
we termed it as QRN.
I have a
couple of transceivers, FT-857 and Icom-756
Pro3. The former produces higher noise
level. The main culprit is my modem which is
a few feet away from the radio. Switching it
off I can cut more than 90% of the noise. I
would be able to hear a weak DX stations
when I could not with the modem on.
Our elmers
told us to reduce the RF gain and increase
the AF when we were having the SSB
communication. I put off my pre-amp,
attenuator to highest Db, reducing the RF
and increase the AF. Added with the modem
off I really enjoy my SWLing. With the cheap
Yaesu, the DSP helps to reduced the noise
level a great
deal. I never worried about the room
lighting, whatever lamp I use, LED or
otherwise.
At the time
when I was active and love DXing, the peak
of my
antenna's was always above 30'.
Those having a 70 foot tower would have the
full pleasure of communication. I never
dream of having a tower of such height,
neither a more superior antenna. 9M2AT, the
late Tungku Archie, had wanted to give me a
Yagi to take home when I visited his abode.
I thanked him for his kindness and prefer to
stay with my dipole.
My Icom has a
built in tuner. I prefer the external analog
coupler because I can see the movement of
the needle. It is merely psychological urge.
I would encourage a ham to keep a tuner if
he can afford one. It is not cheap But I
won't go transmitting without one.
And finally
about the coaxial cable. My mind until now
cannot visualize the RG58 and RG213. I don't
know which one I am using right now. I only want a 50 ohm large
diameter cable with good and thick screen.
When I had them I gave some to other people. The
late Datuk Tan, 9M2DW, would ask a shop in
Johor Baharu to send to my home and I paid
for it when I received the merchandise. Even
for my 2 meter setup I prefer the large cable.
Tell me which one is thicker with a thick
screen, 213 or 58 ? We were told that it
would better for the cable be a multiple of
quarter wave long, which I always cut to a
multiple of half wave. My dipole is just
about 20 feet. I would cut to about 99 feet.
I know 66' would be enough.
Another thing
Idris, 9M2GL, told us was not to work split.
We were not to cause problem to the Telecom
Department to monitor. Without asking
further we just followed. And we were warned
not to use our radio to transmit in public
area, on train, taxi, bus or ship. I didn't
ask him the reason. Legal or not, right or
wrong, we just followed.
We didn't
have internet then to look for information
and guide. We just followed our elmers.
26/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
TOMORROW IS HARI RAYA |
The fire
crackers and fireworks I bought in 2015 are
still with me.
My
grand daughters only like the sparklers. The
crackers are too loud even by hard pressing
our earlobes. The beautifully sparkling
fireworks are expensive. I still have a few
with me.
I noticed the
police patrol car came around our area last
night. Last year they were observing from
the distant and we had to resort to the mere
sparklers. And that too explains why we
still have plenty with me.
Once a year
let the kids be happy and enjoy the glorious
Hari Raya. Literally speaking they came back
only once or twice in a year.
When I die, I
don't think they will enjoying the fun as
they are having now. By that time they will
be busy with their schoolwork.
I hope the
weather will be fine tonight or else it will
hinder the joyous celebration. The sky is
dark and some time later it will sure to
rain. It will spoil the fun if it comes
through too early.
Kids will be
running here and there, laughing and
shrieking as they fire the crackers and the
rocket fireworks. When we go to bed past
midnight we will still hear the explosions
from the distance. Hari Raya is just like a
Christmas to the Christians, Deepavali to
the Hindus.
The kids of
the traditional Malays would move from house
to house to collect some money. In the old
days he got between 10 to 20 cents from each
house. Today he may get either a dollar or
more. I prepare two dollars for each and
five for any needy adults. But the modern
Malays barred their kids from the house
visits, resulting in fewer numbers of kid
visitors. To me it is something that I feel
sad. They are not begging. It has been our
tradition for a long time.
24/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
A THIEF
CAUGHT |
Catching
thieves is not my profession, neither it is
yours. But in my life I ever caught several
before. The first one I supposed was a drug
addict, who snatched my shirt from a drying
rail and tucked into his shirt. When I
confronted him he denied taking anything and
finally pulled the shirt out lamenting that
he was a poor man. He walked away. I did
nothing more. While in school we caught
several boys with stolen items in their
bags. Here are some of the answers they
gave,
"I
don't know that this is in my bag at all.
Somebody must have put it. I swear by the
name of God."
"Some
guys stole my thing, I steal one back"
"Other people
steal too. It is unfair of the school to
catch me alone"
"Sir I know
of many thieves in school, and they stole a
lot of things.....What I steal is just a
small thing"
Indeed an
interesting defense given. Imagine when a
thief who was caught red handed is facing a
judge pointing fingers at other people for
any kind of losses. If you are the judge
what would you say ? Cases like this has
happened before. Judges are too seasoned. If
you are a judge you would do the same thing,
to find him guilty.
A judgment
must be based on facts and evidence, not on
public opinion. And the law on larceny would
include the corroborators, the persons who
keep the stolen goods, knowing or
unknowingly they were stolen items.
Should a
thief engage a religious cleric to defend
and save him, the army and the police to
fight for him ? Remember higher that the
court is the court of God.
24/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
TOYS OF
TECHNOLOGY |
Probably
around August I will be enjoying three more
new gadgets. They are the Spy Watch, Walkie
Talkie Watch and the Phone Watch. The Spy
Watch can snap photos, record voices and
videos and work as a watch. The Walkie
Talkie watch enabled the user to communicate
with another 5 kilometers away. And the last
is like any other phone. A SIM card is
inserted inside it and we can dialed numbers
with it.
But I will be
using the cheaper version without the wifi
in it. There are those having Blutooth to be
paired with Androids which do not interest
me at all. The higher end version with Wifi
and other functions are tagged between RM3K to
RM20K. I won't spend money that much. I
already have a Wifi Samsung Gear S3.
Those
cheap stuffs are actually toys, made in
China. Some people have been using them for
more than two years and still working fine.
Kid's stuffs are also enjoyed by grandpas of
70, new things with amazing technologies. At
least I can taste the sci fi items, the spy
gadget of Dick Tracy.
Being alone without a
spouse leaves me with all the freedom I
want. Nobody is bothering me on what I want
to buy and do, where I want to go and when,
where I want to die and when.
Playing around with these
gadgets occupy my time. They have been my
companions and I don't feel so lonely. There
is no desire to go and look for friends to
go for outings except for going for dinner.
But I was never successful to find anyone to
accompany me to share the magnificent food.
When
my grand children came home they always
enjoy the FRS walkie-talkie and other things
that I have. In no time these will be their
bequest.
When we are being with the
machines we do not make sins.
The only problem with the
kind of watches is the power supply, They
operate on batteries, and lot of ampere
usage. The walkie-talkies could only last
for hours before the battery drain off. The
regular charging is a bit of a hassle. My
Gear 3S could last 3 or 4 days and the
re-charging is fast. For heavy work like
watching Youtube via the available wifi the
charging need to be regular. The drawback of
Samsung Gear phoning required blutooth
paired to an android phone.
Whatever come with Solar are
expensive. My Casio stand alone watch
operates on solar and I don't have to think
about charging at all.
I can't write more about
those stuffs as I have not tried them. I
want to see whether I can work a ham
repeater through my watch. But there are
watches with GPS and GPRS facilities.
The watch down below is
different from the above.
Najib: M'sia won't lose
sovereignty over FDI concerns,
not under my
watch
|
The watch below is blind
because the Prime Minister had sign several
1Mdb's documents and then said he did not
know what he was signing. So don't buy Prime
Minister's Najib's watch.
23/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
SHAME SHOP |
Shame lies on
the face, the skin of the face. A person
with original skin, thin and plain, is
different from a person whose skin built up
to be thick akin the skin of the animals.
The facial countenance is dismal that the
Chinese termed it BO BEEN, meaning NO FACE.
No face is synonymous to NO SHAME. In human
society it is related to immorality. It
measures the degree of civility.
Having been
stripped naked we walk bravely displaying
our body and say " I am naked...so what ? "
haughtily with the show of an immense
arrogance. How to put some shame in
shameless people ? I hope someone can open a
Shame Shop and do some shame selling, no
light in the shop and only open after
midnight till dawn. But what will they be
selling in the shame shop ? A conscience
machine ? A machine that can change animal
into mankind ? A spectacle that one can see
his own sins ? A spectacle of hell fire ?
A man name
Halim, a Haji, walked away with RM500 of my
money. He has no shame. De Caprio returned
all the gifts and awards which he believed
originated from the laundered money. He has
shame. Edmond de Rothschild was just slapped
with EUR8.985 million (RM43 million) fine
for laundering 1Mdb money. Singapore had
jailed and fine on personalities linked with
the stolen 1Mdb, all with solid proofs. And
someone says there is nothing wrong with 1
Mdb. Didn't Prince Sulaiman whispered to
Trump about the donation he never gave
to someone who tried to put the Prince in
trouble ?
There are a
lot of people who has no shame. The
alternative phrase for it is Thick Skin,
which is well narrated by Wikipedia.
Money can buy
most of things most of the times but not all
things all the time. We can't buy God's
favor to put us in heaven. We can't buy
people who hold to their principles with ANY
amount of money. Sooner or later our
counterpart will see how we manipulate
things and maneuver ourselves. Remember a
soccer game won by corrupting the other side is
not really winning. We don't win by pointing
a gun at voters head or pay them to vote for
us. It takes a shameless person to declare
we are elected through democratic process.
World leaders like these were all finally
killed.
Only if we
have some shame, we can act rationally. And
we will stop threatening people, and start
to repent. If we don't have any then go to
the shame shop and hope they can put some
shame on you. Hopefully you will be more
considerate, responsible and accountable.
23/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
EVEN IN
USA AMATEUR RADIO DETERIORATES |
Watching
several Youtubes recent postings on amateur
radio, I found a great deterioration of
amateur radio standard in the United States.
One ham family showing a footing of a 9 year
old and other young daughters communicating
on ham radio without even mentioning the
call signs or the word 'over'. Whether they
are kids or not, they are license amateurs and
should be well verse in the SOP. I heard the
father was coaching at the background. He
must be a radio operator too.
It was
confirmed by one American ham in a Facebook
that she hardly recognized people on the band
as they were using mix lingo of CB and Ham
and she decide to withdrew from the
repeater.
It will
provoke anger if someone were to bring out the
quality of the code and no-code hams. I do
not address no-code guys as ham. I recognize
them as radio amateur operators. In term of
social status and liberty they are of the
same and of equal standing. But somehow they
choose the liberty to do things their own
way. Today I stop going on to the DX band
because on many occasions I heard the
passing over of transmission by using the
word 'Roger', not even the call signs
mentioned. To me it was a disgusting
procedure.
People are
proud to post their young kids ability on
Morse codes on the Youtube. And I saw the
kids using computer to send and receive them
like typing the RTTY. Surely it turned me
off. It would have been adorable if the
young fries were to use the fingers to send
and the ears to copy.
Over all the
pollution is beyond control. It is what the
new look of modern amateur radio. Agreed or
not I maintain the new ITU/FCC system with
the dropping of CW contributes to the
lowering standard and pollution of the
amateur radio.
22/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
MALAYSIAN RADIO PIRATES |
Under the old
jurisdiction pirates caught would be facing
a music that they would never forget. They
would be deprived from amateur license for
life. Today under the new authority it is a
haven for un-license radio operators. There
could be tenths of thousands of them with
various call signs. Stations that I
monitored were all Malays. They were heard a
few kilo cycles outside the amateur band. A
friend said in his locality they were all
over causing difficulties on receiving other
ham's transmission.
Some say
pirates are blessed by radio authority as
part of training procedures before they
become license amateurs. I cannot verify the
authenticity of the assumption though I know
that yeas back there was a dialog between
the pirates and the authority in Perlis. If
the new unwritten regulation is a philosophy
of the current system then there is nothing
that one can say. When I told the senior ham
members in the Whatsapp group about my
monitoring to pirate stations all seem to be
deaf and dumb.
Pirates can
be very nasty and aggressive. They can
intrude into a repeater and call you PIG or
physically harm you. They may even get the
assistance of their license amateur friends
to harass you. So the senior hams chose to
be wise not to comment, and withdrew themselves
from ham radio. The Indonesian senior hams
are slowly vanishing for the same reason.
New regulations are very distasteful and
bitter.
If you ask me
my answer is simple. It is due to the
education, mentality and attitudes. Only if
we want to look at the total scenario of our
country to know how smart we really are. As
things are it seems that laziness and
stupidity live among a certain ethnic group.
They can't identify between rights from the
wrongs, between stealing and losing in
business, empty talks and desirable work
ethics. Prolong affirmative actions have
killed the initiative to work hard for
something. The Malays want special passports
to get access to everything.
Do pirates
bother me ? If it is on 40 meter band they
bothered everybody. European and Australian
hams complained about them. They love the
ham bands very much. Formerly they gathered
on 7.000 but now they are from 7.0 to 7.19,
mostly between 7.030 to 7.000. Those outside
the ham bands have their own freedom to
operate as much as I have the freedom to
write what I come to know about them. It is
not of our concern. We cannot override radio
authority on whatever matters they might
have approved and agreed upon.
In my area
pirates are nocturnal. Nobody could blame
the radio authority whose office hours are
during daylight. Smart, isn't it ?
22/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
REPENT NOW
NOT LATER |
I am 70 now
yet I broke into tears at the unexpected
moment. At time while praying I remember my
beloved sister and my wife, that I have not
given enough to them while they were alive.
I cried like a baby while reciting the
Koranic verses. I pondered then what really
is happiness. Happiness is not about having
millions or billions of dollars, not about
being a President or a Prime Minister. It is
about love and care, and know that our love
is well reciprocated.
Happiness is
when we do not live in fear, of being
kidnapped or murdered, drag to court and
thrown into a dungeon, when we do not steal
from others and caused them immense agony. I
know of wealthy people who cannot sleep
thinking of what may happen to them. And
because of the immense fear they hired a few
hundred bodyguards to protect them. I always
said to myself that they can't use the money
to corrupt the Angel of Death not to take
their lives away and to pay to God to go to
heaven.
Happiness is
when we refrain ourselves from making sins.
If we don't want to know what sins are
then God will send somebody to tell us what
sins we have had committed. Yet as others
pointed our sins we shout on the top of our
voice, "NO." We forget that God is looking
at us. We deny the sins we purposely made. Then we
consistently wriggle as our own minds taunt
us. The
problem with most of us is that forgot that we are
getting older and we may die anytime. I
give myself 5 more years to live. It is
interesting to see people who refuse to die
and fight for immortality. Again using money
by the millions.
We do have
people who are Jekyll and Hide who turn to
be angel when facing people and start to
suck their blood when they are facing the
other side of the world. With whatever face
they show, they are the worst of the evil
specie. They have everything in life but do
not feel secure and safe, fear of being assassinated,
paying the devil to do the dirty jobs for
them. They are trying to find happiness by
singing, dancing and show hypocrisy to God.
I cannot make
my wife and sister to come back alive. So
are the other love ones. Only the surging
memories bring sadness and sorrow. I would
not others to repeat the mistakes that I
have made. I was not good enough. Yet we are
still living in a tumult.
We can't lie
today and repent tomorrow, then lie
again after tomorrow and repent again the
next day. It is certainly of a strange
culture like a repetitive sine wave. We can't right the
wrongs we did, putting justifications for
our sins. The truth is punishing us for our
lies and avarice. Our generations will be
suffering. If we are stubborn enough to see
the real future then we will be losing our
own identity. Our repenting will be useless.
So far blindness prevail among us.
While we live
we might as well do as much good as possibly
can. Good deeds is reality and a substance
of life. Verbal promises are merely damned
garbage. If we die first millions of people
will celebrate with joy and extreme
happiness for the sins we may have made
before them. If our people sink an suffer,
no amount of tears will bring back the order
to their lives. There is no point to feel
sad and regret. We can consider dwelling in hell. If
we want to bring the diamonds with us to
hell probably God will allow it too.
I don't
believe a criminal, a murderer, a robber and
drug pusher know what a real happiness is.
It is our moment with God, our closeness to
the Al-Mighty that made us realized the
glorious moment. Our mind is clear as we do
not put other people in great trouble,
hardship and great distress. We don't have to deny that it is
not us who destroy our world.
21/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
CALL SIGN FOR RENT |
Malaysian
amateur radio operators do lend their call
signs to others. It is
a kind of pay-per-rent type. Current
authority, unlike the previous telecom
department, couldn't care less, to monitor
the radio band and take note and recognize
as well as identify people on the radio.
That's the reason, in the older terminology,
we would call it haywire is happening. As a senior ham
put it , amateur radio is a lucrative trade.
As far as money is concerned there is no
such thing as morality and wrongdoings.
There are always arguments to justify their
actions.
In the past I don't remember of having rogue and
lawless radio operators. What put it at the
acme of the hobby is the degree of
difficulty encountered to be among the
members of the ham fraternity. One has to
pass an essay type of
examination and the Morse codes. Morse codes
itself is synonymous to Ham Radio. "No Morse
codes, no ham radio" as one Indonesian ham
put it. There was
no way for an illiterate and the lazy person
to get through both. Hence ethics and
responsibility transpired from the
complicated process. Few may realize that
Morse codes are enhancing the standard of
amateur radio and thereby maintaining the
grandiose and the reputable standard of the
hobby.
There is no
point crying over the spilt milk. The older
generation is fading away. If hiring a call
sign has become a norm then be it. If a
special repeater is setup to be used by the
paid non-licensees then be it.
The number of
license amateurs are increasing rapidly. The
number of young hams are creeping slowly.
Hams are those who have passed the CW test.
Without them Ham radio would have been dead
long ago, leaving only the fellow amateur
enthusiasts including the CBers and the
non-licensees. Though all are given equal
liberty and freedom to be on frequency, the
different still remain, those who passed CW
and those who don't.
I was a
teacher. When there was a policy that the
upper secondary schools must be replaced
with the graduate teachers things change
completely. The school examination results
improved tremendously. The attitudes of the
teachers were different from the
non-graduates. I don't know what made the
difference. It is hard to point out the
contributing factor. I debated with the lady
teachers and I found them to be very sharp.
Nonetheless I maintained a few non-graduates
for I found their performance and attitudes
would be good to all. I was not wrong. Until
I left the schools those teachers were still
there.
Then I
realized that attitudes matter most,
probably more than university education. It
can be instilled through the upbringing,
learning the value of hard work and struggle
to attain success.
By the way I
am thinking of making a voice synthesizer
where people tie to their neck to speak with
my voice. They can rent my call sign for a
penny. By a year it will be enough for me to
take a trip somewhere.
20/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
HOME REPEATER |
HOME
REPEATER
Please
do not sneer at me and call me stupid again.
I am always stupid, and never to ask or read
about repeater. After Baofeng 5r, and a
series of experiments and trial and errors I
began to visualize how a repeater works.
I bought a
couple of small jacks for the output of to
an earphone and a slightly bigger jack to
the input of the microphone. Imagine, with
my blur eyes and shaky hands. I asked the
shop to solder the jacks to the 2 meter
cable I purchased. They said they were too
small to solder.
It was my
sole determination that led me struggle to
do the job. It was a crude finish and I had
to wrap them with the yellow tape. Baofeng A
is the transmitter side with the VOX set to
on. Baofeng B is set to different frequency,
which is called the OFFSET. The cable jack
is attached to the earphone where voice will
go to set A through the microphone jack.
Our home transceiver's receiving frequency
is equal to A. The offset is to transmit
frequency equal to B.
I expect some
sort of feedback from A to B or vice versa.
But nothing happen. Probably the power is
only 4 watts.
It is just
for fun. The next I will be thinking how do
power supply are attached to both of the
Baofeng if they are turned into a repeater.
You may
laughing and smiling at me. I can't see you.
Why should I be worry.
19/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
WE
SHOULD BE ASHAMED |
The whole
world is talking about it and blazoned in
their newspapers with the detail
stories about the trail of money. Being
stupid is a blessing in disguise. The
kampong Malays and the Malays in general,
who could not understand English and happily
living a lazy life. When I look back at
myself, being 5 years older than our First
Lady and 8 years older than the Prime
Minister, I better made myself busy with
something else. Only curiosity kills the
cat.
Whatever
happens had happened. Whatever is coming is
unknown. It could be much worse, the
unthinkable. The recent visit of Trump to
Saudi Arabia was not merely discussing the
bilateral matters. While sipping the Arab
coffee Trump could have quipped. "How's
Najib ? " We don't know what really
transpired. It only took 4 seconds for the
Arab Prince to smile and reply back. There
was always a possibility.
There is one
thing we have to understand that we cannot
kill an American in our land or the American
kill a Malaysian in America and telling them
not to interfere in our affair. It all
depend on their mood. If they are on the bad
mood they could execute some covered
operation as they had done several time
before. They could have blamed Najib
directly or indirectly in the pilot suicide
of MH370. It is very scary to think about
it. They are observing our haughtiness and
incalcitrant, how tough we are against
them.
Our dignity
and integrity will sink if we are caught
lying and lie intensely and extensively. We
usually took a few months to answer a simple
question. Then we asked our judge to
announce the answer. And we say since it is
the top judge of a nation gives the answer
therefore the world to accept it as the
truth. That is our logic. The Chinese and
the British are more cunnings. Like our
chief police who made friends with the
crooks, they too treat us very well. as long
as they could reap financial and other
benefits from us.
How much
money have we paid out to the foreigners to
boost our good self ? How much of our
sovereignty have we given to China ? As I
have said before a question is asked in an
examination, the candidates answered and
still failed.
Sooner or
later the DOJ report will reach every level
of our society. If they ignore it they will
be the most to suffer. Najib will raise
prices and taxes and will be telling them
that we are better off than the rest of the
world. This is not a wild accusation. He
promised flowers and sweets before GE13 and
destroy all the subsidies which had been
there since independent. Half of the Malays
will know the whole story and will decide
whether they were scams or otherwise.
It is not
enough to say that USA is interfering in our
affair and to say those are mere slanders.
Rosmah had to say that she did not have
those named jewelries and never met the
maker of the pink diamond. Because the
slander had caught the eyes of the world and
published in the international media, Rosmah
must sue DOJ for defamation. There were
suggestions that Malaysia could summon
American diplomat and sent him home and
break our relationship with the United
States.
Rosmah’s diamonds – Over
$200 million spent on gems
Altogether
$200 million was spent on
jewellery from 1MDB
All these
conspirators and collaborators, as
they are variously termed by the
DOJ, benefitteed to the tune of
millions from their association with
Jho Low, Riza Aziz and 1MDB. But,
no one to the extent of Rosmah
Mansor. The expense of the gifts
provided for her dwarfs the money
spent on the likes of Jho’s Mum,
sister (both beneficiaries) and even
Miranda Kerr.
After the 2013
election, the complaint confirms,
the remaining money in Najib’s
(‘Malaysian Official 1″) account,
$620 million was passed back to
Tanore, where it was then spent by
Jho/’Eric Tan’. It was from this
money that a $27.3 million necklace
was bought for Rosmah:
LOW ARRANGED TO PURCHASE A 22-CARAT PINK DIAMOND NECKLACE FOR THE WIFE OF MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 USING DIVERTED 2013 BOND PROCEEDSFunds traceable to the diverted proceeds of the 2013 bond sale were used to purchase a 22-carat pink diamond, set in a diamond necklace, (“22-CARAT PINK DIAMOND NECKLACE”) for the wife of MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1. The stone and necklace were purchased from New York-based jeweler and jewelry designer Lorraine Schwartz Inc., which specializes in high-end bespoke diamond jewelry. The total purchase price for the stone and necklace was $27,300,000.
Shortly after
the election, June 2nd, the
deposition relates, Jho texted
Schwartz: “Need a 18
carrot pink heart diamond vivid or
slightly short of vivid. On diamond
necklace urgent.” Later in
July 2013 Schwartz was invited to
join Low and Rosmah on Khadem Al
Qubaisi’s super-yacht Topaz off
Monaco to show the stone:
Aboard the
Topaz, Schwartz showed the pink
diamond to a group of people
that included LOW, HUSSEINY, the
wife of MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1,
and one of her friends
(“Malaysian Friend”). The group
discussed the design of the
necklace to hold the 22-carat
pink diamond, which itself would
be made of smaller diamonds.
The finished product
was presented to the
“VVIP client” in
September when
Rosmah visited New
York. It was just
the start, explains
the DOJ as it
carries on
describing the money
trail through which
such purchases were
arranged:
“This was far
from the only
time that TAN
and LOW used the
Blackrock
Account to pay
for jewelry
purchases for
themselves and
their
associates.
Between April
2013 and
September 2014,
the Blackrock
Account was used
to purchase
a total
of approximately
$200 million in
jewelry from
firms located
around the
world, using
funds traceable
to the 2013
bonds and the
2014 Deutsche
Bank loans.”
The next major haul
for Rosmah was
arranged the
following Christmas,
when Rosmah visited
her son in
Hollywood, running
up a massive quarter
of a million dollar
bill (paid for by
Red Granite) at the
Bel-Air Hotel,
according to sources
who spoke to Sarawak
Report.
During this stay
Schwartz was again
flown over to show
pieces to the PM’s
wife. She chose no
fewer than 27
different 18-carat
gold necklaces and
bracelets at a total
cost of $1,300,000:
|
Rosmah has
the right to own any jewelry she likes. It
is none of our concern. Didn't she say she
accumulated the money from her younger age ?
Didn't Apandi had told us to believe that
there is nothing wrong with 1MDB and the
money are in good hands and in good order. The rest of the UMNO members are saying 1MDB is making a lot
of profit. The rest of the world is jealous
of it's success.
Only the
world says Najib have been lying to the
teeth, about the money sitting in Singapore bank and
about the donation and about the money
purportedly returned to the donor. They
followed the money trail carefully and
interviewing the sources. Najib should have
not sacked his deputy, Ghani Patail and put
great fear on many people. Depth
investigation is still going on, the death
of Kevin Morais, Najadi and others.
We should be
ashamed to come out in the public as we have
been stripped naked to be viewed to the
world by DOJ. Rosmah and Najib should not
wait anymore. Shafiee is one of the best
lawyers. Wasn't he sent to USA to solve the
first DOJ's report ?
19/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
A LITTLE NEW
TOY BAOFENG UV 5R |
I
ordered a couple of Baofeng UV-5R for two
hundred an fifty bucks. Two meter equipments
and jargons are almost totally alien to me.
There are three buttons on the left side,
the top most for switching to listen to
normal broadcasting station, Below it is the
Push To Talk ( PTT ) and the last for a
torch light. Like any other dumb guy I
pressed all of them. That what Mr Bean would
do. I simply entertained myself enjoying
pushing buttons for nothing.
On the front
end there are three buttons staring at me as
if inviting me to press them. I did. I
pressed the orange button and there was a
sound saying "FREQUENCY MODE". I pressed
again came the voice "CHANNEL MODE". Then I
pressed the blue button and noticed the
small arrow on the screen moved up and down.
And finally I pushed the band button. The
frequency on the screen change from VHF to
UHF and vice versa.
To see the
various functions pressed the button that
says Menu on it. To scroll to see the
various functions I pressed the up and down
arrow key. There were many strange codes
appeared likeTDR-AB, BCL, MDF-B etc
All I need is
to work simplex which is straight forward,
and to work on repeater and store the
frequencies in memory. I browse
web pages and open the Youtube. I tried to
follow the instructions and found them hard
to remember, too long winded. moving from
Frequency Mode to Channel mode, entering
memory more than one time and had to press
the scan button to see the world r on the
screen.
Finally I
came across an instruction given by a boy
whom I think is about 12 years old. His was
simple. First key in the receiving frequency
and keep it in memory. Then set
the required offset and CTSS (tone). Store
it again in the same memory for the
transmitting memory. I
just did that and it worked fine.
Since I have
a couple of UV-5r why not I put one to the
normal frequency plus the offset and the
other one is to the offset frequency of the
first one. And the offset of the second one
is using opposite sign. If the first one is
-100, the second one is +100. Say my first
radio is put to 400.100 , the second radio
is receiving on 400.000. When the second set
transmit, it will transmit on 400.100.
The vendor
sent me with a couple of earpiece. I never
knew that was also a microphone. Our voice
is picked up by the earpiece. There is a PTT
on it.
I know people
have been using Baofeng as a little repeater
unit. I think it gives me some work to do.
THINKING. It activates my brain to work
rather than sleeping indolently and waiting
to die.
I just took
about 5 minutes to figure out about
repeater. Wow, it is just what I was toying
around. One part of the repeater receives
the frequency we sent, say 400.100. Our
radio is set at 400 listening frequency. The
other part of the repeater is set to
transmit at 400.000 after receiving the
input from the first one.
Yes, it is
elementary to all of you. But I have never
bothered to think or to know about it at
all. I just wanted to use it. What I need
now is two set of speaker-mic cable with
male jacks. I will also test with second
radio set to the transmitting equal to
the other receivers listening frequencies
without the offset. I think the output of
the first part being inputted to the second
one is ample to make a repeater as long as
the VOX is on.
18/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
ACCOUNTABILITY FACTOR |
Saddam
Hussein was hung by his fellow Iraqis not by
Bush administration for the killing of the
Kurdish and the rebels against him. He
denied of giving the order though there
were footings of the allege atrocities. His
brother in-law did it. He may knew or may
not knew of the command. It is his
accountability. We heard of Ministers
resigned from their posts for the errors
they knew not. When a boat sank due to the
negligence of the captain, the transport
minister took the responsibility. This is
called the accountability factor.
A person with
a denial syndrome will deny even if he
clearly shot a man. He blamed his hand for
doing it. Cut the hand and charge it in
court. If the hand can talk it would blame
the fingers. If the fingers can talk it
would blame the gun. No matter what the
Malaysian court said the inquiry of several
death continue to proceed. There were the
death of Altantuya, Najidi, and Kevin
Morais. The seemingly natural death
of PI Bala and Adenan Satem raised
suspicion, that he could have
been poisoned. Some investigations can be
conclusive and other may not.
We never know
whether the FBI or CIA are using their
stealth machinery in the covered operation.
If by our demeanor we are construed as rogue
specie, our records would be kept for further
actions, depending how USA looks at us,
whether we are double edge sword or crooks
of the first kind. It
also depends on how stubborn and arrogance
we are. We should also remember that when
the United States wanted to get rid of Muamar Gadafi, they did not declare war on
Libya. They bombed his homes as he tried to
escape death.
National
leaders lie. They can lie to others but
others are not allowed to lie to them. Once
they discover they are lied upon, and being
deceived they could be very mean and losing
control of themselves. They may look back at
the number of the Americans who were killed on MH370, the
number of microchip engineers and those
others of the American interests. If they
trace the series of death were to come from
the same source, they will put their heads
together of what to do with a man of their
target. They will put bits and pieces
together to see how the 9.5 millions to
Shafiee is related to MH370.
The series of
turbulence in the Middle East were not by
the American court order. Else Saddam and
Ghadafi would have employed lawyers to
proceed in American court to prove
of their innocence.
Malaysia is a
brave country, strong enough to kick the
North Korean diplomat home. She does not fear
anyone, not even the
United States. Once we shouted at them
not to interfere with our internal affair.
We asked them to look into their own
backyards. Now we have our big brother, the
powerful China.
Of course USA
will not bomb or attack us. All they have to
do is to confirm that Najib is accountable
for the series of death is enough. Saying
that they were murdered by gangsters are not
enough. There is always the next question.
Who hired the gangsters ? We can give the
answers. Like in the examinations,
candidates wrote the answers yet they fail
the exam.
Saddam did
not shoot his enemy but his people did. He
was accountable as the head of state. No
leader can escape from accountability
factor.
Check back my
articles on bad omen that is over clouding
Malaysia. I talked about coincidence and the
element of bad luck that dropped upon us one after
another. If I see the 9.5 million story as a
fatal horror, the others across the seas
would have seen the same. What more are
coming ? Najib has only one weapon. MONEY.
He is losing loyalty. And he does not trust
anyone anymore but Ku Nan, Shahrizat and
Keruak.
Till this
very part of my writing ( the paragraphs
above )I have not known about what had
happened to the said returned money to the
donator of the 2.6 billions in Najib's
account. We would never expect a
different story to appear. The money trail
shows that it was used to buy a pink diamond
for Rosmah. What an incredulous
co-incidence. Doesn't Najib know that the
whole world knows about it ? Probably the
people around him is trying to hide it from
him. I am sure 70% of his ministers do not
follow the international news and the social
media reports.
By now Najib
should have realized that the big amount of
money to clean himself is a monumental
waste. I believe directly or indirectly the
citizens are paying for personal glory and
security. Najib should stop juggling with
our money. We understand his plight and
difficulty and we sympathize with him.
He can always
take court action if slanders there were,
and not to wait a second more because
several nations have degraded him so low,
calling him and Rosmah thieves. It is their
honor at stake. And it is not good to court
the military for support and sympathy. We
don't want to go to war over 1Mdb, FGV and
9.5 million ringgit issues. And the United
States is not keen to bomb Malaysia also.
The exposure leaves us with shame.
Remember both
Saddam and Gadafi won their elections by
landslide. When a crime is committed it
cannot be erased by popular votes. Escobar
was a very popular man, and Osama was the
hero among the Muslims. But they met their
fate with death.
Najib says he
does not steal the money. I believe him. But
somebody steals the money for him and put in
his account. He says he signed the 1Mdb
documents without knowing what were in them.
He says he does not know it was the SRC's
money in his account. He is accountable for
all those. They were in his account and
documents were with his signatures.
All answers
given are like the answers in the
examination hall. Thousands of candidates
who wrote long answers still fail the test.
There is no
point crying blaming the foreign
investigators did not consult Malaysia, when
they came down to Kuala Lumpur Apandi showed
them cold shoulder. He did not want to see
them. Najib says Apandi knows better. So was
Ghani Patail and Kevin Morais. When we spin,
people put them on records.
Let us assume
that Najib is innocent, he still cannot run
away from everything. He is accountable for
the tragic happenings to him, the rakyat and
the country. It is a pity and a great
tragedy.
16/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
ONE DAY
IN MY BREAKING OF FASTING |
Everything is
getting expensive. From foodstuffs to a
single storey terrace house. Our rinngit
continue to flung in relation to foreign
currencies. Indonesia and Thailand beat us
by leap and bound. I spent more than RM20
for my breaking up of fast and Sahur for
today..On the first day I barely bought
descent food which cost me only RM8. But I
could not go on for the rest of the month.
I have a
strong alimentive desire for Terubuk, fish
with numerous bones but delicious in taste,
that cost RM20 for a small one. Each day I
passed the stall I took a look at it. It is
hard for me to spend for a fish of that
size. The bigger one I once consumed in
Kuala Perlis cost me RM140. It shocked me.
Today
I bought some kuih, put them on the plate as
seen in the picture, a packet of rice with a
slice of fish, an egg and a small squid
which cost me RM8.50, a pack of Bihun soup
and mango juice. It is a pure mango juice
sold at RM3 per packet, RM5 for two. I
usually bought two packets each time. The
sellers are young and beautiful girls. And
today they gave me an extra free packet and
snap a photo of me.
The two
packets were put in a cup as shown. The
third one is kept in the freezer.
I will start
with one or two pieces of the kuihs and the
mango juice. Then will go for my prayer,
rest for 20 minutes and will eat the Bihun
soup.
We have about
9 more days to go. The time is too very
short for many things that need to be done.
I have changed the color bulb that blew and
yet to hang some new sparkling and
glittering light. My shacks need proper
arrangement.
I don't buy
new clothing for myself. What do I need a
new dress for ? I am happy with my state of
the art watch, something precious that I
own. I think I look quaint enough with my
round collar T-Shirt and my Samsung watch.
My Sahur will
be about 3 am. I eat whatever are left,
usually I could not finish all and the
remaining will end up in garbage bin. My
maximum daily expenditure for food does not
exceed RM30. That is for me alone, not so
bad as compared to many other poorer and
jobless people. The maid who I used to hire
to clean my house once in a couple of months
just phoned me up lamenting of robbery in
her rented home while she went working,
taking all her money and jewelries. It's a
pity that poor people has to continually
suffer. She told me that the value of
rinngit is no doubt declining but in
Indonesia where she live it is not easy to
raise even a thousand ringgit.
Tomorrow is
another day. The spending will be around
that much and the routine does not change.
15/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
BE
PATIENT WITH WOMEN, THEY ARE WONDERFUL |
Today I went
to a bank to have some small change to be
given away to young and jobless adults who
may visit my house for the Raya. Unlike the
yester years when 20 cent was big enough for
the kids, today they could show a little
smile with RM2. For the last two tears I
hardly finished RM200. Kids were getting
fewer, either they have grown to be young
adults and shy to make house visits, or
their parents had given them enough money.
About three to four years every kid aimed to
buy a smart phone with their collections.
This year I
decide to have a RM400 change with a ringgit
and five ringgit notes. There was a long
queue. It took about 15 minutes before I
reached the counter. I gave four hundred
ringgit, 8 pieces of fifty ringgit bills.
The lady took two stacks of a dollar bill,
each contains a hundred ringgit. The she
took out a thick stack of five ringgit
notes, stared at it and pulled out some from
the stack and placed on the counting
machine. I was surprised it shown up 40
pieces. That was amazing. Deep down in my
heart, I respected that lady officer. A
woman.
I had several
graduate lady teachers who can argue with me
till I was cornered. They were truly sharp
and intelligent. They changed my total
perceptions on the acuteness and mentality
of the heavenly women. Who would expect when
God created Eve from Adam's rib, the world
is going have a woman specie of incredible
ability. And my account clerk who was very
efficient and meticulous in her work.
BUT on the
roads, when they are behind the wheel
situations may be different. Like wild men
they run the red light, overtook from the
left, never stopped at junctions and drove
30 km per hour. My student's son told me, "Cikgu,
mother always drives very fast and look left
and right at the people on other cars.." I
knew some were hell drivers. The worst of
some I saw were parking behind the parking
cars, which blocked those two or three cars.
And they just left their cars without guilt
or any consideration. Somebody published a
footing of a man reversing his car despite
the block. Imagine the amount of damage to
both cars.
Are men not
reckless as well ? Yes. It is like comparing
a man peeing while standing with a woman
doing the same show by lifting her skirt. To
some people in our society a woman peeing
like that is not normal and disgusting.
I remember
when I went to the States and bought a few
pair of shoes for my wife, I always chose to
go to women's custom officer, showed the
size shoes saying the size is not available
in Malaysia and told her they were all for
my wife. I knew a woman would understand
another woman and she knew such size was
almost impossible to find in this country.
Some husbands
prefer to let their wives to manage the
money for the family, even though she may be
a full housewife. They are more thrifty and
calculative.
I observed a
few men with a fussy wives like the Koreans.
They just ignored what their wives were
nagging no matter what. They served their
husbands as much as they nag and love them
that much too. Men have to be patient enough
to discover how wonderful women are.
Some women
with high taste may not fit penniless men.
It is nothing wrong for a woman to look
gorgeous, elegant, beautiful, dainty and
attractive. It is generally costly to be
one. If we can't afford, we can ignore it
and look for the less modern type. Some
women are beautiful enough without the
facial makeup and expensive clothing. They
can wear any color and any clothing they
will still look beautiful and sweet.
We have to
accept the facts that there are alarming
numbers of great women who are superior to
their male counterparts in all aspects and
areas, physical or mental. the error when
men were regarded as protectors of the
weaker sex are over. Women are also superb
in physical combat.
When a woman
pass you show your duly respect, never to
assume she is a weaker sex.
15/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
A WONDER OF A WATCH |
God has
blessed me with many miracles of life. Me, I
am a less educated and lowly person, without
ambition and deemed to have no future when I
was a kid. All I had wanted to be was an odd
job worker away from home. The whole world
is blessed too with the miracles of life.
But half of them are not aware of the
amazing stuffs they have with them. Unlike
us, we once live in the world where nights
were total darkness and pipe water was non
existing.
Now I have the chance of
donning a magic watch on my wrist, where I
can watch videos and movies, communicate
with my friends like a phone, and records my
health activities. Not even Mahathir or
Najib is using it yet. It shouldn't be a
surprise if all the top people are using a
more sophisticated the state of the art
technology gadgets. Theirs are the hundred
thousand gold watch with name brand. Imagine
the two watches wre put side by side, one
will show off the glittering diamond and the
other displaying all the magic tricks,
showing the many beautiful faces on it.
My smart
watch is Samsung gear S3 Frontier. It has a
wifi and a bluetooth. Though it has to be
paired with an Android phone for other work,
I prefer it to be standalone. With the web
browser available I have to be imaginative
to utilize it in the ways that I like. But
most of all I would put pictures of my love
ones as the background of the watch face.
When
I put the watch on my wrist I would forget
all the worries. I just enjoy looking at the
time.
Although the whole world do
not find it great and would not talk about
it, a Pariah like me feels differently. You
don't have to put an aborigine on a business
class on the plane, he will feel happy
enough to be at the tail end of a plane. It
is a kind of ecstatic burst to be able to
own such a wonder.
God has given me more than
enough. But I failed to give God the simple
things required of me. I have great lust and
desire, and committed sins time and again.
God granted me the taste of being a software
developer, and now the strength to express
myself in the language that I never passed
in school, sent me to the United States to
study, let me see the world of my dream and
gives me a good health.
I now have a watch that can
talk, an Android that reminds me when to
pray, Morse keys that give me a lot of
pleasure, a key-chain maker that enabled me
to make badges of my own likings, a 3D TV
made the actors within a foot away and lots
of movies to fill my empty time. Would I
want to be Shafiee, Najib, Khalid or
Mahathir ? NO, of course. What I need most
is the peace of mind, freedom and good
health.
15/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
YOU WANT TO
FEEL YOUNG ? |
If an old man
wants to feel young he should go to
Thailand. Splendid and beautiful women would
called him 'Abang' ( brother ). A Malaysian
woman of 50 would call me 'Pakcik' while an
English woman in England would call me
'Love'. Try the London women, more than 50%
of them would call their customers "Love".
It is alright
to be old as long as you are strong and
active and could walk 1.2 km within 10
minutes. What is the point of being 40 or 50
when you are lamenting of your sore legs and
feet, sick enough to go anywhere and to only
remain at home days in and days out,
spending thousands each month to find remedy
for a disease. The word Abang or Love is
meaningless. You can't enjoy the life of an
active person. You can't even fulfill your
desire.
A single
healthy old man should not try finding a new
wife, especially a woman above 40, how
beautiful they are. It is highly probable
that your freedom will diminish and your
enjoyable life will vanish. She may fall
sick and you will have to nurse her all your
remaining life. I have had nursed my wife
for quite a long years. Now that she has
passed away, I don't intend to find q new
replacement. Call me Pakcik, uncle or
Grandpa it will not affect me a bit. When a
woman call me Abang, I would smell something
fishy.
Remotely, it
is not impossible for a young woman to
submit to an old man and accepting him as a
husband. It may be due to the reason of
emotional and economic security. The case is
very rare and remote, may be one in ten
millions. You can be one of the ten millions
guys. I too may be the lucky man. It tickles
me on thinking of a young girl calling an
old man darling. More often than not even a
destitute young woman will reject a wealthy
old man. They would fall to the younger and
handsome men, employed or not, with money or
not. Many picked up spouses a few years
below their ages.
Taib Mahmud
has a very young and beautiful wife, like a
grand father and a grand daughter, but who
cares. She has more than what millions of
other beautiful women do not have. We have a
few hundred in banks and politicians have
millions and billions, beating us all flat.
If you have a wife be happy with her. If you
live alone and going to die soon then you
can forget about getting a wife, a companion
may be for chatting and telling stories.
Being old is
not a sin. Senility is not a crime. At least
we realize we are going face God and will
die soon. We don't have to fight ageing so
that we can repent and do good deeds during
the remaining years. Else we will be
recalcitrant, obnoxious, arrogance and evil.
We may spend millions for the elixir of
youths. If things do not turn right, we will
be Frankenstein. We may gain obesity. Some
crude and rogue people may relate our
obesity to the sins that we had made.
Other than
Thailand, the salesgirls in Vietnam and Lake
Toba acted likewise. Women would pull your
hands, embrace you and call you 'Abang'. It
is a cheap thrill but exciting enough for
us. At some places they may even hold your
private part, really a kick. Again you have
to have enough money for the kicks. What if
you have none ? Then stay home and dream and
wait until your heart comes to a stop and
your brain cease to function.
13/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
DO NOT
QUESTION OUR LOYALTY |
The Prime
Minister first asked the military to be
loyal then asked the Social Media to spread
good news of the country. But there is
something that Najib must not pretend to
forget; Najib is not a nation and the nation
is not Najib. The nation comprise of the
people. The military is always loyal to the
nation. I am loyal to my nation, probably
more than the Prime Minister. And the Social
Media tells out about what Najib does to the
denizen and their money, not about the
cannibalism of our people, the nation.
Time and
again Najib called for the people to die for
him. And time and again the people say we
can die for our nation but not for him. If
Kim Jun Unn were to declare war on this
land, we will fight and prepare to die.
Similarly if Najib is not doing good things
we cannot expect the social media to deny
his wrongdoings.
Najib has
done a lot to promote his own image. He has
done more than enough that drained massive
resources from the nation. In doing so he gave a bad picture of the Malays of being
terrorists. The law on terrorism itself is
enough to tell the world how bad our country
is, the nest of the murderers.
Our issue is
too deep and too hard to be forgotten; about
the death of Altantuya, the murder of Najadi,
the death of Kevin Morais and even PI Bala.
Money was being paid out to IPIC twice, the
bogus and the real ones. The SRC money were
used for personal luxuries. People were
heavily taxed, subsidies were lifted to pay
for the poor financial management. He sacked
his deputy and those who questioned him
about 1MDB. And now he is associated to pay
the judge to imprisoned Anwar that led to
the possible missing of MH 370. If the
judgment against Anwar happened because of
the 9.5 millions then that is the price that
took the lives of those on the MH370. Some
sources suspect it was due to pilot suicide.
The pilot was very unhappy with the court's
decision. It could be that thick and ghastly. The misdoings
are too deep rooted. How could the Social
Media not put them in writing ? And those
horrid speculations came from the foreign media.
Today the
Social Media wrote what were spewed out to
them. If Nazri said the sheep is black, the
media will publish the same words, that the
sheep is black. What does Najib expect the
media to blazon ? If the administration is
not happy with them then they can always proceed with the
legal action. People have long been waiting
for Sarawak Report and WSJ to be sued in
English and American court. We have a motto
that MONEY IS KING. The Chinese proverb says
YOU CAN PAY A SATAN TO PULL THE BULLOCK CART
FOR YOU. We can always sell our country to
find the money. There is nothing to worry
about.
Keruak,
Rahman Dahlan, Nazri and now the EX-IGP love
to make statements calling Mahathir senile
and blaming him for our misfortunes and
economic downfall. Media just conveyed that to the rakyat.
How could that can be assessed as good or
bad news ? Those were the news from
the few people giving statements to condemn
the oppositions. It was the reader who
responded to those statements. Some with
absurd arguments and some contain hard facts
and strong rebuttals. The world read all of
those,
the exchanges between the people and the
ministers. They made their own conclusions.
Some time ago
I narrated a story about my traveling on a
bus in Los Angeles, telling about the bus
driver shocked me with a question on Anwar
Ibrahim, a waiter in London restaurant
passing a remark about Malaysia not being a
Muslim country and about someone in Honolulu
asked me how Mahathir was ( that time
Mahathir was the PM ). People came to know
about Malaysia without our Social Media.
They get news from their own sources.
When I
traveled outside the country, I never like
to talk politics with people of other
nations. I want to enjoy the siesta, having
good food and the comfort of the hotel room.
I want to appreciate the beautiful scenery
and study the people's behaviors. In my last
trip to Egypt NONE of us talked about
politics at all. It was not our job to
promote or to condemn our nation nor our
leaders.
Najib should
not question our loyalty to our nation. We
don't sell our interest and our land to
foreign countries. Only the traitor does. We understand what honor
and integrity is. But
we won't die for a man who has been causing
us so much problems, pain and hardships.
I never
expect the drama is dragging this far. I
only asked "WHAT'S NEXT ?" If Trump were to
have a cup of coffee with Obama to ask about
Najib then Najib can brace himself for the
worst. I keep on asking myself how many
time had Rosmah been phoning Donald Trump. I
would guess that the world is waiting to
hear another version of donation story about
the 9.5 millions. This is a fatal issue that
can lead to much bigger and deeper trouble. Are
you a chess player ? If you are try to
compute as far as 20 steps ahead using the
traditional logic of if and then.
|
TAKE 5
MINUTES TO PONDER |
I think the
whole world is observing Najib as much as the
Malaysians do. They read the social media
like any other Malaysians. The Americans too
saw how Najib dealt with Obama as well as
Trump. So were the investors and those with
interests in our ringgit. Foreigners are
human too. Some are people of high moral
standards, smart and intelligent. Business
community are not fools without education.
They are people of high caliber.
They can make their own assessments and
analysis. Would
they simply listen to Mahathir, Lim Kit
Siang or Najib ?
No amount of
money can change the perception of some
world leaders including the new President of
the United States. Najib cannot buy every
head of states. Any such attempt could cost
billions of taxpayers money. Malaysia can't
afford to use GST and tax money to boost
personal image of our leaders, without the corresponding
economic growth and expansion. Expenditure to boost
personal image in this situation will push
our rinngit down. The Thais and the
Indonesians are getting better each day
comparing to our country.
Najib
administration is telling the Malaysians and
the world not to believe in Sarawak Report's
lies. PAS said it wanted to persui
legal action on the Social media on the
slander about the alleged 90 million ringgit
given by Najib to the party. And the
Malaysians are persuading Najib to proceed
against Claire Brown in English court for
the series of slander. The latest was about the 9.5
million paid to a senior lawyer by the Prime
Minister, which was claimed used to corrupt the
judge to put Anwar Ibrahim in incarceration.
Sarawak Report was really a menace. But what
we may not know is that the
social media was fed with documents and
information from the
insiders. May even be from the close friends
of the Prime Minister. But we can be sure
that these documents
would also traveled to other countries to be
perused by their national leaders. People are getting smarter
nowadays.
We all
remember the story of a Prince with an
invisible dress. If he travels to China,
Indonesia, or the United States do you think
those leaders would jump to tell the King
that he was naked ? Only a stupid boy would
yell, "The King is naked ha ha..." They talk, drink and eat
cordially complementing and praising
him. Similarly I
strongly believe that those ladies around Rosmah are
are trying hard to please the First Lady,
"You are really gorgeous and beautiful
and getting slimmer each day..." That's the
way the world is
today. The favorite term used is "Cari Makan".
If we
understand all of the above scenarios and put a
thought to it we can be much wiser. We can
save lives. money and our energy. We don't
have to live in fear and see apparitions of
demons coming after us.
Just take 5 minutes to ponder about the
world, the people we are dealing with and
about ourselves. Remember sins against God are different from
sins against men.
A Prime
Minister cannot ask the police and the army
to protect him from God's wrath nor pay the
Almighty to place him in heaven.
12/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
IS LC CIRCUIT
DEAD ? |
My suspicion
turned out to be true. Radio technology has
long changed even before I knew it. I
thought the LC circuit in the front end of a
receiver is still relevant. Radio signal is
no longer chosen by the LC portion picking
up only the signal we want, turned it into
an IF after the mixture stage. The nature of
the IF differs from the previous one. Now things
has change. I would say that RF of different
stations are taken in together, immediately
convert to digital structure. There may be
10 or 20 stations in the radio. We pick the
station we want. The job is done by a single
microchip, no more variable condenser and no
more coil.
But the
capacitor and inductor stuffs are still
relevant and useful. They are used in making
the trap and even the band pass, to block or
allow signals of a certain frequency. The
question is DO HAMS NEED TO KNOW ALL THESE
NEW TECHNOLOGY ? Radio structure and
architecture is undergoing massive changes.
The late realization caught me up only when
I started to show interest in the Icom 7300.
I know I have to slowly familiarize myself
with the new concepts and systems. I think
it would be tough for radio authority in
Malaysia to include them in the RAE. There
are many new terms involved and there is no
literature in Bahasa Malaysia ever been
written yet.
In several of
my articles I suggested that RAE should be
abolished if we were to argue of the
licensing system base on relevancy. I argued
that if Morse codes are not relevant in the
modern world, so were the RAE. Else the
curriculum content of the RAE syllabus must
be changed. Modern radios are machine made.
Old hams had to solder components to make a
transmitter. It will be very soon that all
the straight and super-heterodyne receivers
will be off the shelves.
I don't know
how long it takes for a 70 plus ham to
understand the fundamental concept of
sampling related to the radio signals. How
to elucidate the abstract facts ?
Whatever
decision made has to be a philosophical one.
In higher science, like Quantum, science and
philosophy almost unite when they were
discussing the behaviors of the electrons
which behave differently when observed and
not observed. They discuss omnipresent and
consciousness and reality.
I talked
about ham radio as a traditional entity
versus ham radio as a dynamic entity. It is
my view that ham radio has to stay
conservative like religion. And we have to
be serious in looking into it. If not we
will live in absurdities. So we have
licensees who talked much about double
conversions but could not narrate the
conversion process, ham who boasts of his
immense knowledge can't even explain Rf
choke and the tune circuit. a ham who said
he constructed antenna to be given away but
can't even do a simple soldering.
If ICOM7300
has begun with the sampling and the ADC, the
rest will follow suit. And I am sure we can
learn more about it from our radio expert
9W2TZ. Hanafi is more in a position to tell
us whether the LC circuit is dead or will be
a prominent feature in time to come.
11/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
ANOTHER
JOKE OF THE CENTURY |
Man, this is
not about politics. It is about one of the
comedy series that I am fond of downloading
and watching. This is about a story of 9.5
millions alleged to be given to Shafiee by
our Prime Minister at an inappropriate time.
Some hackers get the information of the
alleged payment and distribute it around.
Among the recipient was Sarawak Report,
which published it on the website, perused
by netizens and the foreign embassy
personnel. The wide and bad mouth Malaysians
jumped at the news and started to fantasize
the unknown behind it. The Prime Minister
and Shafiee did not response to deny it for
several days.
The answer
should have been simple, YES or NO. Instead
of the accused providing with the answer,
other people came up with a rescue. That was
not a joke. But the joke is when Musa came
up with an answer and the response from the
public were quite hilarious to me. I am sure
the foreign diplomats too are reading them
and could not help laughing.
Try to
imagine Musa Hassan is surrounded by these
people and pounded him with such wild
attacks, what would he do ? I would imagine
he would shoot everyone of them at point
blank. I don't know who should be ashamed
for the exhibition of the engagements, Musa
Hassan or the rowdy public ?
To the
non-Malay readers I would like to appeal to
them not to generalize the minds of all
Malays originates from the ancestry of Musa
Hassan. He is just trying to be nice and
good. Nazri, at least is far better. He did
not deny of the amount paid to Shafiee but
pointed out that would not influence
judgment. Najib could also have said that he
did give the money just because he likes
Shafiee. So what ?
When I say
the joke of the century it is not about Musa
but about the anger of the netizens and what
they were spewing out.
10/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
CW LET'S
BE A MEDIOCRE |
To
be honest I don't really know how 12 wpm
sounds like. With shaky hand due to ageing
process and the deterioration of muscle
movement my sending is inevitably slow. How
fast can I send and decipher the incoming
signals with this condition ? There are tenths of thousands of
hams like me. We are not computer prodigy.
Neither do we have the mean to buy machines
to work Morse codes for us.
Even the young people are not CW genius. The
new comers who are just beginning to learn
Morse need a slow speed messages. We have
always thought that by our slow sending the
other party would reciprocate to our speed,
Our expectations always betray us. Probably
less than 2% would comply to our request.
And we also be facing problem when somebody
sends a train message like HELLOHOWAREYOU at
a great speed. I would see blank. Some are
considerate enough to slow down with HELLO
HOW ARE YOU. If you see the Thai writings
you will find that they are continuous
like a train, something like "Iliveinbangkokthailandforthreeyearsno,iamveryhappytobehere".
We would expect a gap between words. When I
sent messages to a friend allowing gaps
between characters, he would yell at me not
to have gap between them. "Just don't
combine the two characters together, but he
wanted me to have gaps between words. I felt
sorry to myself for causing great
inconvenience to him. I blamed myself for
the bad sending. I should have transmitted
at a comprehensible speed with gaps between words.
When we are on the radio talking to a person
for the first time we need to be clear with
our words, and to spell our names slowly,
for we don't know whether the other person
is young or old, having good hearing or
otherwise. Similarly on the CW, we can't
assume the other side is an expert like us.
There is no point showing our prowess by
sending 40 wpm to all the stations we work.
If you are a master, a high speed ham, the world
is still wide open for you to have a high
speed ragchew among the titans. It gives a
chance to other listeners to practice
copying the contents as well. I myself love
to follow some of these groups and listening
to them for hours on end.
The joy of the medium speed CW is it gives
leeway to both sides to do other things
during the communication, like going to a
restroom, making a cup of coffee or even
taking a short bath if the bathroom is
inside the shack. Of course we need to head
copy the messages. It sound weird. But that
was what I used to do when having ragchews
with the late YB6LD and 9M2ZN. It takes more
than five minutes for each over, at times 15
to 25 minutes.
I would always encourage new comers to use
their minds, not computer, to work on this
mode. For an old man like me, I need my mind
to be active and alert. Deciphering codes
mentally is making it active. It is good for
mental exercise. Of course mind's activity
increase with the increased of it's speed. Computer
dependent will slowly kill your Morse
ability. Without a machine you are dead.
Remember, knowledge can be found in books
and internet. But CW skill cannot be bought
with any amount of money. It cannot be
injected in your body or acquired through
the myriads of drugs. It is in yourself. You
take a hard time to acquire it. It is one of
the greatest and most valuable gifts given
to you by yourself. Don't lose it. We
don't have to be an expert CWer. Let us just
be a mediocre.
10/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
|
HOW IS
AMATEUR RADIO IN MALAYSIA ? |
"How is amateur radio in Malaysia ? " A
question like that will make me mum, mainly
because I do not follow the trend and the
progress. A few
things I heard here and there cannot be
construed as a general rule, to portray
the nature and
character of the current situation. At times
I perused the Facebook to peep at what's
going on. For good or bad I
have just deleted the application from my
Android today, leaving me with one less
social media news and info.
My activity is restricted to Morse
communication below 7.030 at the moment and
would switch off my radio after the
completion of the chat. It wasn't like
yester years, the era before the new amateur
radio system, when ten to fifteen hams would
come on the band operating at different
frequencies, yakking away until dinner time
and sometime in the night would begin again
from 8 pm till past midnight. The merry days
ended after several jovial hams went silent
keys. There would be at least five each from
Penang, Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur. Happy hours
began after office when everybody came
back from work.
It is me myself who is to be blamed for
locking myself out from the band.
Once in a while radio friend dropped by my
home and telling me about MOTA, TOTA and
HOTA. I listened more than spewing what I
didn't know. How could I say anything when I am
locked up in my cocoon. "Who are on 40 ? " I
would ask them. "Did you hear Hanafi, Aziz,
Kamal and other old hams ? " They shook
their heads clockwise and anti-clockwise
which I
understood to mean NO. I know that much. And
recently news of 9W2ZU was passed around in
the Whatsapp, about her sickness and her
death.
Reading the Facebook, the engagements among
fellow hobbyists, the terms they used, I can
only put bit and pieces together, like a
jigsaw puzzle to see what's the total image
looks like.
I conclude that changes happen with time. It
is hard to compare an apple to an orange.
The younger generations are omniscience. The
older generations are corroding. They
are worlds apart.
If we ask the new generation "How is amateur
radio in Malaysia ? ", everyone will be
gloating of it's fineness, greatness and of
the immense progress in networking and
hardware usage. Certainly the new stuffs are
alien to the living old hams. There was no
glamour in the past.
I don't even know what happen to the old and
senior hams but a few. Raden Lokman used to come on
the band but he was laughed off by the new
comers and hid himself away. Eshee is
bedridden. Zainal hang off his ticket. As to
the rest, I really don't know.
With the increase of radio enthusiasts it
opens up to the new economic activity. Radio
equipments are easily purchased from the
local market without much hassle. Walkie
talkies are everywhere. Some people are
getting rich by the radio business. Once we
have to get the supply from Singapore or
Thailand at astronomical price. Radio
vendors would be worried if the market is
stagnant. I wonder with the drop of the CW
requirement how much extra sales the radio
vendors in USA were getting. Surely this
change is for the better for the Malaysians.
It save time and money. You pay today you
get the goods the next day, delivered to
your doorstep. I bought a paddle from One
Communication for only RM350.
It would be great and interesting if
strictly old and senior 9M2s can meet and
enjoy eyeballing for the old time sake,
recalling the joyous moments of their
experiences. A casual meeting of ten to
twenty folks would be enough for the
occasion. We could have a Karaoke, story
telling, jokes and tickles each other. Call
it a gathering of the senior ham family if
you will. It would be nice to hear the way
we talk, the old ham lingo understood by us.
Our problem is our mobility factor. Peng is
less mobile than Au. We are caught in ageing
process.
What is left in us is the spirit, the ham
spirit. The band is not for the senile hams.
It is for the omniscience and the prodigy.
Amateur radio population today is close to
30000. One senior hams is working for one or
two million members, pointing at
Thailand, Japan and Indonesia. I could only
wish him the best of luck. Out of the 30000
there are bound to be one or two bad apples,
the cheaters and deceivers, levant, and the
braggarts.
The first thing the new
generation did was to correct the SOP
practiced by the old hams, which chased away
the old guys from the band. Should I
mentioned these people ? They called the old
hams stupid including Dr Ken
and the rest of the old timers were called
to prepare for their death. One of their legs
was already in the grave yard. The nuisance are
forgiven but not forgotten. It is not that
we do not have the audacity to mention those
names, neither scared of the thugs but we don't
want to be equally foolish. Thanks for the internet
that provides another save haven for us.
Satan is only one. But look at the damage
this one guy does to the world. It is true
that mankind is
not Satan. But the roguery was bad enough, a
sign of unsound mental and physical health. The constant jealousy and hatred in
a person will end him in hyper-tension,
heart problem or even cancer. We just pray
that the sick amateur radio operators will
go for the constant medical checkup. Don't
die before the old hams die.
Is amateur radio that bad today ? NO. A few
people are. They are not always on the radio
band. Out of the 30000 there are many young
brilliant operators, working hard to better
themselves, well verse in SOP and the
technicalities of modern gadgets, adopting
the states of the art technology and putting
up gigantic towers and antenna. There are
many fine CWers who made themselves heard
all over the world using their fists to
paddle the codes.
It is that much that I know from a few new
ham friends who are in contacts with me.
How is Ham radio in Malaysia ? My late wife
would say, "Ask Mr Knows all..", the
omniscience Malaysian amateur.
09/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
HAM
RADIO-JAKARTA TRIP |
I
have purchased the air ticket and the hotel
room for my five day trip to Jakarta Ham
Fair mainly for the love of CW. I want to
enjoy the Morse competition not as a
participant but merely as a spectator. The
first time I watched the event was last
year, at the same place. I paid RM1 K for
both, four nights at Fave Hotel ITC Jakarta
and the return ticket of the Air Asia. I
travel alone from my home town, the rest are from Kuala Lumpur.
I think it is good for the Malaysian CW
lovers to watch the amazing competition.
Thereby they could assess their own ability.
The five people in white are
Indonesian CW net controllers.
The Ladies on my left and right can
go at the speed of 50 wpm. |
We have many fine CWers comprising of
young lions but they are too busy with their
jobs. They are government servants and
could not get leaves for the trip. Our
champion 9M2ROL will be attending the
fair.
The pictures you see on this page were
taken from 2016 ham fair. Both male and
female had to sit for the same test
category base on speed. There was no
male or female category.
This time I
intend to record the event using my camera,
not the smart phone.
The
participants were from all over Indonesia,
even from the remote islands of land.
The spirit were very high.
Beside the
ham fair and the CW competition, I also want
to enjoy myself free of all strain and
pressure, to relax at the cheap but quaintand
splendid
hotel, willing to spend a little for
delicious food.
I have yet to
think what sort of souvenirs I will be bring
to the CW participants and the officials
managing the event. The most affordable are
the badge pins and the key-chains because I
have the machine and the materials to make
them. But what to put on the pin ?
08/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
DO YOU
BELIEVE THIS NEWS ? |
I don't
believe this junk news but I love to look at
Shafiee whom I used to see during university
days. He had to be younger than I am as I
joined the university as a teacher while
Shafiee was fresh from school. Astonishingly
he is as handsome as before. I did not
remember seeing him on the speakers corner.
But Hishamuddin Rais was there almost
everyday. Mahathir knocked the corner down
and banned all student's demonstration,
which he now wish it is there and the
students would take to the street.
Ibrahim Ali
was the same badge but he was not in the
university of Malaya. Rosmah Mansor was
around in the campus. So were Shahidan
Kassim, Adnan and a few other ex-ministers.
Rosmah has been stunning all the while,
elegant and sparkling, known to many female
students.
If you
believe in mystery and astrology then you
will find the work of constellation on
people born within a certain period. They
were all great men, born to be well known
and famous figures. That's why it is not
enough for Rosmah to be just a house wife.
The destiny is almost similar.
I just don't
remember Anwar Ibrahim during those days.
All I remembered he was in a lockup too for
the demonstration.
A great many
people knows me when I don't know them. Why
? In lecture theater F, one of the biggest
lecture hall, I was in the most front seat,
sitting on the chair a few yards from the
lecturer. I would fix the microphone
whenever it gave problem. So when Adnan saw
me, he would wave at me. So was Shahidan Kassim
when he was a Chief Minister. But I was less
smart than the others and that saved me
aplenty. If I were too smart I would end up
like Shafiee. If I were to ambitious I would
be in jail. If I were too concerned about
people I would end up like Hishamuddin Rais.
Being stupid I am just like Ibrahim Ali.
Problems in
politics are not for us to deal with, said
our Egyptian tour leader, when referring to
the ancient history of the ancient kingdom.
God will deal with those sinners. If we
cause turmoil it is we ourselves who will
suffer, he said. I even felt that Najib's
money crawled into this man's pocket then.
Amru, his name was, was somewhat talking of
the Hindu concept of Karma, the comeuppance
of Islam. He loves Najib.
Ever heard of
divine democracy ? I am sure nobody has,
because it has not been coined before. It is
just in existence. It means the freedom of
choice given by God to mankind. If mankind
choose to suffer then he suffers. If they
choose demons as their leaders then they are
happy to be whipped and kicked. They love
it. When they are in pain they blame the
people on the other side who have nothing to
do with them at all.
There are
humans who love to be evil and do evil,
pushing drugs, robbing and murdering. God
grants their wishes. If I could I would want
to choose the good and safe path, distancing
myself from greed and avarice, avoiding the
rogue leaders who fear no God, who reject
goodness and religion.
Look at
Shafiee, how handsome and elegant he is.
Among our
contemporaries several big guys have gone to
meet God. Many are bearing the red flag of
UMNO. Shafiee being a Mamak may have the
traits of longevity.
03/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
NEW BREED OF
CWers |
Some of you
may get offended by this article. But I
would like to stress that I am
only expressing my view without any hidden
intent to belittle or to insult anyone. A view
can always ignored and soon vanished in the thin air.
In my
perspective I don't see
Ham Radio is equal to Amateur Radio but
it is a distinct section within it, a group of
people who adopt Morse codes as part
of their radio hobby. An illegal
radio station run by a radio enthusiast who
has similar interest is also an amateur
radio operator. Not to be left
is the CB radio operators. Ham radio has
been associated with Morse codes for decades
until it's requirement was not made mandatory. To
me the death of Morse codes mean the death
of Ham Radio. What we have now are radio
hobbyists, communicating on the air using mix
radio lingo. We used to identify CB and
pirate lingo and reject them. But today they
are commonly used by these hobbyists who
called themselves hams. By virtue it is not wrong
at all because it is the nature of the acceptable new culture.
I am very
wrong to assume that the new generations
would totally reject Morse codes all
together. In Malaysia there
is a small number of people who strive to
sit for the CW test, sacrificing their time,
money and energy, attending classes,
practicing it and traveled
hundred of miles away to sit for the exam. In each test there were
only about a quarter who get through. Those
who failed apply again for the subsequent
exam. The spirits have been high and
commendable.
Amazingly,
the new generation of Malaysian hams are
very proficient and attain a high level of
skill in sending and copying ability. They
are generally better than the existing old
hams who keep themselves absent from the
band. It is these new hams that resurrect
the life of the HAM radio in this country. I
always told them to practice it to ensure of
the skill's sustainability. I would
encourage them to have a regular ragchew
rather than the short rubberstamp contacts.
9M2PJU,
9M2GET, 9M2AGC, 9M2OUT, 9M2ROL are among
some of the fine CWers of the new
generations. The latest on the training list
is 9M2YDX who learned Morse from Afiq and
Hairie in 2 months and passed the test
within three months. He is doing very well
now with more than 18 wpm ragchew CW.
We have more
than 20000 license amateur radio operators.
Do we hear any 5% of them on any band ? I
guess a big number is just monitoring. If
the 20000 were to go one step further and
learn Morse codes , a portion might revert
to CW for mental exercise, deciphering the
codes while listening, and feel the pleasure
of communication using Morse.
I am an old
ham with a mediocre skill in CW. I have to
salute to the new young people who have
shown a high level of proficiency and
ability. They learn fast
and their skills are amazing.
02/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
A SIMPLE
KEY COST MORE THAN A THOUSAND RINGGIT |
A straight CW
key costs USD600. With our currency it is
approximately RM2500. Would you spend for a
key at that price ? If you won't other
people do. People actually buy the beauty,
the workmanship and the aesthetic sides of
the key. A beautiful key can charm us. Mind
you this is not the era of the mandatory CW
pass to be on the air. Yet there are
millions who love to own one and they are
proud to talk about it, not bragging of the
high speed capability but telling about
their 8 to 12 wpm communications.
I
had tried to paddle the thousand dollar key
at a Hamfest before and felt the comfort and
delicacy of the touch. Someone told me that
they were expensive because of the gold
plated tips. Buying one is just like buying
a Picasso painting at an auction. If Rosmah
is a ham she would own a gold chromed key at
her disposal. If I have
the money I
would I have the same.
Indonesians
hams use straight key to send Morse in style
and form that beat the computer translation.
I wish I could send in a way that the other
side would not be able to comprehend me with
a machine. A CWer must be able to use his
mind to read and send. At a CW contest in
Jakarta it amazed me to see how the
participants copied Morse at high speed.
If you don't
like Morse codes it is of your choice. You
are free to leave it. But don't make enemy
with those who decide to sit for the test
and using it in the course of their
communications. There are more than 20000
hams in this country they can speak to on
SSB or FM. Why pick a few hams who love
Morse than SSB ?
You don't
have to spend a thousand or a hundred
ringgit for a straight key. You can always
make one for your own. A stapler costs only
RM2. Use a little imagination to turn it
into a straight key.
02/06/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
OLD AND NEW
PERCEPTIONS |
A friend said
that the Radio Amateur Examination (RAE) is
important to ensure a licensee knows the
Operating Procedure well. I did not response
because I know new people in amateur radio
have their own conception and interpretation
of amateur radio. It is not strange to run
up repeaters for general public who pay to
use them, or non-licensees to come on HF/VHF
frequencies, individuals broadcastings
on the air, or a man with a club call sign
giving talk to people at different places.
For the old hams they learned through SWLing,
short wave listening, to ham and non-ham
communications. That's where when the
communication receivers came handy, like the
Sony ICF5900W. Old hams corrected each
other's mistakes and discussed the rights
and the wrongs. We the SWLs learned a lot
from them through listening. The SWLs period might have been as
long as two years minimum and knew ample
enough of the ways of communication. The RAE
was to ensure that hams knew and comply to the
regulations. And we knew pretty well what
the pecuniary motives meant. The technical
aspect of the examination was to make sure a
ham understand the working of a receiver,
transmitter and an antenna. I could not
imagine how they would fit the second part
of the RAE to the modern gadgets of today.
Having passed
the test would a ham be able to design a
protective circuit to prevent damage to a
transceiver in case of reverse polarity DC
power connection ? And today I don't know
whether the tune circuit is still using the
old principal. I doubt. Modern technology
has progress far and wide. It may have had a completely changed.
Hams who
passed CW had to come on the mode for one
year. Nobody dared to break that rule. And
we listened to CW contacts too, learning the
group chat, how to pass back for a question
and the abbreviations used. But then there
was no internet yet to gather facts on ways
of the hobby. The only source of information
was from friends and the hams.
There is an
old ham group in the Whatsapp. Malcom, Peng,
Weng and me are the oldest. Hanafi, 9W2TZ,
insisted to be in the group and Au took him
in it. The group would have welcomed Bahar,
Rajamani, Sanggat and a few others too. Malcom resides in Australia and would
occasionally used ham terms during the chat. Nobody wants to
come on the air anymore. Whatsapp never
fail. It is something that was never dream
in the yester years. These people would not
care as what happen to Malaysian amateur
radio. Their views on the objectives of the
RAE will turn out to be very fuzzy to the
new ham generations. Certainly it is not to
instill the knowledge of the SOP.
Ham world has
now been a part of commercial kingdom, a big
business of radio equipments, facilities and
antenna. Unlike the old days when radio
enthusiasts had to combine tubes,
resistors, capacitors and coils and solder
those parts themselves to be on the air.
Today even a dipole is sold. One does not
require any knowledge on oscillators or
balance modulators, or even the formula to
cut a dipole. There are tons of them in the
market. There are thousands of people who
don't even know what RAE is but are active
on the air.
My friend was
partly correct to say that RAE is to know
the Operating Procedures. The
technical know-how is irrelevant. Unless it
is categorized as a traditional and cultural
package, the relevancy to the modern world
could be dismissed. There is a test of
regulations and procedures, the the
technology of basic radios and transmitters,
the antenna and propagation, and finally the
Morse test. More than half of the new
generations would reject it outright. The
free and floating interpretation of anything
pertaining to amateur radio will stay as a
norm. That's the reason why in Malaysia we
have the MOTA, TOTA added to JOTA and IOTA.
And there is a walking Club going about
preaching what amateur radio is.
Attempts had
been made by 9W2TZ, Hanafi, to resurrect the
old hams. Nobody seemed to show any
interest. Hanafi tried to coax a few of his
close mates, but he failed to revived the
glory of the past. He did all he
could to make 40 meter to be opened to class
B so that he could speak to the old hams and
to recollect the reminiscent of the past.
The world is
too far apart between the old hams and the
new. The old hams are too old and sickly and
one leg is already in the grave. Their minds
are slow and archaic. They cannot match the
new hams in any field. The young ones are
vigorous, more knowledgeable and skillful.
Moving out of the fraternity and facing the
other side is more peaceful and comfortable.
31/05/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
A BIZARRE
FUSE |
I
have an ICOM 756 Pro3 and one FT857. They
were virtually left in a cold for a good
many years. Several days ago the Icom power-off by itself after several minutes. The
power off time was faster as days fast,
until the rig could not be switched on any
more.
I checked the
fuses on the power cable for continuity. It
was hot when I held it. Then I opened up the
top cover of the transceiver and tested
the circuitry fuse. It was also fine. I
would not dare to meddle with any other part
of rig. They are Greek to me. I put back the
cover with a sad feeling for I though it could not be resurrect
anymore. Deadly dead.
I switched on
my Yaesu. It was too noisy compared to 756
Pro3. It swirled in my mind to buy another
rig with adjustable bandwidth and adjustable
RF gain. One Communication in Shah Alam listed two
sets with
such a facility but they are not cheap. At
the same time I tried to browse the websites on
the ICOM power-off problem. Nothing helped.
Intuition
seemed to whisper to my ears to check the
voltage from the power supply and along the
cable path. I did. It was 13.8 volt at the
source. But to my amazement the voltage
across point A and point B of a fuse were different. I
plugd this cable on my 857. Likewise, indeed there
was no power. Then I was so sure that there was
nothing wrong with my lovable 756. The Yaesu
cable was plug to the ICOM and at the same
time, I changed
this mysterious fuse. How could a voltage
drop differ between the two points unless it
changed the property from a fuse to a
resistor. The fuse wire should have broken
when excessive current passed through it. It
didn't. I concluded that it was this heat that built
up the
resistance of the wire.
I still
am wondering what gave me my second thought to
check the voltage drop before and after the
fuse. People in the websites have been
discussing similar problems without even
realizing that the possible fault was
outside their radio. Who would if all the
fuses looked fine, unbroken and there were
continuity ? Probably faith, hope, logic and
determination combined to inspire me examine
the cable.
Once probably in a lifetime we
would come across a bizarre fuse like this.
30/05/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
CARVING
OWN'S FATE |
I think I
need to try, requesting somebody for a
100K loan. I wonder what sort of response
will I be getting. I was approached for a
300K loan. I said nothing because it is an
absurd amount.
Then there was a plea for a lesser amount, a
100K. My mother used to say ,"What do you
think, Am I am a bank ? " So were many other
people would throw the same answer. What
made them think that I am very wealthy and
loaded ? Because of my frequent travel ?
The person
seeking loan drives a BMW and donned gaudy
dress while I always have an eight ringgit
shirt on me, at home, in public or in
foreign land. I have a car that could not be
sold even for RM50. I save more than half of
my pension for traveling, the rest for food
and utilities. What have I to give them loan
without collaterals but mere verbal promise
to pay ?
I won't bear
the sins of the sinners. If they have
planned for the future and for the rainy days
they would not have been in such a very difficult
positions right now. They were too smart and
too haughty to listen to
advice. They chose the path to disaster,
instead of the safe path we showed them. And in
the first place they should know that I am
only a
retired old man, struggling hard on my meager
pension, wearing shabby dress and driving an
old Kancil.
Funny, some
people can easily forget things. I have seek
their assistance to send me to the airport,
a bus or a railway station whenever I wanted
to go traveling. But they were always
busy. I had to solve my own problem. They knew
it yet they have the audacity of asking me
for a 100K loan. I would not lend them any
even if the cash is in my hands.
Sometimes I
do think that it is better to stay away from
people, friends or families. To die alone is
more peaceful than being among the people
who always drive me crazy, torturing my
mind and strike me hard with horrid words.
In fact I have requested on migration
procedure and the agency is waiting for my
CV and other detail information, just to
find a peaceful santuary.
How could I
live in peace for just 5 more years without
people bothering me with their plights and
problems which they themselves created it ?
I wish I have
the big money as my friends used to have. I
don't have any other property but the
current home. I don't run any business. I
live on my pension fund. I travel on my
pension fund. Don't they think of my
situation ? I feed my cats with my pension
money. I managed it from God's providence.
For my own sustenance it is more than
enough. What would I do if I have a hundred
thousands ? I keep it, not lavishly spend
it. I told my friend to save when their
business was good. It just fell on the deaf
ears. I was shock to know they don't even
have a 10K of saving. They have had a
million before, the amount I would never
have dream of.
These were
the strong people in UMNO. Years before I
have pointed out what UMNO had done to the
Malays. The whole family argued out with me.
They
glamorizing the party, the savior of the
Malays. Obviously I had to
tell them to seek the help of the their
beloved party. It was impertinent of me but
it was the only right thing that they can
do. Why ask a Pariah for a huge sum, not Najib or Rosmah who own the whole of
this nation ?
I feel sorry
for them and sorry to those who committed
sins on themselves. They carved their own
fate and destiny.
29/05/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
THINKING OF
MIGRATING ? |
Most people
migrate to find a greener grass on the other
side, for a much better life in the new
land. America has been the land of
opportunity, where immigrants from Europe
landed by waves, long after the Puritans
decided to leave England escaping
persecutions from their own Christian folks.
The greatest and most numerous were the
Chinese, brought in by the locals to work in
mines and railroads. In the 20th centuries
other nationalities were employed in
commercial and agricultural fields. Economy
has been the man reason.
Not many ran
away because of political oppression. The
movements of the Vietnamese to the United
States were inevitable after the downfall of
the non-Communist Vietnamese government. It
was the cordial relationship between USA and
Korea, and the poor economic condition as
well as the Korean Wars brought them into
the United States. Today everybody is
looking for opportunity anywhere to migrate
for the better life.
At seventy
plus, I am thinking hard of going away too,
where I can vanish from my family, to find a
peace of mind and to make the best use of my
remaining days, a tranquility. I know
several people who were frustrated with
their spouse or kids and ran away from home
to some unknown places. It was just simply a
conflict of thoughts. I hate excuses and
arguments. What hurts left a big and deep
scar forever. The kids or the spouses would
demanded for submission or forgiveness. But
not everyone could forgive and forget. I was
made that way.
A lady friend
does not know where her husband went, dead
or alive, since the '70s. Another knows
roughly where the father went but does not
exactly know where. There a big number of
missing adults persons in this country and
the world at large. Many migrates without
telling anybody.
I can sustain
myself if leave my home now. I am thinking
hard about it and the country I wish to go.
I have told my late wife's relatives that I
would be moving out of my house sometimes
after my wife passed away. She passed away
in 2015 but I am still at my home. I talked
to my students about going away. She did not
encourage me. Somehow the time will come.
Once I packed my bag and drive out of this
town, I will never return home again.
You may be
wondering why I want to go away, far far
away and lead a solitary life. I will never
regret.
I released my
frustration to only one person. After I die
the story will be told. Right now I chose to
be sullen.
|
WHY
WASTE MONEY |
A
shop is selling a manual Morse key like this
for RM350.00. You may be spending about
RM100 if you order it from the E-Bay. To me
RM350 is too high. It is not a question of
affordability but whether it is worth the
money. We don't even pay for the
workmanship. It has no aesthetic beauty
itself. You can pay if it costs you for less
than a hundred, or around that price. You
may not have time to construct one.
Each ham has
to have two keys, for working high speed and
speed at below 12 wpm. Instead of wasting so
much money you can alternatively find for a
substitute. I found a mini paper stapler
costing RM2.50. I split it up into two parts
using a hacksaw blade, and fixed it to the
table using a double sided tape.
Well, what
you need to do is to solder the two wires to
the two parts of the stapler instead of
using a clip as shown here.
If you have
excessive money then by all mean you can buy
anything you want, even a hundred thousand
ringgit antenna.
Even after
splitting the stapler we can still use it
and brings it along with us for use as both
the portable small CW key and the paper
stapler.
The thrill of
ham radio is home brewing. Of course buying
is less fun. This is not homebrewing. We
just made a little modification. Simple
gadgets give us some kick. I go for the cost
saving ventures.
|
DON'T BE TOO
HAPPY KEDAH |
We are mere
spectators. Most of us prefer to pay to
watch the game, willing to queue up for
hours under the blazing sun for a ticket. It
is not one or ten but there are tenths of
thousands of us, the soccer fans, the
fanatics. Some could play the game, a few,
like me, do not. But that does not stop us
from spending big sum just to enjoy the
match. Beside us there are a few
individuals, who are not players nor
administrators, are within the the inner
circle of the team. They get free passes and
mingle themselves freely with players,
coaches and officials. These people know the
players well, the planned strategy and the
team organization, far greater than us, the
spectators.
At every
match we could view the game and the pattern
of the movement very well, of being at a
higher level of the stadium. We could see
who consistently made the passing errors,
who can dribble and who would always lose
the ball. And when we yell at any errand
player, we were not wrong at all. There were
thousands of us making similar judgments. It
is true that we are not the professionals,
nor a football star. That does not mean our
judgments are always wrong. We know the
strength and the weakness of our own team.
Kedah had
just won the FA cup, beating Pahang by one
goal, Kedah scored three and Pahang two.
More than 70% of Kedah's supporters admitted
that the second half was a dreaded game,
stopping our breath, and shattered our
souls. It was not a tactical stance at all
on the part of Kedah, but Pahang had
overpowered the enemy under spell,
possessing the ball, and controlling the
game, stole it from Kedah's feet and
fiercely charging into Kedah's zone, wave
after wave tirelessly, only failed to put
the ball in the net. Kedah was exhausted and
saved by luck. It was the referee's whistle
that blew all the hell and tensions away.
The supporters became themselves again,
alive and relief and singing and dancing all
night long.
They said
that it was winning that counts. But it
didn't play like a champion. The second half
was dreaded and scary. It was not
entertaining at all. At once it strike in my
mind that there was some lacking in coaching
procedures, failing to exhibit as what
Robert Albert and Azraai Khor had done,
ensuring consistency from the start to the
end. Ramon Marcote and Shebby shared similar
views with the spectators.
I do not
suspect corruption though I could suspect
runners for the bookies. It was just our
team did not expect the resilience of the
challengers to fight back that fiercely. We
had not prepared enough. We had not expect
such a convulsion.
Liridon, a
brilliant player, failed to score when
facing a goal keeper one to one on several
occasions. So was Ken. If anybody had took
notice of these they would have discussed it
and find remedies for them. Akram always
made errors in passing the ball to the foe.
He too must be told to correct himself and
to be more careful and alert.
Winning the
FA Cup is not a decision to affirm Nidzam as
a full time coach. We first need to know
what contribute to the winning of each game
rationally, free of sentiments. What if we
take out all the import players ? Will our
performance be the same ? I doubt. But once
we became champion with the complete natives
except for Hussein who resided between the
border of Kedah and Perlis.
If nothing
change on Kedah side, the team will surely
be facing a grim Malaysia Cup tournament.
JDT and Pahang will whip the FA champion for
revenge, till Kedah has no place to hide
it's face. The coming games will be the
battle of wit, mental prowess, resilience
and stamina. Other teams strive to enhance
their abilities. I would not be too
confident just because Kedah emerged to be
the FA Cup champion.
22/05/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
MANAGE
THE GROUND FIRST |
I retired in
2003. Since then there are a lot of changes
in education system. The last I heard was
today. Schools are now busy with a new
system which they called the education of
Higher Thinking Order. Being away from
education system for a long time, the idea
shocked me greatly. So far in this country I
have not listen from anybody giving
presentation like that of TED. Speeches from
the politicians were the worst, without
shame protruding our system of thinking,
full of fallacies and contradictions. Our
top educationists even forbid school
teachers from thinking and expressing their
ideas.
To me the
Higher Thinking Order system is likened to a
sky kingdom, from the geosynchronous orbit
upwards, and above that is an alien kingdom.
Our schools do not even reach the aerospace
physic yet. Our boys don't even know the
elements, the waves and the light yet. And
now we are telling them of the sky kingdom.
What we have to do is to manage the ground
first.
You can't
think without facts and knowledge. Students
have to know how to work on numbers
mentally, the addition, subtraction,
division and multiplication. Abstract facts
need to be well elucidated. Could a student
of physic explain how a radio select
different stations ? Could we visualize the
relationship between an electron flow and
the electromagnetic wave ?
The knowledge
is a mere tool to be applied with the help
of a language in the thinking process. It
has to be wide enough to allow a person to
compare and contrast, to see the
relationships among them and analyzed using
facts and logic. The following effect is
always obvious. People cannot talk of
quantum if they don't know atoms. They can't
talk about atoms if they don't know
elements. They can't talk of consciousness
and reality if their visions are myopic.
The
prerequisite for the high order of thinking
is freedom of thought and expression, depth
in a certain body of knowledge. Malaysian
educators have not attained the required
standard of mental state where sciences and
philosophy unites, neither could achieve
successful transformation of imagination
into reality. Hence we should not blindly
follow the Western education experiments.
Our system gives preference to obedience
than intelligence. Open minded and critical
thinking has no place in our society. We
close the door through censorships,
brainwashing and the command of complete
obedience.
Try to ask a
question "...what cause our ringgit to
decline..." , before you answer the question
through analytical process the answer will
be fed to you and you have to accept it. It
has no place for the rebuttal. The higher
order thinking has to lay down the facts
before and the facts after, to analyze all
angles of possibilities that could have
caused the downfall.
There is no
guessing of the religious and facts of
sciences. There is no such thing as "I think
5 plus 7 is 20 or 30 plus 30 is about
61...". There is no such thing as "...I
think zakat is not necessary..." In medical
science and engineering and religion
precision are required. In logic circuits
creativity and logic are essentials. In
politics lying and deceptions are their
daily refreshments.
To avoid
wastage of resources and another repeated
social and economic failures the
educationists are reminded to look before
they leap. In the meantime they have to make
sure the basics are well imparted. They must
manage the ground well enough before jumping
high into the sky.
19/05/2017 ABDUL
RAHMAN RAOF
|
MY TRIP
WILL END SOMEHOW |
Words and
phrases that came to my ears about
traveling; which is the best country you
have ever been, have you ever been to the
whole world ? Rahman has been throughout the
world, but he has not found any lady for his
wife yet, this bus driver has been
throughout the world, Cikgu, what will you
be doing after you have completed visiting
the whole world ?
No. I have
not been to everywhere. I will never finish
the world. I have not even been to many
interesting places in my own province yet,
nor my state nor my country. A low class
outcast like me have to cut corners here and
there, saving a little for my future and a
little for my trips. When people bought
gifts and souvenirs, I didn't, not because I
was thrifty but because I didn't have money.
I didn't
travel to look for opportunity like looking
for a wife, or to elicit funds from wealthy
travelers for my private school. I travel to
see places, people and their culture, and to
fulfill my dream to be there at the
historical places. Sometimes I want to eat
good food at places I know where food were
delicious. You always feel the God's
providence, blessing on us, the less
unfortunate among the people of higher
echelon. If a wife of a Minister could fly
by a comfortable private jet, the lowly too
are bestowed to fly even at the rear end of
a cheap carrier.
It is the
hardest to find a wife while on the trip. A
Playboy can easily pick up any girl on a
street. He can take, use and throw. A wife
is forever, in happiness and sadness, in
health and sickness, in poverty and in
abundance. You can't pick up a woman whom
you hardly known. If you don't know a woman
for three years how could you know a woman
by a couple of weeks on a short social
intercourse. Yes, I saw many beautiful women
on the trips. But I always felt very scared
of them.
It was an
Indonesian maid who asked me what I would do
after I have seen all the places in the
world. I employed this maid on a time rate
basis but I paid her on the piece rate.
Though it is RM10 per hour, I would pay her
a hundred ringgit when she completed the
required task, which would be about three
hours. "Mila, from next week onwards till
about a month I will be making a trip to
Makassar and Egypt. I will not call for your
service," I told her before my last trip. I
usually took her once in a month. It is in
her imagination that I am a globe trotter.
On one of these days I will have to tell her
that my traveling is over. I am tired and
short of money.
Those who
have nothing to do but to envy and happily
ridiculing the others I would not care and
bother them a bit. I drove my students to
successes and happiness. They in turn have
served their kids and families and God. If
God will even a pauper can enjoy the global
trotting. A boy working on a Thai train was
happy to narrate his trip to Barcelona and
Brazil to watch great games of soccer. "My
boss sent me and paid for all my trips," he
told us. God does not make heaven only for
the rich and the famous. Not even Najib can
buy a ticket to heaven. Money is not
everything. It takes a very chronic sickly
person to tell us between good health and
banks of dollars. You will feel the despair
when someone you love rejects and leaves
you, in spite of you being a tycoon. A
lonely and well to do person was known to
shoot himself for an unknown reason.
Belittling the others is not a noble
profession. It is a form of sickness.
My next trip
is to Chiangmai in August this year. I have
paid for the trips and the local domestic
flights to Kuala Lumpur. The tour agent
informed us of the slight change in the
itinerary. Malindo air will not land in
Chiangmai but at Bangkok. I computed that we
will be wasting about 8 hours in all. There
will be a lot of rushing here and there
making each site visit shorter. In all I
would have completed three trips this year
alone. The total expenditure would cover my
funeral and other death rites.
Really, I am
eying the E-Hang company in Guang Zhou. I
fantasize it is a great dream for an old man
like me. I want to buy 2 sets of the heavy
duty drone motors for a project. I need to
find someone to draw a blueprint of the
object from a draft I will be making again.
I had already made one but I don't remember
where I put it. As for now my pocket is
empty. But I will make sure my dream
remains.
Whether I
like it or not I know my active life will
come to a stop. Even this blog will cease to
appear. It will be a time when I will pray
to God to take me away the quickest. No more
looking for a wife nor for a accompany. The
maid will be wondering why I do not call her
anymore. My cats will get thinner and
meowing for me. It is nothing to be sad
about. It is a cycle of life. For those who
are immortals, and could defy death with
money, we wish them luck. Rosmah is always
young, no wrinkle and no hoary hair. Her
comfort is the glorious life she is leading
now. Our comfort is when we forget the world
and the humanities.
God tells us
to bring with us what we are told. And so we
need to strive to do it. No glittering gold
and ornaments, no private jet and and cozy
bed and no body guards.
18/05/2017 ABDUL
RAHMAN RAOF
|
A
TEACHER'S DAY |
Teacher's Day
may never die. Many of the teachers were
gone and forgotten. We don't know where they
were interred. Like many of us the teachers
die too. But the spirits live. Those who
were once a teacher still bear the noble
pride of being one, and having an ecstatic
feeling of the atmosphere of this meaningful
day.
We are the
forgotten lots. But no one could make us
forget that we were once a teacher. Everyday
people call us CIKGU, the Mamak shop, the
people we met and the people we don't know.
I look back
at the pictures of the school I worked
before. It is not the same anymore. The face
has changed. May be for the better. The wall
of the rest room was knocked down, the
structures erected by the students were
taken down and even the name of the school
has turned into a college.
To us
teaching was a sacrifice, with a divine
intent of making our students to be
successful in life, as a responsible
citizen, wise, pious and filial to the
parents.
I had never
been a good teacher though I tried to be
one. Wisdom grew with age and time. We had
had the good
and
the bad times.
But I never
regret of being a teacher. My teacher was
not a graduate but he made me into one. One
of them cried when I accosted him and I
asked him, "Sir, why do you cry ? "
"...because
you remember me," he replied. Indeed he was
my primary school teacher and I left him
more than 40 years since. When my old and
retired teachers visited me at my school, I
treated them like VIPs. They were indeed my
teachers.
I would
always remember my friends, the dedicated
teachers who had been working very hard to
make our school the bench marking
institution. They lie deep in my heart. Many
have retired like me. Truly I will always
appreciate and adore them.
We celebrate
the Teacher's Day by congratulation each
other from home. Those in schools are
entertained by their students, playing games
and receive gifts. I have not even having my
breakfast yet. I have to begin with a brunch
after I have finished typing this piece.
You may have
seen how Mr Bean hilariously celebrated his
birthday in a solitary home. Solitude does
not saddened me. It inspires me to look for
old pictures and made some postings on the
Facebook. There have been responses from my
students.
Thank you to
my teachers and happy Teacher's Day.
16/05/2017
|
THE TOPICS |
Someone
commented that my Facebook postings were
always gay and happy, rich with stories of
joy. He was the same person who fiercely
attacked me when I passed a remark about his
posting displaying a small Myanmar militants
with sarongs holding machine guns. I said
the attire was not proper in a war. that was
all and I never argued with him anymore. He
had been following all of my articles
published. Those were the articles I cut and
paste, taken from my blog.
My blog is
not for public perusal. It is just a venue I
used to release my emotion and feeling,
releasing the tension and pressure to cool
me down. But I always know someone is bound
to stumble into it, may read a few articles
and soon forget about it. It is also the
chance I take to write in the language that
I failed to pass in every test and
examinations, a language I once abhorred. It
is a fulfillment. And I paid for it. To a
few friends I whispered that I have a blog.
I did not
invite the guy to visit my website nor
telling him that I have one. He is just like
any other Facebook users or UMNO Cyber
troopers who are ruled by sentiments rather
than facts and rationality, the lack of
analytical ability. Fighting with them is
just like fighting against the dumb wall. I
remember seeing a drunkard yelling and
shouting at a coconut tree. The best is to
forget them.
My stories
have been full of grammatical and spelling
mistakes. I did not do any proof reading as
my intention is never been for broadcasting.
I admitted to those friends who told me that
from time to time they visited my site. A
few told me they love to read on political
stuffs. I cannot fill all the pages with
political stories. I don't earn money out of
praising or condemning political figures.
And I cannot change the world by cursing
them. Rosmah never change despite my
swearing about her lavishness and demeanor.
Like many
others I have sad things happening in my
life, the hurt and broken heart, the
bleeding, the mental and emotional agony.
They are heavily suppressed in my mind, not
to be blazoned in media for the masses to
know. I don't want to stay in sufferings
all my life, for I may die in five years
time. Why should I post all the sad things
for people to read ? Some wives were telling
the readers about their husbands and
domestics problems. Others venged personal
attack on family members or their enemies.
It is not
that I do not think of finding some non
partisan topics to write to avoid politics
but they do not convulse themselves in the
thin air for me to pluck. The ICF5900W was
very coincidental. The Bus Ride in Los
Angeles came to my mind when thinking of
going to the airport by bus. The Three
Worlds We May Live To see was written when I
was thinking of designing a man carrying
quad copter. An Incident At A College Gate
was to remind managers that they should be
careful in discharging their duties.
Writing has
to be factual and true though the other side
may deny them. When there is a need for a
conjecture it has to be stated as a guess.
When Altantuya was murdered people were
asking questions as who ordered the killing,
who approved the C4 bombs. The two officers
cannot act on their own accord. So were
obvious questions and the obvious guesses.
It is that much that we can do, nothing
more. People do not like to hear the truth.
Leave it to God.
Ridding
beyond imagination is to be able to see into
the dark side of the unknown. It is
dangerous to open your mouth, the ability to
see behind MH370 incidence, the grim fate of
the nation and the Malays. You can touch
only on the surface but not detailing the
dark part of the mystery of the unknown and
the unseen. If I could I would narrate where
the GST and all other public funds went to.
But I could not. A few has the clairvoyance.
They too prefer sullen and calmnessl,
leaving things to God.
I am not the
kind of person who would entertain such kind
of a facebook user as above, and others like
him. I live in sorrow as well.
16/05/2017 ABDUL
RAHMAN RAOF
|
REKINDLE
ICF5900 |
Way back in
the early '70's and 80's the old hams were
crazy on Short Wave listening. They use the
old salvaged war time receivers like the
AR88 dropped from the plane for the military
immediate used, big, heavy and monstrous.
They were not portable. The Japanese came
out with the smaller portable versions. I
remember 9M2CF, Chow showed off his super
sensitive receiver the ICF 5900W.
No shop in
Malaysia sold communication receivers or
receiver with the BFO for security reason.
They were banned. Somehow we either beat the
two radios together to decipher Morse codes
and the SSB singnal, or smuggled one from
our
neighboring
country. ICF 5900 was cheap, less then RM300
but it was an incredible radio. I brought it
anywhere with me just to monitor the daily
40 meter local ham communication.
Today is year
2017, almost 42 years later, I was surprised
to watch an in-flight movie on Qatar air
entitled Before Mars depicting
the same hardware with an exception, of
having a microphone-plug attached on it's
side as shown by the second picture on the
left.
Hannah Seung
was using the radio to communicate with a
rocket ship heading towards Mars using
144.49 mega hertz. She was calling A1SS.
Surely it was a fictitious
movie
but the present hams would surely be asking
a lot of questions. Was the person who wrote
the story a ham, an old ham or a new comer ?
Why he chose the receiver ICF5900 instead of
designing up a new radio of a new shape and
form ?
Radio
enthusiasts can have the pleasure of
scanning the You Tube searching for
Before Mars, only a 33 minute
entertaining movie.
15/05/2017 ABDUL
RAHMAN RAOF |
THE FATE
CREATED BY UMNO |
When you
accused Najib for destroying Malaysia and
drowning the Malays, the Prime Minister
blame Mahathir for failures in Forex and BMF.
People were asked to be either anti Najib or
anti-Mahathir lest the Malays realized UMNO
was leading the country since independent.
They carved out the policies, rules and
regulations, manage the nation and national
coffers. Now the party is trying all out to
shake off the responsibility and out of
nothing blaming DAP for all the treacherous
and dismal failures.
Put in a
simple term if Mahathir robbed a million and
Najib robbed another million, UMNO had
robbed us the total sum of two millions. But
Najib is putting the Malaysians and the
Malays in a more difficult position, the
worst ever sufferings of the Malays ever
experience in the history of the nation.
Their arrant stupidity, foolishness,
gullibility and short sightedness are solely
to be blamed. They continued to choose the
same leaders time and again.
The Malays
have decided to choose their own destiny,
happily designing their own bleak future. A
man who lose his job under Najib vehemently
defended Najib, saying the whole world is
suffering from economic woes, believing that
Malaysia is the best country in Asia and the
best among the Islamic nation economically.
A Malay woman defending the rising cost of
living saying that Malaysia has food to eat
and things to buy despite the rising prices
of commodities. My wife was a strong
defender of Rosmah Mansor despite suffering
from all sort of sickness before she died. "Rosmah,"
she said," is the wife of a Prime Minister.
She has the right to don any expensive items
she likes."
I live during
the era of Tan Siew Sin and know how the
country fully used the nation's wealth for
the benefit of the denizens. There were
subsidies then. Unfortunately I live to see
how our coffer was plundered using various
ways and means now. And the first time I
have been seeing a national leader is
running around for personal security reason,
distrusting even his UMNO supporters,
selling land to foreign country and spending
tons of money worldwide to clean his image.
People are
asked to compare their lives with people of
other nations as a mean of deception, to get
their approval and the hardship they caused
on the populace and the crimes they made.
What we need to do is to compare us with
ourselves, between what were before and what
are now, the taxes, the cost of living, the
prices of houses, the crime rates, the
unemployment of youths and the missing
billions.
My concerns
and worry is penned down not for the perusal
of others. I would whisper to only one or
two to visit my blog. I know nobody can do
anything to halt the blunder. Life will
continue to deteriorate and worsen till the
Malays vanish from this land and become a
debase minority, the outcast of this land.
They will be labeled as the terrorists and
thrown into dungeons.
Had I not
foreseen that it is the Malays who will rise
against their chosen leaders ? Had I not
foreseen they will be dragged, kicked and
incarcerated ? I said them before the world
of internet and I repeated them again in my
blog. I argued and challenged it in the
Facebook. But sadly enough the Malays chose
to burry themselves. Only if they look back
into the past, compare with the present and
predict the future.
12/05/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
IT IS
FATED. ASK GOD |
Why asking
too many questions ? Both Islam and
Christianity discussed the ideal and
concepts of predestination, which in Muslim,
is Qada and Qadar. Fates decide what the
rulers and people in power would do and
fates decide what the denizens would
receive. If we live long enough we will see
the design of the fate. We already have seen
one. And we will wait for another. Insya
Allah.
|
Why
kicked and punished those who asked
for clean and fair election ? What
is the different between a Zionist
and UMNO ?
|
|
EGYPTIAN
TRIP |
It was on the
29th of April 2017 when we took off from
KLIA by Qatar Air at 9.15 am, transit at
Doha for 3 hours before departing for
Alexandria. Again pictures speak louder than
words but there are too many of them to fill
the space. So I try to choose some to give
my friends some pictures of what Egypt is
like compare to us.
|
All
along I have been visualizing
pyramids located at a distant
location in the desert. May be it
was. They keep a small portion of
the desert for it. The rest was
conquered by concrete and
structures. In short It is
surrounded by the city of Cairo. Our
tour leader discouraged us from
entering into the pyramid as there
is nothing there anymore. What is a
sphinx then ? It was not a god or a
mystery. It was a wasted stone that
the King wanted to throw away but
the subject promised the king to
carve it out beautifully and let it
be not thrown away.
In
Cairo we were brought to the Papyrus
factory, Al-Azhar mosque and the
city tour. There are the clean and
the dirty part of the city,
unfinished structures with iron bars
protruding. And beggars are
everywhere especially around the
mosque area, inside and outside
people are asking for money. |
|
|
|
|
From
Cairo we were to take a train to
Aswan, a 12 hour night ride. The
cushions probably were as old as the
train, making me thought that the
Egyptian simply do not care about
neatness, the absence of aesthetic
value. |
The
train ride however was quite
comfortable to me except for the
dingy cabin. A dinner and breakfast
were provided. |
Aswan
dam is for the Hydro-electricity.
Not all the populace like it as it
sacrifices much of the Egyptian
culture and community.
It is
still a pain in the neck till today. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
After the
visit to Aswan dam we were brought
to the cruise boat. Call it a ship
if you will. It was the best ever
hotel we ever had in Egypt. On the
first day, after checking in, we
went to an island of Botanical
Garden by small boats. It was good
for relaxation, free of dust,
and enjoying the fresh air..
The Nile
cruize was from Aswan to Luxor, our
last port of embarkation. |
|
Amazingly our local tour leader in
Aswan, Mahmud, knew how to read the
ancient Egyptian writings. He
translated the meaning of each image
in a calendar, explaining the
meaning of the eye, the image of the
characters carved on the wall.
Our
boat anchored at nearly all the
ancient temples.
As I
said, heat was our first enemy. The
blazing sun dried our throats and
burnt our skins. Dust were there all
the time because it is their home.
We
were taken on the horse ride to the
Valley of the Kings where |
mummies of kings were processed.
During the mummified processed all
the organs were taken out. After the
intense cleaning the heart was put
back in the body. Each king had his
own mummified chambers. |
|
When
we went back to our cruise ship cool
wet towel and a drink were prepared
for us.
This was
May. I could not imagine the June
and July temperature. |
The
whole theme of the Egyptian tour was
on the ancient Kings of the old
cities ruling before Christianity.
Alexander the Great, Cleopatra and
Pharaohs left a long history.
Pharaohs and Cleopatra were not one
but several. Moses, Musa, was the
name given by a Pharaoh, which means
the son of the river.
We
were three nights on the cruise
boat. The top deck, the Sun deck,
was too hot during the day time. We
would be there during the night
time, appreciating the sceneries
along the Nile. The last there was a
fabulous show of belly dancing. Our
women stayed away from fun.
|
|
|
I caught flu
on the last day in Egypt and it got worst
when I arrived KL. Now I am still having
consitent coughing and high body
temperature. Thanks God I somehow manage to
briefly documenting the the land where I
always want to go, to touch the historical
pyramid.
10/05/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF
|
MAKASSAR 19 -
23 APRIL 2017 VISIT |
When Rusli
asked me whether I would join him to
Makassar I accepted it immediately.
Makassar, Ambon, Ternate and a few more
islands were mentioned in the history book,
known as spice islands that attracted the
Portuguese and the Dutch to this area in the
15th century. I was anxious to know how
Ujung Pandang is like now in the 21th
century. We took Air Asia on the 19th April
2017 from KLIA2 and three hours later landed
in Sultan Hassanuddin Airport Makassar.
Pictures
speak louder than a thousand words. I won't
want to say more than displaying a few
photos to represent the sketchy picture of
the place.
But I would
like to say something about the food we ate.
We were warned by a hotel worker foreigners
have to pay more for
everything.
We ate at the
hotel, two well known restaurants and the
roadside stalls. The average price for a
hotel meal was RM25, spicy but lovely taste.
The Nelayan restaurant charged us about RM60
with plenty of crispy fried prawns and
squids. We could not finish all and had the
squids and the prawns packed for our hotel
worker. The most shocking was the meal at
Dinar. A couple of crabs, 6 pieces of
prawns, rice and drinks cost us RM240.
The cheapest
was a complete meal with big fried fish,
sambal belacan, rice and drinks was only
RM12 for two persons. It was darn cheap,
nice and delicious. So be careful when
visiting Makassar on your own.
Basically
Makassar is like any other city in Southeast
Asia. There are efforts to beautify the
town. The roads are Mac Adam, no holes here
and there. There are industries.
To my
assessment the population of Sulawesi are
better off than in Malaysia at the present
moment. But we were told that there were
thieves and robbers at night in some part of
the city area.
We were told
that there was a Red Light area like those
in Amsterdam and Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur
too.
We had to
leave Makassar on 23rd morning, taking a
normal taxi that cost us about RM50 plus the
toll. In Makassar the passengers got to pay
the toll. Toll roads are not everywhere but
to the airport, else you got to take the
congested normal state road.
I would
advise you not to go the theme park. It is
not a real attraction. They just want to
make money. It is a stuffy place with only a
few rides. Parents took their kids there
when they went for shopping at the park
mall.
will cont. when we
come back from Egypt ( Wow...I can't finish
the story...) |
MY FIRST
SMART WATCH |
I have always
wanted to own a smart watch before I die.
While Majeed was back home in India his son
was telling me about his father buying a
5/6K Rado watch, " Cikgu my father is
already an old man and he is going to die
soon. Why should he waste his money on
buying the unnecessary thing...." Majeed is
about my age. When he came back from India I
requested him to put on his expensive watch
and I showed him my Casio solar that is very
reliable and accurate. I bought mine in
Japan. And in Tokyo also I nearly purchased
a beautiful face smart watch had not Rusli
told me it would render me with no purpose
as it has to have a smart phone as well.
When I was a
kid, I remember reading a science fiction
cartoon, Dick Tracy, a police detective
communicated using his wrist watch. And I
know there is such an amazing gadget
manufactured and used in espionage job.
Today, at the beginning stage, such a gadget
is being developed, both to be paired with a
smart phone for communication and the stand
alone multi-function wrist watch. The spy
watch that can be used for communication
using magnetic wave is not marketed yet. It
will be in a few more years.
I was
amazingly surprise to see Rusli, my radio
friend, is donning a smart watch on his
wrist, when we took a trip to Makassar on
the last 19th. of April. He bought it
through Lazada. I could not buy anything
through the internet as I do not have a
credit card nor getting myself into the
on-line banking. I feared some smart hacker
would hijacked some of my savings.
I browsed web
pages to see whether I can buy things with
COD or direct from the shop. I notice there
is a Samsung outlet at Aman Central.
At about 2pm
I arrived at the stall, made a purchased and
immediately came home without seeking for
detail information on the setting up
procedure. I thought I could do it alone
without assistant.
Tomorrow I am
going to surprise Majeed and his workers,
wanting to show off what I have. I am going
to call Rusli using the Samsung Gear S3,
pressing the call button on the screen. And
I will show the various watch faces.
"This one in
very accurate," I will be telling him. "The
clock is controlled by GPS. It is not like
your clock on the wall. Look, last time 5
minutes late and now 7 minutes. This is
perfect. " I will be telling his son that I
want to enjoy my remaining short life before
I die. I know he will be asking me a lot of
questions. And I have to be prepared to
bluff them as much as I can.
I had a fun time with the restaurant owner
and the workers this morning. I showed him
my new watch, and dialed his number. I could
see his surprise at the ringing sound. "Go
and pick up your phone," said I. He heard my
voice when I talked to the watch. "How much
is it and where do you buy it ? "He asked.
There are numerous watch faces, lots of free
stuffs. I chose the one with the candle as I
love the swaying of the light as it is
glowing.
I connected it to the home wifi and enjoy
the Youtube clips.
Without pairing to the Android I can still
enjoy browsing internet anywhere the free
wifi is available.
There are many useful featured and
facilities especially for a sportsman.
If you want to have a GPS you only need to
pay less than USD2.
I thank God the Almighty for the Providence.
I can still taste the wonders of the world.
26/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
THE MALAYS
AND THE CHINESE |
I have always
wanted to believe the Malays and the Chinese
Malaysians are the same, beside the color and
language difference. Generally the Chinese
is a little bit better in the mental
utilization. I remember in my boyhood days
that there was a small movie house called a
Royal Cinema where the current Alor Ria
resides. There were two categories of
tickets sold, the 25 cent and the 65 cents.
You won't stand to have a chance to buy the
normal priced tickets on a popular movie
because they were sold by the black market
at a much higher prices. The Malay movie
goers would still buy them from the Black
marketers. On one popular Chinese movie the
mobs increased the ticket by more than
double. What happen was NOT even a single
Chinese bought the ticket and went home
instead. Effort to reduced the price by half
also failed. None cared to turn back.
That's what
the Malays were before and that's what they
are today. They continue to spend money on
expensive items and entered expensive
restaurants.
The second
difference is the Malays are gullible
people. They usually believe what they are
told, taking the lies to be the truth. They
are cheated by their friends, lending money
and become guarantors. They have constantly
been deceived by media and politicians. The
Chinese do not believe in promises and are
resistance to deception. They are more
mentally alert while the Malays are lazy to
think.
The third is
that the Malays have a poor vision of the
future. They can't see what's coming. The
trend of the future is based on a long
progress of the timeline from the past few
hundred years to the present. It is not that
they are fuzzy about the past but they are
totally blind and ignorant. A few would be
computing the future and take steps to
prepare themselves, while more than 90%
don't. They sell their properties and
spend all their money, saying that God will
provide them with sustenance.
No doubt a
few young people who have found that living
is hard, strive to make a living and begin
to make a little savings. I talked to a
stall owner selling drinks and beverages and
learnt that to him 150K of capital is indeed
a huge sum for him. My Chinese friend was
talking of his 700K savings for his future
retirement.
So I conclude
that the Malays cannot be the same as the
Chinese and will never change observing
their current trends of behavior.
I am not
belittling the ability of my own race. We
have professionals, millionaires,
graduates with PHDs and successful
businessmen. We also have millions of arrant
fools among us. But which fool will admit
that he is one. No criminal and murderers
will admit who they are. Every thief and
robber, kidnapper and gangster has his own
justification.
You need to
observe our top and lofty Malays on the top
of the echelons from all walks of life, from
top to bottom of the social strata. It will
shorten my life by 5 years if I were to talk
about the people in politics, who don't
really know what winnings are. For instant
winning a position but losing a country is
not really a winning. The early British
colonialists were cunning enough how to make
our rulers feel the winning euphoria, giving
titles and money and shower them with
praises and adorations. They studied our
mental and emotional makeups. They ran the
country, the Rulers took care of the
religion.
If the Malays
feel that they are threatened they have to
blame themselves rather than anybody else. A
very few can be taught to think. The rest
think they are already smart and wise, and
tend to brag to the world of their
greatness. Yet they never stop blaming
the Chinese for their plight since 40 years
ago. By the time they become sober, they
will find things are too late.
18/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
SOCCER HAS
LIFE TOO |
I have been
trying hard to refrain myself from a
devilish comments or remarks involving
royalty or other matters related to monarchy
not because for fear of being lock up in a
dungeon but because I chose to respect
the once divine institution. Kings had long
been regarded as the shadow of God in
traditional society both in Europe and Asia,
bestowed with divine power exceeding all
other mankind. Malay Sultans were believed
to carry a DAULAT, a kind of magical aura
that protected them from the sorceries of
bad citizens. DAULAT contains a huge ball of
powerful spirit around the divine Kings.
Even in this
21st. century the Queen of England is said
to be an alien being strong enough to
control mankind. You may have heard of the
few with reptilians eyes.
Malaysian
rulers are protected by our law. They are
almost immune. They are not to be criticized
for any reason. Several people have been
arrested for remarks viewed as rude or
insulting to the integrity of a royal
figure.
Sadly enough
foul mouth still spewing unhappiness over
royal involvements in sports and soccer. I
don't mean to be impertinent or to any
disrespect to anybody as I am expressing my
views. Sports is a public entertainment
though the final reward is good health, both
mentally and physically. They can take away
youths from the streets into the arena, save
them from drugs and crimes. It built a
community of discipline and responsible
citizens. It therefore does not belong to a
politician or a propaganda tool of any
political party.
The spirit of
a game can be ruined and killed by any
powerful person who thinks the world belongs
to him. In my whole life, I have never been
impressed by talks and promises. I believe
in the behaviors and the deeds done. And I
don't follow the crowds but the truth and
realities. We don't see the same thing the
same way. 50-50 is big enough. 90-10 is a
pure disaster. Who dare to test it without
being fear of being apprehended ? I believe
90% will be holding to the view that
politicians and royalties should not use
sports for their own glory.
The most
popular sports in this country is soccer.
Thousands flocked to the stadium to watch
the game. Bowling, squash, badminton, tennis, hockey
and other individual games do not draw
crowds but they are not totally
ignored. The Malaysians show utmost support
of these sports in the international
competition. The grand acoustic music of
Negara Ku is a priceless pride to us.
Our small
nation stands tall among the rest of the
world. We are aware of the
role of the government in producing the world
class ship. We share the pride together.
But when
sports involve local
competitions and it is a number one sport
then the public gives full focus.
Everyone opens his eyes.
People talk about the refereeing, about
bookies and corruptions, about the dirty
tactics, about the dubious attempt to weaken
strong teams and about the betrayal and the
betrayers. You can judge how fanatic the
fans are when they can sleep at the ticket
counter overnight for the tickets to be sold
the next morning. It is more than crazy. Try
to imagine their degree of disappointment
when something fishy happens in the middle
of the season. It is an abnormal practice.
FAM is quick
to be despised and scorned. I am so very
certain Malaysian soccer will not be better.
Success is not by the show of arrogance or
lavishness in spending.
I dare to put a bet of 10K (That's all I can
afford) with the FAM on my prediction which will
bear the truth. My confidence is based on
two factors, namely the comeuppance for the
vanity and swaggering, and secondly, the other
the rest of the world are not sleeping.
The soccer
ball has
life too. It contains the hearts of the
living fans, millions of them, who crave for
fairness, good game and the show of skills.
The players ignite and activate the hearts
by making it flies, floats, bumps
and rolls. The voices of the spectators
echoing to the sky that there is a game
going on. It provides luster and joy. Soccer
without spectators is like a man without a
soul or a spirit.
Let not any
man murder the sanctity of the beautiful
sports, casting away the spirit and its
magnificence. Or else we could also say 'take all
...take all. And we leave it...' We need
criticism, pros and cons, ideas and
rebuttals. Can we do it with Kings and
Ministers ?
17/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
BUS RIDE IN
LOS ANGELES |
Whenever I
went to Los Angeles alone I usually stayed
at Buena Park at a motel I knew owned by a
Taiwanese. Buena Park is about an hour away
from the Los Angeles airport by car and 1
1/2 hours by the airport bus. The average
transport transfer was USD10.
What I like
about this place was the availability of an
Indian restaurant which I depended on it for
my meals. A packet of prawn or meat Briyani
was USD12.50. In those days 12.50 was just
like RM35. The morsel was so plentiful that
I had to consume twice to finish it. It was
truly extremely delicious. Buildings around
the area were not crowded and the road was
not busy. Cars and busses passed within half
to a minute duration. 500 meters away was a
theme park called Knot Berry Farm where you
can find crowds all the time. The Disneyland
was a dollar away by the local bus.
We would
expect the denizen to own cars for daily
conveyance. But the bus would be reaching
almost every street, sometimes zigzagging
the small streets in the housing area,
moving and stopping, picking up passengers.
In Alor Setar there are many roads with the
bus stands without a bus passing by. It is
vital of everyone to own a form of
transporter, at least a bicycle. Any Bangla
worker living around our area would walk to
town about 5 or 6 miles away. It leaves us
to wonder the difference between the
American and the Malay thinking. I mention
the Malays instead of Malaysians because
they are the administrators of the town from
top to bottom.
Whenever I
got up on a bus going to Disneyland I
mentioned my destination. The bus driver
would give me a transfer ticket if the bus
did not head to the theme park. The driver
would just mentioned 'Disneyland Bus
Number....' when arriving at a stop where I
need to change a bus. I didn't have to buy
another ticket, just show the transfer piece
to the new driver. And at every bus stop you
will know at what time the bus will arrive.
Amazingly that it is very accurate, dead on
time.
I usually
paid a dollar, sat on the bus until the end
of the trip at the end station. The driver
would ask me where I wanted to go. "just for
the sight seeing," I said. And we always had
conversation before he started the back
journey. One driver was from Pakistan, but
never looked like one owing to his skin
complexion and his American slang. "How is
Anwar Ibrahim ?" He put forward a shocking
question to me.
I went to
beaches, library, various malls and the
whole of Orange County just by bus. I saw
the vast area populated by the Vietnamese
and the Koreans. It had always been a joyous
ride.
I would have
wished our local authority would have some
sense and to act to elevate difficulties
faced by the public. I sometimes think our
moral responsibility has eroded and replaced
by the pursuit of profits. Everyone is only
thinking of money and to be wealthy as quick
as possible. We have been causing problems
to the people without our knowing them.
The bus trip
to Los Angeles city proper was USD3. Again
the bus would render to enter small towns
and villages for passengers. It took me more
than 2 1/2 hour to arrive the Downtown LA.
It was shocking to see the homeless Blacks
and White were still sleeping along the road
and on the pathways of the building at 10am.
Others were queuing for free food.
I strolled
along the roads and streets, appreciating
the beauty of the city and the demeanor of
the people. Usually by the stroke of some
luck I always reach the famous Universal
Studio and enjoyed myself in the theme park
till the city turned dark. And somehow I got
back to the bus that would take me back to
my motel. There was no GPS then and I didn't
have a map with me. I knew my sub-conscious
mind was working, registration and
computing my previously walking path. My
eyes were trying to identify the building
related to the bus stop where I disembarked.
I always made it time and again during every
visit.
I remember my
Public Finance teacher told us that the
state is not to make profit on it's
citizens. It is to serve them. A state is
not to borrow money to share among friends
but for the future benefit of the society.
Busses could ease congestion and reduced
parking problems. Cars are safer to keep at
home than in town. Someone must look into
the matter, studying the new bus route
seriously to facilitate access to every
household. Of course we don't expect every
bus to pass every door step in every
village. People can walk at a reasonable
distant to wait for a bus.
I stopped
going to USA for a long time. I have been
there too many time, and had learnt many things
about America and the Americans, well enough
to identify the good people and the
semi-human freaks demons who prey on their
own citizens as well as other helpless souls
elsewhere.
To me the
busing system was excellent and
commendable. You might want to try the
Greyhound bus from Kuala Lumpur to New York
one day that crosses Kyber pass and
Himalayas...??? Greyhound is an expensive
but a comfortable ride.
17/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
FIGHTING
FOR SURVIVAL |
They tell you
of the affordable house here and there. Try
to contact them and you may die of
frustration. A single storey small house is
about RM400K and a double storey semi-detach
is RM750K. A shop house will cost you more.
You will have to pay about RM5K a month for
20 years to settle the whole loan. How to
pay the 5K monthly when a husband-wife
income is only 2K ? For small fries it is
better to scrap the dream of buying a shop
house to earn a descent living.
You may be
able to meet the requirement. I can't
afford it. There are tenths of thousands young
people are without their own homes. The
agony is felt much by the jobless young
people. The elderly refuse to give up their
jobs until they reach 65 and letting the
young blood seek their own bread somewhere
else.
The rushing
for the land by the developers is because it
brought a huge profits. They shared a small
portion of it with the politicians and
lobbyists. The small portion is not a
thousand or two but totaling millions and
billions. Hence agriculture land are
shrinking very rapidly. There is a fast
changing in demographic pattern. Where are
the missing Malays gone ?
I did a quick
calculation that if I could rent a shop
house for a thousand ringgit a month, it
will be RM240K for twenty years, and RM480K
for 40 years. Even if we double the rental,
it will take 20 years to get to RM480K. In
that case, taking account of our lifespan
and our active life it will be cheaper to
rent than to buy. It has to be a long term
rental contract.
I notice that
the young people are looking for alternative
venues for making a living. They resort to
mobile shop, request for mobile night market
to survive. The capital is much more smaller
and the rental is the payment to the town
counsel. At least they strive for some
descent cash rather than involving
themselves in criminal activities and immoral trade, or
forming a small band of mafia network.
I can't
afford a 750K home or a 900K shop house.
Those who live on BRIM and millions of
others will not be able to own such a
property. The Malay developers are not keen
to sell to the Malays at a discount rates.
There have been a big mockery of the
affordable homes. Internet advertisers seem
to fool the people. No wonder a Minister
advise young people to rent a lodging. I
think it is a wise advice.
With all the
government's help I should be rich. Despite
my university education I am still poor and
my kids are jobless. I decide that my kids
should strive on their own by doing some
business. It is not a simple venture. Even
FGV, 1Mdb, MAS and a few other organizations
with experts fail. They laymen find tall
walls around them. I noticed at the Uptown
they are only resellers save the food
vendors.
Before GE13 I
predicted a bleak future for the Malaysians.
Worse will be coming after GE14.
17/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
TRAVELING IN
THE MODERN DAYS |
I asked Majeed whether there is still any
ship that taking people to India. He smiled.
"No more Cikgu," he said. "People fly these
days. It is faster. Only three hours." He
narrated it took three days to go to India
by ship.
But it was fun as he got to know people and
making friends along the trip." Majeed owns a
Tomato Rice restaurant, which is not really
up to the standard of one, a little messy
and tables aren't dressed at all. He has 4 workers
with him, all from Southern India.
"Nowadays Cikgu, people go on high seas to
have vacation, the tour," he continued. I
agreed with him. I saw these ships at Penang
port, Australia and while in Balkan states.
If you have about 2K you can enjoy the complacent trip
to Langkawi and Kerabi, a round trip of
about 3 to 4 days would cost that much. Many have
been on the cozy ships. I haven't yet. I am
not in a position to describe more about it.
The conversation with Majeed reminded me of the
Malaysian Muslims going to Mecca to perform
their pilgrimage on ship before. It took a
month and a lot of preparations. When they
came home they would tell all sort of
wonderful stories about the experiences on
the ship. Many people died while on the
journey.
Today a plane takes you only 8 hours to
Mecca, cutting time by more than 29 days.
Majeed took 3 hours to arrive his
destination. From Alor Setar to Kuala Lumpur
is only 45 minutes. Sometimes I tried to
imagine how long it took for people from
Melaka to go to Perak in 1600 or 1700 by
foot across the thick forest, bumpy meadow
and fields. When historians mentioned Melaka
conquered Pahang, I can't imagine the nature
of the war and how they could sustain their
strength after a long march.
Today we have train that move at the speed
of a few hundred miles an hour. Workers can
shuttle to the workplace instead of renting
houses in another town. We don't know when
we can go on a one hour train to KL from Alor
Setar. There will be a lot of structural and
other social changes once the traveling time
takes up a new shape.
Traveling is so easy and comfortable that more
and more people travel overseas on leisure,
young and old. The young ones usually go on
their own after making elaborate plans and
setting secured strategies among friends. I
found teenage girls travel by themselves in
twos or threes. The elderly, half of them
retirees, chose travel agencies.
I have been to the United states and Hawaii
for more than 18 times, seventy five
percents of which were on my own. I either
hired a car or took busses for local
traveling and sightseeing. At my younger age
I could drive a car from Los Angele on the
Western side to Florida on the Eastern
plank. Now the idea of driving 300 miles
scared me and a horrid notion.
Many a time I had food in my mind when going
overseas, mainly Briyani. I hunted
Briyani in Hong Kong, tasted it in Tokyo,
Australia, New York, Los Angele, and London.
My eyes would be looking for Long John, the
seafood restaurant in the United States, a
huge crab in the bay area of San Francisco.
The Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Australian and
London Briyani were almost equal in their
taste. For my next trip, 19th April 2017, to
Makasar I already marked the Seafood
restaurant on the Google map. I usually made
a point to put it in my agenda.
Other than food I also prefer a comfortable
stay, a 4 or 5 star affordable hotel,
staying alone for a quiet peace of mind, to
slumber on a soft bed. I no more request for
a partner when going with a package, and
ready to pay extra for a single supplement.
I asked Majeed to join me in seeing places.
I said to him, "Majeed, we are old now. You
have your sons to cook and take care of your
restaurant. Let's go and see the world
before we die." And one of his usual
response was that he is a poor man. Yet he
had a 6K watch on his wrist. And he once
asked me how I could live with my 3K monthly
pension. I mentioned to him of his possible
boredom in counting money and sitting down
days in and days out. He will die seeing the
image of money when he should also spend his
wealth to enjoy himself. He would just
smile.
Today the only hassle of going oversea is
the increasing cost and the burden of the
exchange rate we have to bear. The Thai and
the Indonesian currencies are much better
than ours. It is not due to the regional
economic fault but the deterioration of
ours. Don't ask me why. Ask Najib for the
true answer. And I used to pay 7K for a New
Zealand's trip, which is now 14K. Even
compare to the last year's price to many
destinations show a remarkable hike in cost,
almost double or triple. You tend to see
Dato' and Datin and doctors and engineers
and high profile retirees and businessmen
with you in the trip. I would always stay
alone and aloof at the back seat on a bus
and walked alone at the visiting sites. I
would stand outside the souvenir shops where
my group would spend blissfully. They are
the affordable people.
The more affluent sailed on their yacht
across the wide oceans aided by GSP,
satellite and modern communication
equipments. Or fly on their private jets.
Once, an American farmer beside me at the
top of the Grand Canyon told me that he
should have brought his own plane to see the
beauty of the land below. Mind you, a farmer
flying an airplane.
Nevertheless never underestimate the sea
galleons and the boats and the rafts that
were used to conquer nations and enabled
mass migrations, and inter island movements
in the past, before there were planes,
trains and cars. They were handled by
resilient bodies with a strong mind, guts
and bravery. A galleon could take away a
distant nation.
16/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
INCIDENCE AT A COLLEGE GATE |
The compliance to a rule regulated depends
on the other party's acceptance. The other
side could be a customer, a client, a
businessman or a person looking for a favor.
They will comply to get a benefit or
assistance. But they
can also be someone whom you may need their
help most, to illicit donation, assistance or other services.
They can choose to dispel with the set
regulation you make for them or obey it. I touched on
this subject matter because I had stumbled
onto it when I went to Alor Setar Vocational
College recently to help in programming the
RFID cards for the school attendance system.
As I was called by a teacher in charge whom
I had informed to get the cards ready, I brought
with me the card reader and my laptop. I had
a software which I developed mainly for the
purpose of writing data on the cards.
Mind you I did not go to the college to beg
for donation, meeting a friend or selling my
products. I paid my own petrol, sacrificing
my free time and energy to help a school where I had served for 20
years before. As I was entering the gate I
was stopped and asked to sign the Entry
Book. "This is a new regulation," the guard
said. Surely I could not blame him for
discharging his duty. It is a rule
after all.
Unfortunately I too have my own rules as
many of the others. I have the choice not to
comply with it and went home instead. I was
not wrong either. Unheard words from the
regulation is 'if you don't want to comply
then don't come in. Go home..." What else it
could be ?
Some wise persons responded blaming my ego.
"The rule is so simple, just sign it," they
argued. Of
course I would have sign it if I had a
strong urge to beg from the college or to do
business of my own choice. It
gave me not one bit of benefit. I
exercise my right and follow my own rule
This is no doubt only a small and trivial matter.
But we fear such a narrow minded, and skewed thinking
administrators are rampant and running the
country on their own whims and fancies. The affair of this
nature could pull the country down the mud,
causing the economy to plunge and casting
the blames on the others. The short
sightedness and the myopic vision may have
caused massive national failures.
Retirees and the elderly though living in
the marginal society are still walking
straight with a strong fortitude. Many
choose to dwell in humility. Swaggering,
gloating, bragging and parading arrogance
are not in our vocabulary anymore. We may waive
the barking and the insults of the vanity.
Our sustenance do not depend on them.
Confucius was sent to exile in his active
life but his help was
seek when he was very very tired and the
emperor was about to fall. The
historians did not cry at the downfall of
the emperor and the dynasty.
We are not sages neither the sorcerers but we are also not
a group of destitute vagabonds. To us there is no
saying such as the dog has his own day,
no vengeance and no more glory. Those are
the guys who are shaping the destiny of our
nation.
15/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
MY FREAK
THEORY ON HYPERTENSION |
Most of us
are not doctors nor scientists. We tend to
diagnose wrong symptoms for diseases and
sickness. I for one have been making a lot
of conjectures on illnesses, as not being a
shaman nor a doctor. But on thinking of
people of the past centuries and those who
live in the deep dense forests both in the
past and present with their own medicines
and remedies, I think I should not stop
making guesses though it may turn out to be
a crime. I don't prescribe them to others.
Only to myself. When people are rushing for
herbal medications they are not thinking of
the cure of the modern chemical medications.
Traditional people were not doctors. Neither
were they wizards.
I believe,
only believe, that there is a positive
correlation between hypertensions and human
emotions. A person who is easily angered and
getting aggressive at a slightest provocation
is bound to have a hypertension. One would have
caused the other. And they are prone to
stroke. Once we are diagnosed with it, there
is no medical cure for it. Drugs prescribed
by the doctors would only control it. Doses
are prescribed according to the level of the
blood pressure, whereas I believe
hypertension can be checked by
controlling the rising emotional state of
anger. One has to learn to be cool, not to get
angry at any small aggravation or errors
seen, not to worry over a trivial or big
matters. Whenever there is a problem arising
it should be resolved through discussions,
which more often than not would find a
solution.
A daily
rigorous exercise by a person helps. After
the chore he will feel fit, healthy and
strong. I feel the difference from such a
pursuit. I could copy and send Morse codes
signal better and with more accuracy, due to the
mental alertness. It also elevates worries
and free us from undesirable emotional
disorder. And try to read jokes and other
hilarious anecdotes which tickle us. In the
old comic book there was a theme that
printed Laughter Is The Best Medicine.
All of these have nothing to do with any of the
oral drugs.
I don't know
whether worry can shorten our lives. It
could have affected our brain cells or
driving our blood pressure up and eventually
lead us to stroke. If there is no proof to
validate the relationship, we still have the
choice to follow what the doctors say or to follow our own conscience ie. cease
getting worried. People get drunk to get
away from worry or join a congregation of
jovial chums at clubs and coffee shops.
Others find a solace in God, frequenting
God's house, going to pilgrimage and
constantly praying and praying.
The most
heinous thing you can do to yourself is to
think about local politics. Even the
Americans are angry with their Presidents.
If you love your own leader by all mean hang a
huge picture in your house, follow him on
your TV and read about him in the
newspapers. If you hate him, just simply
forget and avoid watching TV or stop buying
newspapers. I talked to the Indian Mamak who
said that India is the same as Malaysia.
When I came across a Korean movie it
depicted a story of Mafia organization controlling the
police and the politicians. Why should we
kill ourselves with worries and hatred and
shouting curses at them ? If they are really
bad and rogue, they will be punished by God.
We could sustain our happiness by ignoring
them.
The vital
point of the good health is not so much on
the longevity factor but we can move about
everywhere without assistance, a freedom
that we seldom appreciate. And it is the
most valuable gift of God, greater than a
billion dollars, and better than a beautiful
wife.
14/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
THE
THREE WORLDS WE MAY LIVE TO SEE |
Only a few left; those who are blessed to
see the two worlds. I would regularly use
the word WE to mean me and my contemporaries
of the same age. Some of us may live to see
the third world.
The first world to us was the era without
TV, the Mata-Mata with the Tarbush hat, the
train with wooden seats. Girls married at
the age of 12 and some at 10 (Now by the
modern standard they called it rape). They were
scared of crossing twenty for fear of being called old
maids. That was the age of 'ais kepal', the
shave ice ball, the making of swords and
guns we made out of wood to play hero and
villains during week ends, caught fighting
fish, chasing kites and swam into any
available rivers and ponds, and when we came
home our mothers were ready with a long
cane. Every Friday the town board people
would enter our kampongs and sprayed
insecticides, and at night the night soil
carries emptied our toilet pails. The
toilets were always outside the house. In
those days one could get a job after passing
standard 4. After 6 years of primary
education a person could be a teacher.
The second world began to appear around the
'60s. More schools were built and
there was a big rush for education, reaching
the Senior Cambridge. Cars and TVs and
telephones began to dwell in homes. There
were scooters and Vespas, cheap matinees
where we took chances to meet girls at
cinemas, boys and girls began to go for
dating. The sword fighting and other robust
kid's sports began to fade. It was in the
'80s that great changes took place, turning
the world upside down with micro-chip
technologies. The world get so much smaller.
The end of the 20th century started a new
phase of the new world.
This is the third world that we may not have
the chance to see but the new generations
will. It is the world once we called a
fantasy heaven. It all began with the
so-called alien technology, levitation and
anti-gravity vehicles. Though the new
technology is still a secret of government
properties, people endeavored themselves
into inventing small flying machines, which
are now taking shapes, from a flying hover
board to human carrying quad copters. On the
other side there are inventions of perpetual
battery power. Yes, imaginable fairies will
come to live. The flying superman is no more
a remote dream. They are not within
reach. They are already here and now.
At homes kids do not go for sword fighting
game but battle with their friends across
the globe on their PCs. Parents with their
kids overseas speak visually to them
blissfully. 3D TV set protruding images making
us to dodge at the fast coming spears or
stones. Machines that wash and dry our cloth
while we are perusing blog and Facebook
pages. We don't have to go to bank to
transfer money or paying bills at office
counters. A small smart phone facilitate
those tasks for us.
What lies ahead we never know. We just sit
and wait.
To the newly born nothing will be strange.
Even to the living, a change is never a
surprise. People don't swoon when you show
them a three inch man or a man with a snake
head. They don't even appreciate them.
Nobody ever asked who invented the power
bank, about the change of the storage media
from revolving CDs and hard-disks to the SD
cards. A few may say Wow!.
Why ? God has created a shock absorbing
mechanism in human being. Otherwise half of
the world population will demise out of
shock.
13/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
A CHANGE OF
BEHAVIOR IS A BAD SIGN |
What has come
over me. Surely I could have not been
possessed by a demon for devouring my old
wrinkled face with 'bedak sejuk'
literally translate as 'cool powder'.
Bedak sejuk is made from the ground
glutinous rice in small bits, using a banana
or any other leaf as a droplets filter. When
it is dry it shaped like tiny pebbles as big
as guava seeds, and of course white in
color. It is non-toxic and free of
chemicals. Adding water to a quarter
teaspoonful of bedak sejuk, I applied
onto my face at night. It is very cooling
and comforting. My face will look like a
Chinese jumping ghost or a Chinese opera
actors.
Do I look any
handsomer or any younger ? No. I put it on
my face simply because I feel like putting
it. Mainly psychological. I have been
reading a lot on enhancing beauty by all
sort of skin care. People are doing good
business, making tons of money and even
becoming a multi millionaire. And I have
seen women and young girls with beautiful
faces, fair and smooth. I come to know that
they are not only expensive but also contain
banned chemicals.
Our great
grand mothers have been using this
traditional powder. They did not lack sex
appeal. Men were still arose by the white
faces. Money was not wasted and the skins
were save from dangerous compound.
Even the
ancient cosmetics in China contain chemical,
added animal fat to make it waterproof. What
the Malaysian Muslims do not know is the
lotion and the skin care products they use
contain the non-halal animal fat. As people
are, God and sins will not scare them when
they think they earn benefit from any
source. And personal health and beauty is
nothing compared to robbing and cheating and
lying.
Women need to
be careful of freak cosmetics claimed to be
made of natural plant products like cucumber
and seed oil that are not threatening the
safety of the skin. The price will still be
astronomical as compared to bedak sejuk.
A pack of a small container only cost RM3
and can last us for three to four weeks.
Our ancient
mothers not only apply the glutinous rice
powder on our faces when we went to school
but also the hair oil, that was not exotic
or majestic, but it was merely the coconut oil.
If other mothers didn't, my mother did. She
used the same coconut oil used for cooking
on her hair and mine too. What a gracious
grace. Now I hardly find coconut oil at
home. We are using corn or palm oil for
cooking. And my belt was a jute rope, tied
like a ribbon in the front. I would still
suggest a sort of rope for the loose
trousers if anyone could not find a suitable
belt, and tuck the shirt outside to hide it
from visibility.
Talking about
hair oil, today I used gel on my hair,
combed it the way I wanted before I went
jogging to beat the strong wind that had
been blowing my hair left and right since
the last few weeks. I can also beat it by
tying my hair with a hair band or wearing a
cap. I can't imagine how an old man like me
looks like with the hair band. Cap would
cover my face from the young sexy joggers,
whom I love to wink. So I applied a small
scoop of gel on my head.
Our people
believe that a sudden change of behavior is
a signed that his death is near and it is
approaching very fast. It is very true that
lately I realized I even changed my eating
habits. I went for jack fruits, cucumber and
fresh orange. I frequented the RM3.50
roti kirai with meat gravy. Whenever I
went to buy burger, I opted for shrimp
instead of my usual meat. But it is not as
strange as putting my face with the white a
lump of starchy stuff on my face before I go
to bed.
Is it not a
weird sign ?
13/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
EMPTY
POCKET BIG DREAMER |
We are bound to bump into something that is
not expected. We never know what. The other
night while I was having a dinner at a
stall, a young man passed by, accosted me
and sat on the chair at the next table.
"Long time no see, Sir," he said. "I was the
97/98 student." I did not continue with the
conversation but concentrate on the Nasi
Lemak. I bought two packets of the delicious
rice for a ringgit per packet. The packet
was not big but a couple would be enough to
fill my stomach. I noticed the young man
ordered nothing and sat there doing nothing.
After finishing my dinner I bade him
goodbye. He called me and asked me for two ringgit. I gave the notes I was holding in
my hand and went home.
The next night I went to the same stall
again. As I was taking my seat the same man
came again and took a seat at my table. I
knew he wanted something and asked him to
take two packets for himself. He, not only
took the Nasi Lemak, but also ordered an ice
tea.
While eating he came out with all sort of
stories and ideas,"I want to sell fried
chickens, Sir. One day I will earn a
profit of a thousand ringgit. Within a month
I will get thirty thousand...eh eh uh. But
money is never enough you know, right ? We
have ten thousands finish, twenty
finish...right or not ? eh eh uh...I will
fry my chicken nicely and earn thirty
thousands a month...." I could not stand him
anymore, a young man who asked me for two
dollars and now talking of tenths of
thousands. He spoke with an odor of weeds
from his breath. I guessed that this guy
must have been really nut.
I decided not to be courteous and good. As I
finished the two packets of rice and he was
still swaggering, I told him that I had to
leave, for I have to attend a certain urgent
matter. I paid RM3 for my meal and RM3.50
for his.
Last night I decided to go somewhere else
for my dinner for I had guessed he would be
waiting for me again.
There had been reports of the missing cars
and motorcycles and house breaking around
this area. My mind swirled with wild
imagination. He could be one of the
prowlers. How many others are like him ?
Only God knows.
Tenths of thousands have been laid off.
Sometimes I asked myself why not these
jobless young people go and rob Rosmah,
Syahrizat or Najib.
These are our trash, the scum garbage born
out of our failures. We just don't care.
They were never mentioned in the UMNO
general assembly.
12/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
CLASSLESS SOCIETY ? |
Equality in
the eyes of God differ from equality in eyes
of men. On the day the world began and
inhabitants multiplied classes emerged to
appear. There were leaders and chieftains
and specialization of various functions.
There were slaves and masters, the affluent
and the poor, kings, nobles and the laymen.
The Varna system clearly clarifies who were
in charge of religion, war, business and the
workers.
Classes in
society evolved by itself. Skin color,
creeds and economic specialization are
partly responsible for the class formation.
The more powerful seize power and became
rulers, making laws on boundaries,
ownerships and taxations. There were the
ruling class and the rest of then men, who
were peasants, labors and entrepreneurs.
Landowners and people with capital had to
find workers to work in their fields.
Whenever local people in scarcity they seek
inferior people in other countries. There
were some willing workers who usually fill
in the factories and there were black slaves
to work in the cotton and wheat fields.
More classes
loomed as trade expanded and flourished.
There were shopkeepers, middlemen and
conveyors. There were bankers and people who
ran insurance companies. They were mechanics
and builders. The symbols of their status
were depicted by the dress they wore and the
properties they owned. The wealthy sent
their kids to prestigious private schools,
the poor to the government institutions. The
Blacks were deemed inferior, confined to
colored bar, drank from different pipe. The
brown were looked down by the yellow. Among
the White they were attempts to
categorized the superior and the inferior
race by the bone structures.
Classes were
said to be unfair and suppressive. The poor
were excessively taxed for the ruling class
to enjoy. French and Russian revolutions
wanted to rid of the courts of the Kings and
the Czars to end suppression and sufferings.
Then came the Communist with ALL MEN ARE
EQUAL to squash the capitalist society and
replaced with socialism. But today if you
are in Vietnam or China, do you not see
capitalism and classes of people ?
Whether we
like it or not the trees grow, the buildings
cropped up rushing to the sky, the people
are working hard to grow richer. And will we
be the ones to say "...cut all the growth.
Cut the trees, flattened the buildings.
Don't strive to better yourselves.." ?
There is a
leeway for everyone to climb a social
ladder. We can't idly enjoying our siesta
and hope for the money to grow, for the
success in business, promotion in an office.
More often than not, the more effort we put
in the higher we can climb, the greater the
reward. It is
resilience, acuteness and courage that
provide us the way to wiggle to the higher
class.
Classless
society is a pure absurdity.
In a
competitive world indolence will push us
into a bottomless pit. We will eventually
lose everything.
12/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
I WAS NEW IN
HAM RADIO |
I was new in
Ham radio at that time. I wrote to telecom
and made some inquiries about it. The
department was kind enough to send me a
syllabus, radio regulations and a visual
Morse code symbols. All were in English. The
first radio operators I met were Eshee,
Malcom, Chow and a few others at the
Coronation Camp Penang. They were setting up
a JOTA station. Later I frequent Eshees's
and Malcom's shack almost every week to say
hello on the radio. I began to make
preparation for the radio examination.
RAE (Radio
Amateur Examination) was conducted in
English. The paper was divided into two
parts, the regulation and the technical. We
have to write the answers in the essay form.
I remember answering a question on logbook
with complete illustration as I was keeping
a log as a SWL. And on the technical part I
drew a complete schematic diagram on
Superheterodyne receiver and giving
description for each part of the receiver.
And another on the antenna and the
propagation.
The objective
of the old syllabus was to ensure every ham
understood the working or a transmitter and
a receiver. In those earlier days hams had
to homebrew their own rigs, and transistors
came later in the years. Hams need to know
the value of the resistors by one look when
they were building up or repairing
equipments.
There were
not many hams then, not more than 400. If
you can't understand English then you could
not be a ham. The test was in English and
the daily communication too was in English.
All went well without any hassle and without
any problem.
Years later
after I became a full pledge ham I heard
some top guys in MARTS were talking about
giving a chance to those others to come on
the air too with limited frequency ie VHF.
There were arguments whether to create an
opening to a new class or not at all. The
opponent of the idea predicted the future
problems and havoc. Discussions dragged on.
I went back to school in the United States,
leaving ham radio for a long many years,
almost 15 years or so.
I received a
letter from the authority asking me to renew
my ticket. By and by I learned that there
was a license B created. I did not know the
date when it began and who were the main
negotiators. Those who followed in several
JOTAS were now licensed with 9W call signs.
There were repeaters all over.
After awakened
from a long sleep I encountered with a new
world. It was the second time I was new
again. My head was swirling with confusion.
There were new things I have to learn which
I had never new before. Even new rigs were
without built in power supply. They were
much more smaller and lighter. When I could
repair my Yaesu FT101, the new rig would
make me a stupid fool.
Please note
that Class B transpired out of a good
hearted ham whose intention was to give
chances to those who could not pass CW test
when Morse codes was still mandatory.
11/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
CHANGING TIME |
I have almost
given up knowing the current state and progress of
Malaysian Amateur Radio, because there are
other things that interest me and call for my
focus. Hours after hours I spend time on the Facebook and Whatsapp applications,
downloading and watching movies and writing
blog. When 9M2NZ, Rashid Ghani, asked
for my comment on the Radio Clubs that went
astray and racial, I was awed. I do not know
anything, about the
clubs and other activities. Whatever I know
is that we cannot compare the old and the
new on whatever matter at all. Things change
with time and they are shaped by the
changing environments.
Once I
disagreed with the change vehemently but
later realized it is no point in trying to
change the world and I have to be an arrant
fool at yelling insults at the dynamic
world. If we don't like anything just keep
it to ourselves and stay away from it.
After all the
change is inevitable. We used to enjoy the
shaved ice ball. We can't curse the world
when it isn't here anymore and being
replaced with what we called 'ice
kacang topped with ice cream'. You
cranked your car to start it in the old
days. It is now replaced by an electric
starter motor. In medical, agriculture,
transportation and offices everything take a
new shape. Good or bad they are here. The
old ones have vanished. What is there to
lament about.
Whatever we
don't like we avoid it. I don't like
newspapers. So I stopped buying them. It has
been for more than 15 years that I don't
read Utusan Malaysia or the New Straits
Times. I don't like ASTRO, so I don't
subscribe to it. Some old hams do not like
the SOP of the new amateurs and just stopped
monitoring to their chats. It is not a
matter of right and wrong but a matter of
taste.
If truly that
someone prefers racism in ham radio, it is
up to the authority to think about it and
decide as to the course of actions. The fact
is who are we to impose the ruling and the
standard of amateur radio in this country.
If they want to form clubs by any name let
them. They can't force you to like them and
you can't force them to agree with you.
Let us look
at something else other than the ham radio.
Look at our culture and values that we have
been practicing. You do not find modern
people donning dress of the 18th or
19th century anymore. Drugs that were once a
taboo and illegal are now legalized. Who
ever thought of the same sex marriages ? The
complexities of changes are untold stories.
Imagine a man who died in 1700 comes back to
life, will he want to change the world now ?
Can he change the world ?
Some call it
destiny. Others call it progress.
What don't
change is human emotion and sentiment, and
the basic needs of food and shelter. Love,
hate, fear, anger, greed and pity are
elements in men that persist ever since.
And these sentiments that unite and break
mankind apart. Classes and status of people
are simply natural, determined by creeds,
color, languages, geographical locations,
culture, education, philosophies and
interests. Birds of the same feather usually
flock together. That explains why we have
nudist community, the gays, the fanatics,
the communists, the orthodox and
liberalists. And economic division too is a
natural process.
We cannot
have total unity and oneness in amateur
radio due to the increasing population and
the above variety of human sentiments. What
we see in Malaysian amateur fraternity is
something inevitable. If it has not happen
yet, it is bound to happen later. Why ?
Because we are different in many ways.
Just because
people aren't like us, we have to create war
on them ? Yet people go to war on their
differences.
I finally
choose to remain mum whatever people said
about me. I don't lose a single cent neither
did I gain any pittance. I did not reject
signing for the 9Ws and I did not push them
away if they seek my other than financial
help. I wrote software for Rohizat's
workshop and happily exchanging information
on traveling joy with him. At my free time I
would go for any invitation. But I am not
always free.
At this
current time soccer is a topic I very much
love to discuss. I would queue for hours
under the blazing sun to purchase a ticket.
I shouted and yell and shriek in the stadium
forgetting that I am an old man ready to die
anytime. That made my money worth to depart.
I scolded the referee, the players and
shouted at the coach as if I was the best
and the world class player. Actually I can't
even kick a ball straight.
I have been
in radio since 1975. Try to compute the
number of years. And I have 4 or 5 more
years to live. What's the hack about
fighting over some unjust trivial issues. My
life is too short, much much shorter than
yours.
11/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
OLD BRAIN |
It is really
hard to learn at the age of seventy plus as
memory cells are rotting and beyond repair.
They are selling Korean Ginko which claim to
sharpen memory. Money could help in
replacing the old with the new cells as what
Najib and Rosmah are doing. For laymen like
millions of us, we better prepare ourselves
to meet God rather than fighting natural
acclimatization. How could we acquire new
things when the old ones are rapidly fading.
Only the
other night when I brought a spectacle with
me to watch a soccer match at the local
stadium, I found it was not on my collar
where I hung it. I only put it on when I
wanted to see the person who scored a goal
more clearly. A distant night driving in the
absent of street lights I sometimes put it
on to see the curvature of the road. I don't
have a perfect vision but I do not always
put my spectacle on.
It has been
several years that I wanted to learn and
improve my English, a subject that I never
passed during my school days. I fail to
achieve my objective no matter how hard I
tried. It is not because of my stupidity but
because the retention power is almost nil. I
forget names and I forget the words that I
came across. Ageing is inversely
proportional to memory. What is there to
lament, wail an shriek when nature destines
us in that path. Even death is a divine
gift.
Last night
out of a sudden I had a desire to look at
Korean's writing. These days I watched a lot
of Korean movies with English subtitle. I
just wonder how a word or sound is formed. I
would have recognized the Chinese
characters, the Thais and the Arabic word
formation but not the Koreans. Looking at a
page tutorial I began to understand it. To
learn it will take me several years to the
edge of my living frontier. In short I will
be dead first before I can remember a basic
and simple Korean.
Though
sciences has proven about the declining
state of human mind, I don't give up
believing in the power of God. I
always pray to God for my good health and
smart memory. I think my prayer call was met.
The lost spectacle was surprisingly found
hidden on the back seat of my car two days
later, hidden in an awkward position. I
can't figure out how it went there. And this morning I checked my BP
and found it was 124/67, and after a late
night gluttonous dinner my blood sugar was
6. You may call it co-incidence. I don't. I
will continue to strive to better myself in
English and seek more knowledge about the
mystery of the universe.
Young people
do not see us the way we see ourselves. We
keep our vanity hidden. I was not wrong in
my prediction about Malaysia and the Malays.
My aunty at eighty plus said, "They call me
senile ? Give me a lot of cash and watch how
senile I can be..."
The young are
not wrong in thinking there is a decline of
alertness among the elderly. Everything
slows down, from the neuron to the muscle
movements. I have been talking about
forgetfulness. If it happens among the young
they call it absent minded. That does not
mean ageing rob everything from us and we
are to retire from active life and seeking
knowledge. We have God with with. We ask.
God may give, or may not give. But we must
also struggle and work for what we desire.
Today the
world is kind enough to provide free
knowledge into our homes. Despite the
difficulty in self learning I will continue
to learn a little Korean as much as I know
Mandarin and Thais. I wish myself good luck.
10/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
Creating
Stories of Me Selling Radio |
A radio friend rang me inquiring about a
transceiver he said I want to sell.
"Sell my equipment ? Who told you ? " I
asked.
"Mr X who heard from Mr Y," he said.
I have not seen Y for ages though I met Mr X
about 10 months ago. I never divulge to
anyone about my departing with my radios. I
have two HF transceivers and one dedicated
VHF/UHF, which I occasionally used to
monitor and sometimes working Morse codes. I
did buy a Diamond power supply and gave away
free to a poor lady ham who had been laid
off from her job. I even bought a new paddle
not long ago. How could someone simply
spread the news about my emptying my shack ?
It is true that I am a little broke now, not
in the sense that I do not have any money to
spend but I can't meet all my spending
allocations. These are for my car service,
for utility, food consumption, car gasoline
and for contingencies. I never plan to sell
my belongings even if I am starving.
Nevertheless I may give things away. That
may include my radio equipments.
Sinister talks seem to be a great pleasure
to some. They created the non-existence
stories which we called fictions, passed
around and people believing in the stories
would have the misconceptions of many things
in the world. The highest evil of all was
the false flag aimed at demonizing others to
fulfill their agenda, to justify conquest,
hence enjoying the rich resources of the
land. The lesser evil was to destroy the
political carrier of the opponents and to
hold to power perpetually. Others do it to
play for office. Or as justification for not
paying loan or to hide their own avarice and
rogue characters.
Newspapers that have carried false stories
were sued and suffered heavy loses several
time.
Mine is not a big matter. It hurts no one.
It is just a trivial disappointment to my
radio friend who is desperately looking for
a HF transceiver as he has successful in
upgrading himself to an A class. I suggested
to him to get a new one from One
Communication. A fully dedicated HF rig
costs RM2.5K, which is considered
inexpensive, the Icom718.
Icom
718 impressed me as I worked with a few
stations that sent me a powerful and
tremendous signal. Listening to the audio, I
would think it was from a high end rig.
He would have to spend about 4K for a few
decent stuffs; an antenna tuner, and a power
supplier. I have not told him that he could
get a much cheaper homebrewed rig from
Indonesia for a price of about between 800
to 1.2K ringgit. The Jakarta Hamfest is
about July. He has a few months to put his
money aside for his shopping spree in
Jakarta.
I think I need to tell him about the ethics
of being a responsible person, to avoid
creating stories and to assess the veracity
of any news.
06/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
CROSSFIRE
SABAH VS READERS |
Salleh Keruak:
Sabotaging M'sian economy not patriotism
Sabotaging Malaysia's economy by
frightening off foreign investors is an
act of treason, not patriotism, said
Communications and Multimedia Minister
Salleh Said Keruak.
"Some
people claim they are criticising the
prime minister and are running down the
country out of patriotism.
"Most
historians agree that Adolf Hitler was
also a patriot and that Naziism was the
product of this patriotism. And 100
million people died because of this,"
Salleh said in a blog post last night...
Readers challenge
|
MORALITY
STILL PREVAIL |
I have not
been in favor of businessmen and Malay taxi
drivers. I believe they are selfish,
inconsiderate and greedy. They charged
exorbitant price to their customers,
especially the taxi service in my town. For
a distant of 3 or 4 miles they would put 4
persons to fill up their taxis and charged
as much as RM15 a person. If they happen to
knock your car they won't to pay even a
single cent for a damage. The Mamak
restaurant like Mee Abu or Yasmeen would cut
your throat till you bleed. You will not pay
less than RM5 for a simple meal at a Pumpong
restaurant owned by a Malay. Here a double
fresh orange juice cost RM5 while elsewhere
only cost RM4. In my hear I had been cursing
these people for their avarice.
Finally I
realized that my generalization was wrong. Not all businessmen are that
ridiculous. I can still enoy a good meal for
RM2.50. The RM3.50 breakfast of Roti-Kirai
with plenty of beef in the gravy could last
me till 3pm, after having the tasty food
at 9am.
Even the
stingy Majed
restaurant, well known for a tasty but
expensive food, is kind to me, charging me between
RM4.50 to RM6 for each meal with free
beverage and sliced cucumber. A large prawn
which he usually sold at RM10 to RM12 a
piece, were sometimes served to me for only RM6.
It is a complete meal.
And this
evening I wanted to have a taste on satay. Satay is
a very expensive dish nowadays. Price of a
stick used to be 30 cents and now has
increased to 70 cent. At the Night market at
a place I used to go was 60 cents a stick. I
ordered 6 sticks and asked the man to add
extra slices of
cucumber for an extra price. Cucumber has a good nutritional
values. Some says it is good for kidney. The
girl put about 7 to 8 pieces in a small
plate. While I was munching the meat, the man added a
fistful more of them. But when I wanted to make a
payment the man told me to pay just for the satay, not the cucumber. I insisted. He
adamantly refused it. "The cucumber is free
for you," he said.
And at the
same night market the boy who sold the
jackfruit for RM10 for two packets, only
charged me RM8.
I realize
that after all not everyone is greedy nor
inconsiderate. But I have yet to find a taxi
man in my town who I could favor as a good
man.
Morality
still prevails even though there may be one
out of ten millions who would reject
millions of corrupt money for a principle,
and willing to starve, rather than colluding
themselves with avarice. People who hold to
the moral values and consulting their
conscience are hard to find even in the
Eastern part of the world these days. Most
individuals are wearing the masks of
hypocrisy. Their hearts and facial
countenance are far apart. When confront
with money there could appear an immediate
transformation of personality.
We can only
pray for our fellow humans not to lose their
humanity, to believe in the high esteem of
morality.
|
DISAPPEARING SPIRIT OF SOCCER |
There are
heavy gambling in soccer. They can involve
between hundred thousands of ringgit to a
few millions. You may be amazed to know that
there various ways of betting, not merely
the final result of who wins and lose.
People may bet on which team will get the
corner ball first, the number of cards waves
by the referee, the number of corner kicks
within 20 minutes and which team will score
the most in the first or second half.
The stake
could be so big that bookies and gamblers
tend to use stealth individuals to breakup
or to weaken a certain team from direct
corruptions to psychological approach to
hurt the coach or players, to break them
apart. The stealth individuals are not
strangers to the team. These individuals
mingle with the officers and the players as
an ardent and die hard supporter. Sometimes
their sting work. Other time they continue
to fail time and again.
I could not
understand the reason for
teams who won championships to recruit new
players on the following seasons. Sometimes
I did think there were invisible hands
behind the decision.
The question
is whether we need to have stealth private
detectives to investigate and observe any
strange phenomena.
Why not when
soccer has become a big business and ghastly political issue
? There was a clash of Titans over it. Millions of rinngit
are changing hands, both in the inside and
outside the main soccer fraternity. Salaries
for coaches and players have reached the
million marks. People are rushing to make a
living out of the sport. If ignored and
unchecked the sanctity of the game will be
totally destroyed. Fans drive hundred of
miles from the remote areas to watch a clean
straight game, yelling and shouting their
heads off, not knowing there are pawns in
the field being pushed by the unseen.
Whatever
there are opportunities for some people
within the community to make big money from
a simple decision.
Coaches and
players were robbed in the middle of the game
to weaken one and to strengthen the other.
Referee made bias decision. Goalkeepers
caught empty air instead of the slow moving
ball. Players faked injuries and quit the
field. The real spirit of the game was
ruined by punters and corruptors, and by
people with power and money.
Funny, there
isn't seem to be obstruction rules anymore.
Players blocked their opponents in twos or
threes while the ball is feet away. There
are brawling and knee attacking, and pushing
almost coming to a game of rugby. Surely
these are not caused by the mastermind of
gambling machines. So were the robbing of
coaches and players in the middle of the
game. The whole stuffs looks like rubbing
mud to the beautiful and entertaining
sports, erasing the spirit of the game.
What
different does it made between corruptors
and a person who uses a dubious mean to kill
a strong team ? Both are killing the
sanctity and the integrity of the lovable
entertainment.
03/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
GOD GIVES
GOD TAKES |
iIslam
prohibits arrogance and boasting. There is a
word 'Riak' which means to assert oneself
with the deliberate purpose of showing off
that he is better and above the others. A
swaggerer is seen as a person with the 'Riak'.
He gives credit to himself for every success
of the team or organization. You see these
people everywhere and everyday. We were
warned by some Muslim scholars to be very
careful on what we post and say on the
Facebook for it may be construed as 'Riak'.
My posting of a picture showing my luggage
for traveling is also considered as trying
to show off though my intent was for mere
information.
Here I would
like to focus on one issue, soccer.
Soccer is
like a religion to some people in some
countries. A war almost broke out due to the
quarrel over the game. The sport generates a
massive economic activities. Hundreds and
thousands of dollars circulate during each
game. It is a haven for vendors and hawkers,
earning a clean profit up to a 1K at each
match play.
In the recent
years strong teams were from Kelantan,
Pahang, Selangor, Johor, Trengganu, the
Police and FELDA. Johor (JDT) was one of the
finest and had been representing Malaysia in
the Asian Club tournaments. Selangor, Pahang
and Kelantan had ever emerged as Malaysian
champions too. I do not deny the powerful
JDT have been showing a fast, aggressive and
skillful play.
Slowly there
loom a voice that the success of JDT was due
to the effective and a good leadership
management. It did not end there. Instead it
went on to say that Malaysian soccer had not
been competitive in the region because of
the failed management. FAM must be revamped.
It is not in my position to validate the
authenticity of the view. It may be right or
it may be wrong.
I have been
questioning people on the composition of JDT,
the number of Johor native players and the
the numbers from other states, who had been
the main scorers ? If star players from
other states were brought in and the winning
goals came from a skillful import plater, we
could not attribute the success to the well
organized administration.
Fans were
seen to pass remarks that JDT has shown a 'Riak'
and had been spewing unpleasant statements
on the team. They even prayed for JDT to
lose against a Japanese team. Last night
when JDT was beaten 3 - 1 by Pahang it
created a happy moment to millions. Where
was the greatness of JDT and the most
effective administration ?
It is a human
habit to forget God's providence when they
are at the top, with wealth and power. They
render the great attribute to themselves.
I don't even
think Malaysia will be able to qualify the
World Cup despite of the new administration
for a myriad of reasons.
As to the JDT
I only have to say that God gives and God
takes.
02/04/2017
ABDUL RAHMAN RAOF |
|
h |