One Eye Monster

Tin can

QRX
Hold on a minute
(Hold on a minute, I will call you again)
I will call you again in..
(QRX 5 minutes)

Pull the big switch
(Closing down the station)

Q-Codes are for CW 

Visit 9M2MGL's block for simple homebrewed CW keyer

Pelajar SMTJS -Mulai malam esok anda boleh terus melayari laman web sekolah melalui www.smtjs.net  atau smtjs.net sahaja.  Sekolah  akan mengambil alih urusan kemaskini. Terima kasih.                    16/09/2008

WHAT RIG TO BUY ? Investing money on rig is not a wise thing to do. The old hams's golden saying is 'The juice is at the antena'. We can have a super duper rig which may cost us million of dollars each but if our antena is poor then there is no point. I have heard hams using cheap rigs but they sound like a gigantic transceiver when the band condition is good. An antenna is said to be poor when it is not cut to proper length, sling in a haywire manner at a low height. Though we may have antenna tuner to assist us but it cannot beat the real length. Shortening the antenna by using loading coils does not help much though it can save your rig. Audio quality produced by different rigs may defer but again it is just a matter of preference. Kenwood stuuf or Icom MK2G may sound like pitch+echo but during a good band condition that does not matter much.  A good antenna system would cost much more than a sngle rig. But let me tell you, so far I have been using dipole for the last 30 years or so. 9M2MGL work the whole world with a dipole. It is easy to put up if you have ample space, no climbing and no risk. So what rig to buy ? Buy any rig at all. But plan more for your antenna.

Place your cursor near to the box and move it slowly

I worked Yoshi on 08/09/2006 and 28/04 2003 on SSB. Look at his shack which is very neat and the antenna system.

I worked HL5QY on 30/05/2003

RAE the mcmc's proposal - I read with interest on MCMC's proposal about conducting RAE. MCMC suggested the Malaysians should learn from Taiwan and Singapore. Let me give a short comment on Taiwan and Singapore which the MCMC might have not known and MARTS's council members are not aware of. Taiwan may be good in agriculture but since the WWII till a few years ago there was only ONE ham. This one person was using 2 callsigns. BV1B and BV!A. Now I am not sure how many hams they have there. As for Singapore I am not trying to degrade the country. But lately the SOP of a Singaporean heard was below standard. Callsigns were not mentioned when passing over the transmission. As for my view I would not go tp those countries to learn about ham radio. Please convey this to the MCMC.

Busy Days For Me - I have not been on the air for quite some time these days. Not because it is a puasa month but because I am trying to complete my former school web page and handed to the school once it got it's own domain and server. It will be very soon. Time flies when I did alot of experiments with java stuffs to customise for my usage. But from time to time I did call CW.

THE WAIT - There is a waiting for a fellow ham to die or becoming poor.  People are ready to grab any available opportunity to get the equiments cheaply. If we are tlaking of dead hams, it is not as bad as we are talking of hams alive. We become vultures and ready to strike at any  chance. I was told then taht one of the hams in the country was facing financial diffulty and had to sell whatever things he had. So people flog for his antenna and rigs. When I computed the total sale would be at the maximum of 10 K. I felt very bad when I heard the news.  Then there was another dead ham. His friend claimed that  he dead ham owed him 8K. This would put a heavy pressure on the dead ham's parent. The wait would still goes on. Beside this we also have a jobless ham trying to make money out of ham radio in several ways. If things do not go right RAE papers could be sold at RM200 each to to pass it would cost the same amount. When the MCMC is talking of privatising RAE the opportunists are waiting again to strike at the chances. At times the waiting is worthwhile.

LITTLE KNOWLEDGE CAN BE DANGEROUS - If you want to have technical discussions make sure you have enough knowledge. Wanting to learn and to know is good, asking question is good too. There are many hams coming on the and asked questions good questions. Those are not confusing. But at time we  tend to ask questions that would confuse everybody. Question like 'is radiating element is antenna' is very confusing. Asking such question from a DX station can embarass the nation as a whole. The yes or no answer is irrelevant as compared to the distance and length of each radiating element with one another. However the more the silly questions and answers we come across the more convincing we are that RAE is not relevant to get the ham licence. 

If we have little knowledge we read and understand. What we don't understand from the reading we can put forward on the air.

RADIO FEE CORRECTION

9M2AU wrote 

Aziz and Rashid suggested to the MCMC to abolish the RM60 to make it free. Recently the hobbyist in USA has to pay more to enjoy their hobby. There was some commotion. The FCC might have lent it's ears to the noises made. I have not yet study the worldwide situation to make any comment. Once it is done I will act appropriately. But I know what the MCMC said, "A ham can buy more than 3 HF rigs, why can't they just pay RM60." Is it true ? Not all hams own more than 4 rigs. So far I only know 2 9Ws having more than 4 HF rigs and several 9M own 5-6 rigs. Some guys can't even make their ends meet.

THE REAL OLD HAMS

The real old hams are old aged hams. 60 + is considered old by our Malaysian standard. The formerly active old hams are disappearing. The living ones may not find ham radio today is not entertaining anymore. The happy group began to disintegrate when it broke like a fallen glass when one of the members went silent key . Some are not happy to hear things which did not exist before. 

A few might think there are more important things they have to attend to. To me my unpaid work of looking at computers around is very important. I have to make sure they run well. Those who have grand children to look into would give thir full attention to the grand children.

What about SWLing ? As far as I am concerned I don't listen to everybody talking .  Clean communications pleasing to the ears wold be fun to monitor. If the SOP is bad , Q-Codes are wrongly used and  found the station talking got a habit of causing disturbances to other people, I would just move away of switch  off my rig.

I think the old aged hams have other priorities to look at. But for certain joy is diminishing due to the recklessness and rudeness that we have been hearing. 

Code for web e-mailing. Better run from web search 9m2ar.com/mailx.htm

CAUSING EMBARASSMENT -  Not everybody is like us. You may not feel embarass on many matters but other people do. The fact that it is OK for us that  does not mean we can embarass people. There may be hams who like to ask personal questions or commented on personal matters. Questions like how much is your salary, what is your qualification, why you divorce your wife, your income is 4000, more than many other hams, why do you like to spend your money on girls etc are considered impertinent. Sometime I myself feel shock when someone else knows how much is my total household income and annouced it on the radio. Why the person is so busy to compute our income etc ?  If the other guy or anybody wants to tell his own personal story let him do so. It is wise just to listen rather than to comment.  I have been talking to many people and I don't know what they do for their living unless they say so. Neither do we asked them about their monthly income. If we are anxious to know the other guy's profession we can say 'I am an insurance agent, have to work hard to earn a few ringgit to feed the kids". That is all. usually the other guy will response "I am a flight engineer working for NASA". If he just keep quite about it, he may not want to let others know about his job. Imagine a person says " I am a hired killer. You want me to kill anybody ? " On the other hand if the other guy has the same wavelength as you are, then by all mean go ahead. No amount of qustion can embarass each other.

HAVE YOU HEARD HOW THE INDONESIAN BREAK IN ? The Indonesian stations use to break in by just giving the suffixes like 'RI" "Romeo India", "Charlie Kilo". Is it wrong ? Nothing wrong. Giving suffixes is a practice when there is a pile up. We hope the other station could hear us. May be our 'Romeo India' can break thru in between among the many voices. Though it is customary to do in a pileup, we should not follow the practice when we have only a few persons in a group. Just mention the full callsign like 'Nine Mike Two Alfa Romeo'. However in cases where we already know each other's voice people are heard to use just "Alfa Romeo". In HF commnication we do not press the PTT all the time. We only press it when we are talking. We release it when we stop talking. So people can break in at any time when they heard a pause. Mentioning a full callsign or even a comment is fully audible. Again, there is nothing wrong with it. We just want to avoid asking the question repeatedly "What is your callsign please ? ". So far on Marts National link repeater the breaker seems to give the full callsign. That is good. Since you are going DX sooner or later, please learn to speak more English on the local net.

DON'T FEEL INFERIOR - If we cannot do things we don't feel bad. Everybody is good at many things but not at all things. Many time and it is very usual that we get hit for wrongs we are not responsible. The prolong war in the Middle East between Israel and the neighbors is one of the examples. If you always read blogs, you will see people hitting even the innocence. In our radio fraternity we do have the super smart guys with bad behaviours and rude, roaming around to pass remarks, using 4 letter words, causing QRM on HF and VHF bands. We can choose to keep quiet, or hit hard back at those guys. That's the reason why we commented on the ability of these super smart people. Those who hear us will not feel good and some might feel inferior.

Remember to be a tycoon you don't have to have a university degree. World figure like Nicole David and Chong Wei are people of their own class. We can't beat them. You too have your own class. There are many things that we can achieve but we thik we can't. Because our minds block us. You need to study the power of our minds and what it can do for us. We have been putting up the stumbling block in front of us many time, thinking the wrong thing, create the non-existence enemies. We need to wake up and be brave to encounter the challenges and to fight the negativity of our thinking.

We all can do what we aim to do.

Hit counter counts the number of visitors to your website. When SMT Jalan Stadium asked me to write a sample web page for them to refer as  a basic structure they told me to put the hit counter. Hit counter is free and readily available on the website. You just need to download and use it. There are so many beautiful designs.

I did download one and found that it has to look up at the remote server. And I find it to be slow. So I decide to make my own. A single field mdb file was created. I called it jumlah.mdb and  placed in in one of the folders in the server where the software is. The connection string to the jumlah file is shown on the left.

To display 5 digit counter I use the codes below

    if rs2(0)<10 then bil="00000" & rs2(0)
   if rs2(0)>9 and rs2(0)<100 then bil="0000" & rs2(0)
   if rs2(0)>99 and rs2(0)<1000 then bil="000" & rs2(0)
   if rs2(0)>999 and rs2(0)<10000 then bil="00" & rs2(0)
   if rs2(0)>9999 and rs2(0)<100000 then bil="0" & rs2(0)
   if rs2(0)>99999 and rs2(0)<1000000 then bil= rs2(0)

The last line is the display. Go to 9m2ar.com/jalanstadium to see the sample. It does not look nice but quite presentable. It suits the purpose. The program needs another line to reset it back to 1 when it reaches the maximum.

Good luck to you if you are trying one.

It is you who said that homebrew is full of fun.

A radio operator should have a few basic items, namely a compass, a themometer, a 24 hour clock and a logbook. What to be placed in front and always be visible are the themometer, a clock and a logbook. A pen too of course. Keep the compass at a place where it is  easily located. The compass is handy whenever an antenna is to be fixed. Scroll below for new topics Scroll below for new topics Scroll below for new topics

1. This is to remind members of ham radio clubs/societies, which they can cease to ignore, that they should not depart with their money  as to payment of a certain collection pertaining to assurace of a pass in RAE, CW, fight for No-Cw, No-RAE, for certain clubs or repeaters,  to any indivial who claims he is the representative of any of those clubs or oganization. The club will announce of it's intent and as to the metod of payment.

2. Individuals may approach members to use their names on certain APs when goods to be purchased do not belong to them. If they choose to ignore evenually they will know the consequences.

3. That if anybody whom you don't know very well ask you to buy some expensive items using your own money, do not be to kind to do it. Collect the money first before you help them to buy. There have been reports that goods purchased have not been re-imbursed. Some people lost to about RM2000.00.

4. Lending something to friends always ended up in no return. Learn how to say 'NO'. True people will say we are 'sombong' but you can't go on losing things forever. However some of our friends are trusted guys. Likewise don't borrow their things.

TIME FLIES - The hop from puasa to puasa seems to be very fast. Each day we are getting older and older. Hams come and go. Every fasting month the 40 meter band is active especially the time before the breaking of fast. Radio keeps time flies.

During the fasting month we talk about food most of the time. Yeah, fasting month should be the time of less spending bu on the contrary the daily expenditure rises. We buy more goodies. Remember the price hike is quite steep this year. All due to gas crisis.

After Ramadzan and Raya there is a SEANET in Kota Kinabalu. If you have not been to one, try this one. Have the experience and the fun. We don't know whether we will see the sun the next day. Time flies.

THE FUN WE USED TO HAVE - In the good old days Malaysian hams have fun. There were not many then. Everybody knows everybody. We swayed quite alot but all for the local fun. Internationally we were serious.

We called Bahar as Sambal Belacan. The late Pak Dolah was Dondang Sayang, Rusli was Roti Bakar, Ari as Ekor Gajah, Datuk Tan as Dancing Witches, Rajamani as raja Jepun, Tan as Susah Hati and many more.

What about Idris ? Eshee called him Golok Lima. The rest still used Golf Lima.

Today the Young Turks despise any other phonetics. I just wonder what they use Internationally when they can't hear the callsigns which are about 30% of the time.

The culture began to disintegrate when one by one went silent key. Talking about Ari, Ekor Gajah, I remeber that he is a pious Muslim and ver concern about Muslim food when going to any SEANET. He was assured the food in Jogjakarta was hahal. So 9m2OK, 9M2RB and Ari sapu the tasty food, and finally found one of the delicasies they sapu was frogs. I told Osman "frog is good for your skin".

TALKING TO DOGS - When I was schooling my statistic professor said "People are funny. They walk the dogs and talk to the animals but they don't talk to their neighbors". We don't seem to understand what he meant to say. Someone told me about a Hadith. A sahabat asked the Prophet between the relative and the neighbor who is more important ? The Prophet  said "The neighbor.." A neighbor can be a Muslim or non-Muslim and of any race. He is the most important person to us. Be good to him and make him a relative. A ham should always be aware of this. We tend to be good to ham friends in other places but we did not know or talk to our neighbors. We should not hessitate to ask our neighbor to send us to bus stop, hospital or airport when we don't have the transport. Give him our housekey when we travel far. Likewise we reciprocate the goodwill.

But the choice is ours. We do what we think is best for us.

After all even in USA there are so many illegal activities going on. Lately is on the issue of 10 meter band. Most CB radio can be converted to 10 meters. So the CBers bought the 10 meter stuffs and converted hem to 10 meters. Big companies find it profitable to sell radios look like the CBs but contain a 10 meter channel.

Non-licenceee like thr truckers on CBs are operating on 10 meters. So are the others. Like I always say people tend to follow the crowd whether they are right or wrong, and the wrong is considered right.

Because of the growth of non-licencees are using 10 meters local and DX, the FCC decide to crack those activities. The organization issued warning letters to QRZ.com and others which was said to advertise the sale of illegal equipments. 

People are blaming the FCC and urged the authority to take legal actions on big companies instead just on the small guys.

Like many other countries even in USA there are people who are campaigning freeband for all. That means there will be no more CB and hams. All could go on the band freely.

If there is any fear of illegal activities the authority can always formulated some form of mechanism to ensure the band is clean.

But the fact is in any situation, whether there is any big rule or not, the bad guys will still continue with their behaviors.

The FCC also seek te hekp of ARRL to monitor the illegal activities. The FCC can say "Now...you need our help when at one time you were very harsh on us.." deep down in it's heart. Freedom of speech in USA ? We know in Malaysia we can't have all the freedom. USA ? What about human right ?

THE USAGE OF QRX BY 9M2s

Old Malaysian hams used QRX to tell the other party to standby as it is shown Here  or there. Other online encyclopedia give identical definition. We usually tell others to standby, not telling ourselves to standby. To cut confusion let us not use this CW code for phone use. To mention "please standby", "I will standby" is very much better. But to say "I will QRX and QRT" makes me doubly confuse. It does not mean I'will be monitoring, even the generic meaning does not suit the usage. The generic meaning is 'when will I call you again ?' or 'I will acll you again at....'.In ham radio we seldom use the generic meaning though u can use it in morse code. But do  you go morse ? I tried not to mention the 9M2s who are using QRX to mean something elses. Many of these people I have never heard them in 1970's or early 80s. The 9M2  should show a good example. Otherwise the supersmart and knows all ham will use it throughout the world. 

THIS GUY LEARNS CW IN A WEIRD WAY - I know of someone who wants to learn CW using an electronic keyer. He learns high speed sending using Q-Codes like QRZ and QRM, and also a few callsigns. So he keeps on sending those words. As a new learner we don't go a high speed sending. A beginner should learn how to listen first. After recognizing some characters he can slowly learn sending at a slow pace. Fast sending is always dangerous if a person cannot read fast CW. Whenever they call fast CW they will not be able to read the fast speed response. As a result they will repeat the word QRZ all the time or QRM all the time. Finally they drive people away.

Why be weired ? Self esteemed problem ? Let us be us, be at whatever level we are and slowly and steadily rise up to the peak. Fast speed sender in not a number one person. A person who is flexible and be able to adjust to any speed required by the other party is a number CWer.

Someone might approach you to bring back commodities from outside or offer you to buy things from abroad or using your name on an import permit. Please look before you leap. You are putting yourself into problem and difficulty. Worst if you are asked to buy something with your own money first. You may not get back your money. The trusted money collector would be MARTS, ASTRA, and MARES.

MALAYSIANS ARE VAGABOND-We no longer have a fixed place to anchor on 40 meter band. Even the frequency I always used is being taken over. I remember well 7043 was not used by anybody, then I took it as a calling and chatting point since 2003. Our net frequency has always been occupied almost at all time.

The new hams in the country prefer DXing. In the yesteryears DXing means 20 and 15 meters. During the good sunspot activities 10,15 and 20 opens very well. 40 meter was considered as local band. The 40 meter band was good all the time then. We can hear the near and distance stations within the country from morning till night time.

The locals meet here, many of them and everyday. 7030, 7035 and 7040 were occupied by hams from all over the country. The most prominant ones were 9M2GL, 9M2FK, 9M2RJ, 9M2AT, 9M2DW, 9M2EG, 9M3GV, 9M2OK, 9M2WT, 9M2SH, 9M2MT, 9M2BS, 9M2CF, 9M2RI, 9M2RS, 9M2AV, 9M2SS, 9M2AP, 9M2DJ, 9M2PT, 9M2CG, 9M2MW, 9M2CW, 9M2FR, 9M2AS, 9M2RB, 9M2PD, 9M2SX, 9M2PF, 9M2SB and a few others whom I can't remember. Many SWLs were enjoying listening to their communications about everything else under the sun.

Those legends are disappearing. For several years only 9M2HC and 9M2ZA seems to be heard. A few years ago we can still hear the Malaysian net. Now gone. Frequencies are there but the Malaysians are not there.

One or two hams who is coming on the band has to look for a clear frequency here and there. Now we have to move from place to place.

MALAYSIAN HOSPITALITY -  A computer engineer from Spain was trying to get a reciprocal licence since last months. I gave him the contact person and the MCMC's web page. Today he posted an-email saying that he did not bring any equipment since there was no response from anybody. I wrote to MCMC straight away. The officer in charge was kind enough and acted promptly asking his subordinate to process it. I was waiting for a kind of response from MCMC. So far nothing yet. Hopefully things could be speeded up. 

Many a time I wrote to various embassies and other organizations. They responded well and prompt too. In Malaysia most government departments would just ignore letters. May be the MCMC finds the normal reciprocal is not so normal as the double reciprocal. I wonder who had been advising MCMC on radio matters like the usage of callsigns for clubs and repeaters etc. And even inventing the new meaning of Q-Code for the MCMC to use. Could the same person advise the MCMC about the reciprocal also ?

Today I have received the reply from the MCMC. I would like to thank them. Looks like there are many new officers. I am sure they are trying their best.

ARE we selfish ? In many ways we are selfish. We are thinking more of our own interest. We don't want the others to be like us. As for our own interest we fight all the way forgetting the others. In many professions that's what we do.

We set arguments, prepare excuses and running from the basic. We reject the idea of letting everyone get access to ham radio giving various reasons which in fact can be overcome.

In one article I wrote about swearing on the Quaran. We said if we swear on it we are right. When we say let all the criminals use swearing in court to declare their innocent, we say cannot "..they will be telling lies".

Double standard is normally due to selfishness. We say we are not. But people see us otherwise.

Arguing with selfish people is just a waste of time and breath. In fact I seldom or even have not heard some of these people on the air. May be they don't go local but using other people's callsign to go DXing.

BUT we have to always remember; as long as the rules do not change we must abide by the rules, good or bad, we like it or not. That is what civilization is  about.

How to convert DBF file to Mysql database file ?

1. There is a program called dbf2Mysqlw32.exe which converts dbf file into sql script file with the extention .sql. The dbf2Mysqlw32.exe can be anywhere. To execute it just type dbf2Mysqlw32 directory\filename.dbf eg dbf2Mysqlw32 c:\ham\callbook.dbf. You will get a file called callbook.sql. This is a script mysql file.

2. To run callbook.sql you must be in Mysql > command. That means you have to enter mysql. My Mysql is in Mysql\bin directory. I invoke Mysql command by typing Mysql.

3. Type Mysql > Source callbook.sql.

Remember to create a table first before running the script. Fields must be the same. You can see the fields name by typing edit callbook.sql.

Good Luck !

GIVE US A BREAK

Some of us are very old man. We can't hear well. So give your callsign slowly and clearly. Just listen to some guys. We can't decipher what their callsign. Ini banyak susah woh!

Also, please don't go away after calling CQ. Stay for about 15 to 25 seconds before you go away. You just don't switch off your station after calling CQ and 2 second later you decide to go. Although you may want to use the super duper style, be patient la abit. It takes at least 10 seconds to go to small London. You can't expect the guy to move like a superman from the kitchen to the shack. Most of us are not superman.

HOW GOOD IS MY CW ? - Compared to the Americans, Russians and the Indonesians my CW is 1 scale out of 10000. But I am very proud of it because I am able to copy by just listening. The highest speed that I can read is about 35 wpm, no more. My fastest sending is just about 18 wpm with full of mistakes.

What I will be saying here is just my feeling, which is not neccessarily be factual.

CW makes me feel I am better than many hams who do not know them. I feel smart. I respect people who know morse because I believe they are very smart. One has to be real smart and diligent enough to be able to pass it.

People who fail CW is not because they are not smart but because of their other commitments. They don't have the time to focus on it, especially a medical doctor or a lawyer. To me a doctor is more important than a lawyer. A doctor save life,a lawyer makes money. A doctor should be given communication facilities and a callsign for free. They need to communicate from time to time at the time of distress.

I heard people say, so and so in Malaysia is extremely good in morse. But I have not heard them. But I can tell you that among the 9M2s, 9M2FK, 9M2YP, 9M2ZN, 9M2AGC are among the best CWers. I take my hat off and give all my respect to 9M2AGC who can master morse in a short period of time. 9M2MGL is slowly picking up to be among the best.

I was laughing hard when people say a musician can learn it fast. To me it is a mere excuse. Those who can't mean they don't work hard enough. You have to have discipline to do it. Those who like to give excuses after excuses will always do the same anywhere and everywhere. That is what the politicians like to do. But the worst of the politicians is that they like to lie and feel natural about it.

Morse Code is another language, the language of a real ham, which we do not want anymore. Real ham radio will be dead whether we like it or not. I feel happy with my little Thai, Hokien and Mandarin. Now a new one, the CW. 

The other day when I went to Indonesia one ham said "Pak saya punya callsign yang tertinggi sekali..saya ada CW". 

But my pride stays with me and in me. I do not despise the others who have been trying very hard to make time to do a little study. The effort put is as good as passing the CW exam.

I do not only talk about CW. I also work CW.

A ham thinks using a Q-Code on SSB can make him unique and he may feel special. So he uses them without knowing their meanings. The seniors are following the juniors so that they may not be left behind.

Q-Codes are for CW communications, not for SSB. At least that's how it started. True it is easier and more comfortable to use, but if we continue using them wrongly it could spoil the beauty of ham radio.

How many ham construct their own transformers, transceivers, receivers, repairing the miniature radio PC board or built their own power supplies ?

What is so tecnical about ham radio in this country ? It is theSOP that is more important. So why RAE ?