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One Eye Monster RF Liquid	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) MENTION YOUR CALL SIGN SLOWLY AND CLEARLY	Pull the big switch (Closing down the station)	Q-Codes are for CW  Morse Practise Download 9M2ARCW Trainer SOP Guidance 1 Taj Visit Time Attendance The Grand Tradition Extended Topics ( VK Trip)
	Roger is not over. CB'er and pirates use it to mean over. In USA old hams condemn new hams using CB lingo.

The Search For Talents Tradition Revisited PTT Revisted ARRL Handbook Driving While Mobile	The First Malaysian YL I worked on CW                            New Wife Group Chat The Malaysian Way More Frequencies For CB Old And New Hams Can Never Meet Service Manual 706 MK2G	AGM here & There Out Of Topic Can I Stand It ? Short Cut Silent Key Well You Are Great	My New Garmin Thanks To New 9M2s Know Your Neighbor ANew Ham & CW Contactless Card Is 9W2ZZK operated Illegally	My Next Trip  A Little CW Lingo The Invincible Pirates Me Plug & Play      The Right Drop RAE or Face Piracy 9M2SZ      What's So Special About Ham

	WANTED- I am looking for a Garmin map of USA complete with POI to be used with Nuvi 205. Please send me with the information to my e-mail smvas@hotmail.com Dayton Hamvention 2010 May 14-16 2010 Amateur Radio Clubs Worldwide: The Lifeline   I am planning to go to Dayton Hamvention on around 10th May 2010. Presently the air ticket to New York is RM3400 inclusive of all the taxes. I am not sure whether we need to the booking from now onwards. I can go to Los Angeles alone but not Dayton. It will take two days to travel from the airport to the Hamvention city by car and it is almost impossible to drive alone. Even before the trip the map reading has to start unless there is a GPS with the map of the United States. As a budget traveler ways to save expenditure must be seek and comfort will be the last thing. I am looking for one or 2 persons who have the desire to join me. The expected length of stay in the United States will be two weeks, enough to visit American Falls, Corning and ARRL Head Quaters. The more country will be Florida but that needs another additional week. Going to such a big and sophisticated country is not the same as going to Melaka or Kota Bharu. Several meetings or discussions must be made before the journey to discuss some expectations and the possible unseen eventualities. If I decide to go alone, I may have to study how to take the Grey Hound bus to Dayton. Traveling by bus is not cheap in the United States. In the 80's I paid approximately RM250 for a trip from Alor Setar (assuming) to Kuala lumpur. The hotel in Hamvention area is not cheap either. It ranges from USD100 - USD200 per night. Of course going in a group is very much cheaper. However in case anyone interested, please e-mail me for further information.
	MARTS MARTS constitution must change to suit the new environment. I find the procedure of electing the counsel enblock is not suitable today. The philosophy behind it is to make sure the members can see eye to eye with each other. It did work in the yesteryears with the old hams because of the unity in thought and spirit. In the later years I see MARTS has gone haywires. There was a war during when Dr Ken was organizing SEANET in Johor. There was a fight in almost every AGM. Because old hams are not so smart, they tend to agree rather than to disagree. Today people are too smart and have innovative ideas. I see there are many new 9M2s who are energetic and capable. They need to lead MARTS now. With the old procedure of chosen the counsel members, these people are hardly brought up to lead the members. Voting system must be changed. Disagreements exist in every radio society in the other parts of the world too. But we have to realize that radio society is not a political party. It is not a flat form to contest of meritocracy. I just mentioned the 9M not because hey are superior but it facilitates the old form of counsel meetings over the air. In the good old days meetings were heard by members and in fact the world. Nothing secret. Any organization must not be used to enhance or to pursuit one's own interest. It should be for the betterment of ham radio and the attain a high standard and quality hams and organization. Today almost the whole world is looking up at ARRL or RSGB. We must strive to attain such a standard. Old hams are old hams, counting the number of days left. We can't show our smartness but we can tell of our experience of what we saw and what we did. We can't match the younger generations in knowledge and brawn.  My personal view is that an organization is hardly survive or be strong without money. Money is decision making. If the organization does not start thinking how to generate income then eventually it is weakening itself. Thailand amateur radio is very much younger than the Malaysian yet there already have numerous publications. And I believe MARTS should start to produce radio magazines the quickest to generate income. There are many things MARTS can do if it wants to do. With a good and stable income it can even employ professionals and writers to do the work. Have you ever heard of school corporative earning RM900 per year, just with an innovative idea of the teacher in charge. MARTS therefore need working committees rather than the fighting or talking committees.  It also should not have people who like to  boast and claim themselves to be heroes. Right now I feel we need members who want to publish magazines and to raise the dignity of amateur radio as a respectable hobby and who have enough knowledge and experience in organizing activities like SEANET and contest, the creation of AWARDS and to carry the tradition of ham radio. Top
	THE SEARCH FOR TALENTS I have been away for quite some time and now let me put anything on radio aside and talk about the search for talents. In USA once upon a time entrepreneurs would go to Broadway New York and search for talents there. To the visitors Broadway was fun where entertainments were free. In Malaysia where can you find talents ? You might not believe me if I were to say 'Wad Gila'.  I have written about the late Harun Gila in Alor Setar and Chat Gila in Bukit Mertajam. While Harun was quiet and befriended by many normal men, Chat had the skill of a politician. Passing a ward for so-called mentally ill and hearing them talking we would not say they are mad personalities. You can find good orators and singers talking sensible stuffs. Sometimes we wonder where they acquired those knowledge and skills. Besides, there are people outside the confinement who learn about apple and start talking about all fruits and other foods with non-existence flavors, non-factual and pure nonsense. One guy who was known as a bluffer told everyone that he was a graduate in history who like to mention Budi Supomo nt Boedi Utama as a party in Indonesia in the yester years. One thing good about those graduated from the mental ward was that none so far is known wants to be a great politicians or any post may it be in society, organization or politics.  There are people with special talents that not everyone has. He likes to be seen with VIPs or whenever any VIP present to see a rehearsal he would be very busy and made himself one as if he wan the main player in  organizing the activity like a concert. For the weeks long preparation and rehearsal you can't even smell him. I like to watch the process of talent search in American idol and Dancing with the stars. The good ones are really good. But many bad ones who really can't sing and dance insisted that they are good dancers and singers, hurling curses to the judges and even promise a revenge. People with bad voice think their voices are pretty and people who never sing would sing the loudest. So far the judges chose the right talents.  The choice of the wrong talents always happen in politics. So we we saw the mafia like leaders, the arrogance, the corrupts, the robbers. They are not wrong but the people who elect them are blind. We may not have talent to trace the evil in the white cloak. They have the talent to hide themselves. But if we ask more and study more then we will know their true colors. When we go for the talent search keep in mind our aim and objective. We need to understand our environment. Have you not seen the people you chose in their past activities ? Top
	THE FIRST MALAYSIAN YL I WORKED ON CW I have been a ham since 1978 but had never worked CW with any YL from Malaysia though we have a YL 9M2. The most active ladies on Morse come from Indonesia and I was lucky to worked them before. Morse like many other disciplines were said to be cut only for men. Yet a big number of men are scared of the sound. They say it is a hard thing to achieve. 9M2OUT, handle OJA from Arau is the first  Malaysian lady who dared to work DX stations on this mode. I am lucky that I can logged her as a very rare station. I have talked to many ladies from this country but never found it very special, just like any normal contact. The excitement was almost nil but working OJA was a pleasure. The very same day  worked 9M2OUT, I also worked 9M2ZN at the speed that I never dream to achieve. I marked the 42 wpm on my rig and with my slow fingers I tried to press the electronic key calling 9M2ZN. Surprisingly enough Mazwan came back to my call. Mazwan is a male graduate teacher who can read a high speed CW and sent one without mistake. I felt very satisfied to be able to chat at that speed. DX stations are getting faster and faster when someone in the FCC hated CW too much. Thousands would swarm the band when band condition opened up and at time we do not hear any phone station on the phone portion because the Morse enthusiasts punching away their keys. My theory on the capability of women was never wrong. I saw their work. I heard them talking. I discuss things with them. When I kind of like them the male would protest. What a man can do a woman can do too. What a woman can do, many men cannot do. Top
	AT THE AGM - A SHORT COMMENT HERE AND THERE Days and weeks before MARTS AGM, I already talked to Rashid about the fight and the glove knowing the nature of the new hams. 9M2RS assured me that there will be no fight this time. Attending several meetings I found many people like to talk and those who talked much usually get elected. In many cases the new people killed the organization and utilize it to fill their own coffers. The turnout was small. Sorry to say I have never heard the talkers but two on the ham band. 9W2TZ made himself heard on the radio as well in the meeting. One wants the MARTS repeater down to save cost and I hope he will do it. Some guys should not die because the funeral cost is expensive nowadays. If they think somehow they have to die then just don't bury the body to save cost. There were no heated exchanges. One group shot and the other just waited to fall. While a few who might not even know the radio SOP were happily firing away, I went out to take the fresh air. One 9W2 young man approached me asking me several things which I could not comprehend well because my hearing is bad. He asked me about my writing a computer software at my age. How could I answer ? I just told him now I am going on biometric and smart cards. In fact he was asking me a very good question. I can put his question in many ways for instant 'Can you still write computer program at your age ?' Though the answer was simple but how could I say out ? I have writing about it in and out. What bar us from many things is our mind and attitudes. Most of us have a dual personality. While we believe that we are the smartest lot and criticize everybody, at the same time we say we can't do many simple things. Surely I would imply to Morse code learning. And to computer programming. And to read on the Q-Code and IARU's documentation on ethics and SOP. We are just a sheer lazy to do it not that we can't. From the beginning I said a bad AGM is not a pleasure. But I met 9M2ZD, Balan, and his wife. I saw 9W2AA whom I only saw in picture. I enjoyed the Nasi Kepala Ikan and the eyeball session with 9M2CW. I enjoyed Choo's company. And more so I enjoyed toying around with my new Garmin Nuvi205 I bought in Kuala Lumpur. This small guy gave me confidence to maneuver around Ipoh city. I believe many people do not know what  ham radio is. The BASIC of ham radio is communications solely thru the airwaves among hams using the various modes. The various awards is to encourage communication. In Malaysia we have HAMA and WAMA award. HAMA is mainly for the SWLs. The contests are to make the band more merry. The more the noise the more it shows the health of the ham radio. It is alive and kicking. On the other hand if you contact a robot days in and days out, in my mind, it is not a ham radio. And in my mind also APRS is not a ham radio. If you insist that they are one then be it . You are entitled to your opinion. GPS system will let people know where you are soon and at a very much faster speed. Ham radio includes SOP and ethics. You must know the art of operating, what to do before calling CQ and where to call CQ. You don't cause disturbances on frequency used by others or at the adjescent frequency which can cause interference to people. You always follow the guidance and regulations. And when you want to show that you are smart and people can't help laughing at your silly errors, you are very angry. Knowing and understanding the totality of the hobby will make us understand what a society is for and suppose to be. Now that a talker in the AGM wants the MARTS repeater to be torn down then by all mean let him do that. I like him to do it the soonest and the fastest. Let us all see. Top
	MY NEW GARMIN - My old Nuvi 200 was stolen at the Mid Valley Mall. The guy who stole it may not be a thief by profession but a normal dishonest man who will rot in hell and will suffer his whole life. It cost me 1.8 K then. But the newer one, Nuvi 205 which is a little better, was priced at RM570. This time I was lucky because Hatyaii road map is loaded and soon I will be able to drive to the Thai city alone. With a Mapsource software we can load new places of interest like restaurants and our friends home. It would be easy if we know the longitude and latitude of a certain place. You locate the point of your destination and click GO. The rest will be done by this small gadget. Ham operators also contribute much to provide free maps to the whole world. Maps are not cheap. Nevertheless we can get them free, legally free. My knowledge on Nuvi is .001% and I need to learn more especially how to combine international maps and the terms and file extensions like what gpx, gpi, img files are used for, how to get and process them for final usage. One day when the satellite technology is made available to the normal population then we will be able to see the moving vehicles or people on the earth surface. Go and look at the more advance Garmin and you will be surprise to see what the technology is offering right now at an affordable price. These few days I spent much time on looking for Garmin free map especially of Australia because of my pending visit on 12th December 2009. To tell the truth the Malaysian GPS community is the best in the world. The world can confirm this. The Malaysians were the first to provide an extensive free maps which are updatable every day. Because of the spirit of the Malaysians the Indonesian joined in in giving free maps. Malaysian maps contain detail information for GPS users, make life easy for them. The spirit and kindness brought benefits to the nation because we make life easy for the tourists. This is one of the greatest Malaysian hospitality. Now I got the Indonesian map in covering the whole of the country. One day I might use it. But so far none show where the radio shops are. The Hatyai map is also useful for me. I will start to mark the ham radio shops when I visit the city soon. Maps are not cheap but for those wealthy people they need to buy them. Surely I will not  buy the Australian map because my visit is limited to the Gold Coast and my intent is to know where the halal foods are. My GPS could navigate to Southern Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei. Even though friends might offer me free street maps of the many cities of the world, I need to buy several SD cards to put the map of each country in each card. The 2 giga-byte SD would be about RM30. While I am going begging for maps, I will also try to work hard to convert the Google earth map to GPS format. Right now I don't have the Google Earth yet. The download is too slow and always interrupted. I still hope someone can zip an Australian map for me. Top
	HOW MUCH DO WE KNOW ? After passing the RAE how much do we know and understand radio and transmitters ? What is an oscillator, modulator, AM, CW, SSB ? What is a balance modulator ? What is a dipole, what is a skip and the various atmospheric layers ? What is a LC circuit, and the local oscillators ? Why do we need them ? What is BFO ? Do all radio need it ? If we do not remember or know them hinder us from operating a radio equipment ? The answer is obvious those knowledge is not relevant but using a new car we need some briefings on operating procedures. We don't have to be a mechanical engineer or must have technical automotive knowledge to own the car. Looking at a ham radio in Malaysia deeply we will find that no technical or electronic knowledge is required to qualify to be a ham. Everything is found in the shop. Not many responded to my proposition to do away with radio amateur examination. To replace it a briefing on SOP and regulation should be given to the applicants. The government could benefit financially as more people could become a ham operator and at the same time there will be a rapid growth in the  number of ham operators in the country. Among those I talked too none seem to agree with it's abolishment but none could give a valid reason. I said to them that it is unfair to throw CW without RAE as well. Base on the argument of relevancy both must be pushed aside. May be no Malaysian ham will apply the Ohm's law in his whole life, not talking about building or repairing a transmitter. Transceivers are cheap and affordable. So are the antenna and other ham gadgets. The more money we have , the more sophisticated our shack will be. Today if we talk about relevancy of CW and RAE, they both carry none of it. Actually we have only two options, namely either push both or accept both. As for the second option, we continue having them both merely base on the tradition of ham radio. If we fear the number of hams will fade due to the computer technology then we have to take the first option. But listening to ham bands, we will find our fear to be untrue because CW stations are chirping away by the thousands. There are so many options in the radio hobby. Among the famous one is the CB. IARU can give the CB more frequencies on other band too. Those CBs provide  proof that RAE and CW are not important BUT any Dick, Tom and Harry can own one. On the other hand, a strict RAE and CW will filter only the quality and skill people. They are similar to a kind of a band pass filter. We make ham radio as an exclusive hobby containing a certain kind of people; people with electronic knowledge and skill in Morse, nothing to do with any form of comparative relevancy. I am sure many other people has the same thought as I am and get the message I am trying to convey. The IARU, the FCC and ARRL could understand the concept. It has to stand by an option either to do away with RAE and CW, or maintain them both altogether. While most of us do not really understand the technicality of transceivers, those people with knowledge do not apply their knowledge in ham radio. The days of home brewing are over. You can forget the ohms law and the balance modulator, the IF and the VFO, the LC and PI configuration. But remember radio antenna is to be placed outside your house not beside you in your shack. If half of the readers just start thinking about what I am saying is good enough. Either you revive the old tradition or do away with them. Many of us the old ham will meet our day and will move from fading to totally fading mode, you are to decide what the future is going to be. Top
	MY NEXT TRIP 9W2TZ always said that I have a money printing factory especially when he heard that I am making a trip somewhere. A trip is a trip. Planning for a trip is something else which makes you enable to travel when you have the 'rezeki'. When Hanafi had a dream and plan for a sophisticated ham radio setup , so are many other fellows who have dream and plan. Many low income people had a dream at least to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. A beggar who has a dream of performing a Haj will accumulate his earning, plan his daily expenditure for food and other necessities. Planning years ahead would be more desirable. God creates imaginative mind and dream so that many people can do what they can't do in a real world. Certainly I can't get to kiss Siti Nurhaliza but with the gift of imagination and dream I could bring her to my side and do anything I want to. Some dream can come true if we plan well. A trip seldom come out of the blue. It has to start with the dream where we want to go and see the total cost involved. Certainly most of use would reject any cost above our mean to accumulate for the trip. The affordable would be about RM700 to RM4000. For a RM4000 trip we have to keep about RM100 per month for 4 years. A RM5000 trip takes 5 years to save. And if you have a certain dividend from any saving the time period could be shortened. That is the money factory, the factory of planning and saving. My next trip will be the Gold Coast of Australia. I don't pay for my wife. We all go Dutch. But we always plan years a head. The date of departure will be 12 th of December 2002 from Penang by Singapore Airline. I will be driving my small 15 year old Kancil to the airport and leave it there. I don't want to trouble anyone to send us there. Because the flight will be at 5 pm, I will depart my house at about 12 am and expect to arrive the airport two hours later. It has been my habit that I do not bring much money. I brought just enough for any extra food or any optional tour. I plan to  bring only about RM300 with me. In my mind there is nothing to buy in the sub-continent. Places like New Zealand, India, Sabah, Sarawak and many others would no offer much to buy. In Vietnam I did find something beautiful which I did not anywhere else. Even that I did not have sufficient fund to buy them. One of the cheap places to buy things is the United States. Though their currency is stronger and the rate of exchange is 3:1 things are cheaper even after conversion. Yet my previous visits to USA ended with no shopping for the reason I did nit carry much money. Because we don't follow the Muslim tour, the food is a little problem. There is a different between pork free and halal food. There will be 30 people in our group, 10 Chinese and the rest mix. I guess there will be more than 10 Muslims which I think will face the same problem. In preparation I will bringing with me 10 packets of Pedas Maggie mee and oat biscuits. If the customs want to confiscate them then we will be left with nothing. I told my wife not to bring much food because we can't carry them. I got to push the wheel chair and at the same time pulling a big bag, and carry a bag pack with me. The way she planned to bring the food, it scared me to death. I know we will be quarreling about it before we push off. However there are many Halal restaurants both in Brisbane and Gold Coast. If our lodging is near those places it will be lucky for me. From Singapore to Brisbane will be 8 hours. The time of departure from Singapore will be at about 8 and we will be arriving our destination in the morning. I told my wife to plan for her vowel and daily call for nature. The tour will begin from the time of arrival. We will be put in the hotel only in the evening. As for healthy people like most of us we can manage ourselves. I hope my wife will do her needful at the airport on arrival. Again the tour people has to be a little patient. A package and a tour leader will be thinking of making as much money as possible. They will plan to economize the expenditure for lodging and other spending. If you want more comfort you will have to organize your own trip. But arriving a destination in the evening will put you in the hotel straight away. On 17 th night we will depart Brisbane and arriving Penang at 9 am. My parking fee will be RM140 for 7 days. Top
	A LITTLE OF CW LINGO I don't read much on the guidance of CW SOP even though I have been encouraging Malaysian hams to read on the IARU's guieline which can be downloaded from my web page. I remember of the CW lingo which I learned from the CW communications with some hams. New CWers should know them. Below are some of the words                     FB - Fine business. If we want to say your CW is good, sometimes we say FB CW.                     GUD - Good.                                  1TT - 100   .We can say 100 watts or 1TT Watts                                           VY - Very.                                      5NN - Five Nine Nine . We can also use 5 9 9.                     Vy Gud - Very good.                     BZ    - Buzy. We usually use QRL.                     TNX/TKS - Thanks.                      GM / GE / GN - Good Morning / Good Eveneing /Good Night                     FER - For.                                      GB / GL - Good Bye / Good Luck.                     MICALL - My call.                      HPE - Hope                     UR - Your.                                     CU   - See You                     U - You.                                          AGN - Again. Towards the end we usually say HPE CU AGN                     OP - Operator.                              BK - Break.                     CNF - Confirm. Recently we do hear the word CNF of being used instead of QSL especially when the other station asked QSL ?                     DR - Dear. There is nothing wrong if you use normal spelling like YOU instead of U. Traditionally ham radio was equated to CW. Recently I heard many phones are using Morse as the ringing tone. It truly identifies oneself to ham radio. Any CWer should start to construct a single transistor CW crystal transmitter for 40/20 and even 80 meters, experiment with it and keep it. I believe one day during the real emergency situation when all other communication mode is knocked down that simple single transistor transmitter can come to our help. A battery operated simple communication receive can help as well. Top                                   Our Sifu made himself present at the AGM 2009 in Ipoh but said nothing. Who can say what about MARTS nowadays ? The disintegration of the tradition must have started somewhere and by some people. Old stories about MARTS AGM were told and the tale was interesting. What made ham radio was so fun and the spirit so strong ? May there at those time ham members were small and there were no repeaters for the pirates and no members encouraging pirates and rudeness. In the AGM old people and the expatriates who attended chose to keep quiet. I expected new 9M2s to be there so that we can have more choice for the new Counsel members. These are young and energetic people who have the fighting spirit to conquer the challenging barrier. I hope they will work hard to take over and improve MARTS in the coming years. Thank you to 9M2LC for sending the photos. There are several more which I may put them later.
	TRADITION REVISITED I was touched to read articles by ARRL on maintaining the tradition on Ham radio as the Westerners I know always move forward with the progress, killing the tradition and God, replacing with a new mode of life style and culture. Free sex and live in partners are slowly replacing the traditional contract of marriage. In fact some Asian communities are following the new social format of the West. Developments, emancipation of women and economic well being are vital factors that is slowly altering the tradition. Traditional Malay houses with tilts are disappearing with the new housing estates. In Malaysia these are called Taman. Taman is a garden of houses arrange in such away that the space is limited for antenna set up. In some countries high walls are build to separate neighboring houses. Women emancipation change the human side of the household content. Kids are not looked after by the mother anymore. At the tender age they are sent to someone to look after and feed them. Maids are imported to help in the household chores. Young girls prefer to work in factories and rent rooms or houses. As a result many traditional practices are dead like the marriage arrangement, the marriage festival, the bersanding ceremony, and the culture of death. However many Asians are trying to maintain those old culture in whichever way they can. Many still remain. Religious practices are not without challenges to changes but still remain strong. The traditional dresses are used every week, year and at a special occasions.  The culture is our ID, an ID as a Malaysians, a Malay, a Chinese and the Indians. It tells who we are. ID is something that we can't do without. Every profession, organization and government has it's own ID in term of a logo, a card with a logo, a national song or a flag. The old school curriculum needs us to identify between an electricity and an electronic. The basic of simple arithmetic has been used as important components in Mathematics, Sciences, Physic, Chemistry and other disciplines. The Americans must know it's history and the date of it's independence when in fact the knowledge of it's history does add extra gallon of gasoline or an extra piece of bread. When you throw the tradition , you throw your identity. And we all remember those British who went to America seek their own identity. The slang change, the rightness is shifted to the leftness. Ham Radio is real and serious. It is not a toy. We need it's identity and tradition to be there. We don't brag of ham radio technology and ability. We don't compete with the internet. We don't compete it with professional services. While the basic is communication, it CAN help during the disaster communication when the service is required. It does help. Ham Radio is not the king of rescue management. At times it could be an important savior. What then is the ID of ham radio ? RAE and CW. CW is a living ID. It is an Amateur Radio because of CW and when we hear the sounds we all know that ham radio is alive and kicking. To the foe of ham radio they can fight for more frequencies and modes to be used in the kind of radio they are using. Call it CB or whatever they want. Probably they can attract more population as there are the absence of RAE and CW. Of course traditionally the composition of the members were made of people of ethics, respectable and 'goodness'. When did you hear the four letter words and other curses on the ham band ? Not today. There must be a kind of mechanism to filter only the 'goods' in the ham fraternity. Of course the enforcement unit of the authority must be efficient and non-corrupt. We may not believe to hear that corruptions can even happen in this area. Sooner or later you will hear the tales, not only in this country and other Southeast Asian countries too. The other day I argued with one ham about people in a certain profession; surely those people are very smart people. True. A very smart people cannot be smart in everything else. Even in his own field he is dumb in some areas. When I was working, in a meeting one engineer came out with a figure for a certain computation. I got a different answer. Though my Mathematics was poor, I still asked him how he derive at the figure. He said he used Linier Regression. That sound too big for me. How would I know what a Linier Regression was. After the meeting I asked my boss about the figure which I thought was not right. My boss agreed with my figure and he himself was wondering how the Linier Regression came out with the numbers. Similarly our PM may be good in law and politics, but if you ask him to recite some complete prayer he will have to pass it to somebody else, probably to Pak Lah. Stupid people estimate a certain project not more than RM50 for renovation. A JKR estimate it at RM180. What is the stupid men as compared to the JKR engineer. Money flies everywhere for decision that would suit some people even in sports. And a member of a family can also influence decision result. They would find justification for their actions to make decisions. Once, when the American fought the Vietnamese in the Far East, the justification was 'The best defence is to attack and it is better to fight our enemy somewhere else, not on our soil." These are all excuses. I have never believed that the effort to kill CW was because of it's irrelevancy. After all RAE is no more relevant in the modern world. Don't we have our own mind ? Are all the Malaysian minds absolute PARIAH ? Top
	A NEW WIFE Many men who married a new wife would eventually abandoned the old one. I have several friends who ended up in second wife's home all together. A new young wife is usually more beautiful and sexually skilled, and could be more caring. If you can't have to wives you keep mistress or having affair outside your home. We tend to forget that the old wife bear us our kids, looked after us when we were sick and need. She had served us well. She may not be as great as the new wife but she had given us her service. I always equate it to ham radio. I started with a Yaesu and an inverted V dipole. I worked thousands of DX stations and had been receiving thousands of QSL cards. It brought me to 15 and 20 though I only used a 40 meter antenna. Should I discard and cast them deep into the seven seas of fire ? I can buy a Yagi and used other state of the art transceiver. I can erect a tower and place even a cubical quad on it. But I don't , just because I find the old system is serving me well. But for a new comer who are looking for the best system to finally adopt them for good, let them have the best choice and experiment with all sort of antennae and try various rigs and power output. The point will come for finalization which may take a few years. Old does not mean outdated. I still heard FT102 roaring on the band like a Lion King, blasting and bending my S-Meter. Those guys do not put it aside to yak away with the modern sophisticated equipments with digital readout and graphic display, but instead proudly put the 102 on the show. I heard 9M2RS better on his TS440 than on his IC-7000. No wonder the old Volkswagen and the tortoise Morris Minor are still on the road. And I have friends who fell back to their old wives leaving the new ones. Sometimes the new technology sold contain a farce. Computers dug in spy network in their hardware and the software making a nation's secret vulnerable. New gadgets are not worth repairing once kaput. Buying new ones are cheaper than repairing the old ones. They used the double sided board making self repair difficult. Realizing some of the problems the production of old valves and old components are revived. Valves still exist in the market. Elvis had died a long time ago and his legend remains. Old songs are still in the market. People still love to hear Tender In The Night, Queen For Tonight, Oh Carroll and voice of Cliff Richard. When we sang the oldies together with FM104 our kids were surprise to hear we sang. While you go for a hip hop, I will still go Besame Mucho. My archaic radio system is still in used because it has served me well. It is a Besame Mucho of a radio.  Top
	Ham Radio is a challenging hobby with a cycle. It starts as a SWL, learning for RAE, passing the exam, learning Morse and passing the exam, setup stations, working DX stations, fade in later years and later Silent Key. If one never work CW than amateur radio is incomplete like marrying a beautiful wife but never ever kiss her. One CB guy tells his grand child that he talks with someone in Japan. One ham guy tells his grand child that he spoke to a station in India. But they are the same. Another ham guy tells the younger generations that he talk to many countries and send Morse codes as well. "Morse Codes ? What's that ?" Then he starts to tell the history of ham radio, about the package and tradition passing from generation to generation. And there are people who want to sabotage the old tradition of Ham Radio........
	OUT OF TOPICS Actually there are many topics to talk about. They are limitless but the real obstruction is our knowledge. Like a school teacher, a ham also needs a very interested party who wants to listen, learn and question. Otherwise there will be no interactive nor discussions. Even the rubber stamp QSO will have to come to an end when boredom has embraced us. And eventually hams began to die down. The understanding of English helps. Reading internet is ample enough to gather knowledge and information. But there are numerous articles written in Malay as well. Many a time a person has a very deep knowledge on something yet he would ask his counter part to explain some topics knowing that there are many people monitoring. Listeners gain too. But many of us are lazy to read. I know one illiterate person who would listen to people talking about political happenings and other events and would join the other group discussion or telling other people of the daily events. Hence knowledge can be gathered by other means too. Putting forward a topic of discussion is not a simple thing to do. The person might avoid talking about it and instead would ask you time and again about your working condition or his his signal strength. Then the least we can do is asking his daily activities or plan of the day. When I worked 9M2ZN on CW most of our chat were focused on our daily activities, planning and anything pop up from the discussion. Before I went to VK land, Oold Boy Mazwan was asking me about my preparation and soon I will be telling stories about Gold Coast. I remember talking to 9M2WT,Bill, who explained to me in detail about golf like the concept of birdie, about his visit to Japan, the experience at Ginza, missing an airplane and many others. 9M2GV, Abraham Oxford, was an expert on flying. The King was 9M2DW who told ton of stories about court cases , songs , music and his other hilarious experiences. YB0HH, AK Jailani, could talk about Keroncong for days, his younger days and radio. You can make a QSO alive by asking questions too, on something you think he knows and able to talk for hours, usually about his daily work in his profession. A teacher can tell a lot about his students, work and problems. A doctor about disease, patience and drug. If I were to talk to a lawyer next time I am going to ask him about an act our Government enacted to protect PLUS and I am sure it could be a heated topic. Of course one hot and very interesting topic which has no end but barred would be on politics. Scrutinizing the radio regulation acts, I don't think so you can find any clause prohibiting political talks but people just don't do it. There are many strong UMNO as PAS who are hams. The stone throwing would cause houses to sink by the heap of them. Though one is 'out of topics', it is good for one to come and let himself be heard on the band. People would know that he is alive and kicking. Of the minimum one can say would be the signal report and giving information on the weather condition. It is very important for a ham living alone to come on once in a while, otherwise it worries a lot of people. One special thing about ham radio is even a dumb and people with sore throat can make themselves heard by CW. Formerly we have one ham who had the throat operation would come on CW and told story about his predicament. I kept on listening people saying it is interesting to hear old hams rather than the new ones, especially the 9Ws. It is not true that the old hams can speak better and the 9Ws can't. But it is a matter of experience and the knowledge. I have been talking to plenty of new hams and they are superb in telling stories and factual stuffs. Ask them questions and they will give you very interesting answers. As long as there is no emergency, we keep on occupying the band with talks and discussions. Remember emergency always come first. Enjoy yourselves. Top
	THANKS TO NEW 9M2s New 9M2s are bringing life again to amateur radio in Malaysia. Today I heard about 6 stations on 7.043 . Some hams like to say it is a big group. I would not say so. Just join in and we can always wait for our turn. If we can even boil water as soon as we passed the microphone to our fellow friend. In short do not be discourage. 40 meter has been fading for many years with the demise of old hams. At time we think it is dead for the Malaysian. These new hams are not 'the celup' hams. They also come on CW and their Morse is excellent. Several can beat the old hams any time in sending and copying. New 9M2s are also great with their hands when home brewing ham gadgets. I really praise them and in fact we can learn from many things from them. I have every confidence that they will lead our nation in upholding the integrity of amateur radio in our country. I would like to epress my greatest happiness and thanks them very much.  Top
	SHIRT During my younger days I didn't give any importance on dressing though I would buy a nice and an attractive shirt but they have to be cheap. Any dress particularly a shirt costing more than RM50 was considered expensive. I did not like coat or neck tie when working. Recently my former student asked me whether I still avoid socks because I never wore them. Towards the end of my days I began to observe proper dressing going to proper places. Now I avoid sleeper to kenduri. I would put on a Batik shirt or a long sleeve plain attire. I told myself I must be presentable, which I had never thought in the past. I was the only school Principal who used Honda 70 CC to my work place when all others were using expensive cars. One high ranking officer snob at me saying no one would respect me and my school would never be progressive. I finally shifted from a motor cycle to Kancil after an accident. Before my trip to VK land, I wanted to find some nice colored and cheap shirts. I could not find any cheap and and the likable color . I decided to go to shop selling women's cloth. From the distance I saw the cloth as seen on the left photo for RM24 and brought it to the nearby tailor. Some ethnic group never give a damn to dress. Even when traveled b plane they were seen wearing the normal singlet.  At this age I found such kind of dressing very offensive and disrespectful. But good shirts are very expensive. Making one could even be more expensive. I used to tell the sales girls that I got to work for half a month to buy one piece of proper attire. I used to say that dress can cheat people. Bad people can hide behind it to con. Person behind the dress can be a crook, robbers, drug smugglers and of course con men. Respecting a dress could be very dangerous and many people had fallen to cheats and scams. However dress, however bad or good, is always better than NO DRESS. Yet there are societies which prefer naked body and going nude. Are you not wondering who was the first dress man  ? Top
	THE INVINCIBLE PIRATE STATIONS A pirate does is not a pop up phenomena. Some license hams were teaching them, lending their call signs and talk to them. The ham radio pirates of Indonesia are the worst lots, singing and doing business like nobody's business. They are very daring and dare to challenge those who gave them advice by calling people 'babi' on repeater and writing poison pen letters. They think they are invincible because the MCMC gave them lee ways. From VHF they come on HF and start causing problems on the international band. Recently the authority start to act on those radio sellers. A few Malaysian vendors already got the warning letters. So far no action has been taken on the known pirate proper and these people can still get the license as compared to the previous administration which would ban the ticket for the whole life to both the pirates and persons talking to pirates. There had been cases where a person using other people's call sign had to seek forgiveness thru the Yang Di Pertuan Agong. At least the MCMC did not harass those sitting for RAE with their handys, which they could. But they can't keep quiet all the time. One day when actions are taken they will have to face a very heavy penalty. Surely there will be a victim. There is a clause in the General Orders which says if a Head of Department does not take action on his erroneous subordinate, an action can be taken against him. Such clause has a greater implication. A person having a HF rig tend to transmit. 95% of them will do so. They would use Malaysian or Indonesian lingo with various slang to disturb people, thinking nobody recognize them. Such behavior is happening right now on 40 meter band. The 9W2s are advised not to try transmitting because once he got full license we do know them. Though we would say and mention nothing, it would not be nice for us to have a negative thought on them. We recognize their voice. The formation of sects in Malaysian ham radio had never been the work of the old hams. We have radio, we talk. We make use of the air wave. We did not eyeball every day and night. Grouping tends to split people, condemning other hams, bragging and exposing old hams' stupidity on SOP and  ham apparatus usage. It tends to set up a group for competition against another group. Many hams and pirates do not like me. But I never regard them as my enemy nor having any thought of vengeance. I am ever willing to assist those who have been cursing me as long as they want to do the right thing and try their best to follow the regulations. On the other hand if they think they are big and powerful, very strong and invincible then be it. Let us be reminded that having transceivers are as dangerous as having guns. Many technically superior nations still do not regard ham gear as safe. You ask for reciprocal, they will ask you to go to Club Stations. Assume one day we might hear someone cursing our Yang DiPertuan Agong or any Sultan or even our ethnicity on a national repeater, do you think it is just a joke ? The Government will first blame the authority. Then I and  I can bet ham radio will be banned immediately,  just because of one guy whom someone had given him a two-meter rig. In the free and totally democratic country like USA the authority is monitoring vigorously for law breakers. The people are monitoring. None could campaign for Al-Quaeda on the air. The authority is using a simple computation ie if there are 7000 hams, there should be import permits giving the total of 7000 units of ham gear. If there are only 200 units in the import permit, where are the other 6800 sets come from. Never think we are invincible. Top
	KEEP ON HEARING THE WORD PTT PTT is part of a microphone. It means Push To Talk. There is an art to use it. New hams use it to mean a microphone. Old hams never say 'I have not hold PTT for so many months...Please take the PTT.....Let me pass the PTT to you...' It is very disturbing to hear 9M2s using it. All of us are not happy with our kids following and adopting bad habits from bad guys. We want them to learn good ways from the good people. Yet some of us are picking up the wrong terminology. Probably they learn them from the Indonesian hams. Recently one ham was having a communication with another two persons. He did not pass the transmission to any other person after finishing. Then he was advised to do so. Yet again he did the same thing. How on earth he become a ham ? Probably he must have learn it somewhere or he just think ham radio is free and easy stuff. Do any way we want. Old timers using the word PTT should check themselves so that the new generations would not follow them. Last night I talked to one new ham and when I asked him for some confirmation he replied 'Affirmative'. I just like it. He tries to avoid the Q-Code QSL and instead used 'Affirmative'. This person must have read a lot of SOP stuff and heed people's advice. 9M2HC,Choo, mentioned about the lack of mentoring. I would extend his word from lack of mentoring to the lack of good mentoring. Now there are many 9Ws mentoring new hams. A few mentored people to be pirates. I talked to many new hams. I find they have one small error in their heads. Many acts as if they have known everything about ham radio and already experts in it. This small error can be disastrous. There would be tendency that they will just put aside the good habit of asking and reading good materials like the IARU's guidelines. How do I trace the error ? By the response I get when I put some questions like on QSL card and hear what they say about it or a logbook. I may not be smart. I don't even know about the RG stuff. When I went to look for co-axial cable I don't bring the RG number of it. I would go for the 52 ohm and the large size cable. To me it is less complication. Using extended phrase to be 'more great ham' like PTT or 800 QSL in one QSO is my ignorance. I don't have to be a 'greater ham'. Time and again we told that on phone try to use plain language like 'Thanks or thank you' instead of 'Tango Kilo'. Probably the word 'Tango Kilo' give more umph to make them as greater hams. Some people do not use PTT when talking. Instead they used VOX. Almost all HF rigs has VOX system in them. Some microphones for mobile have the VOX circuit built into them, so that users can talk without pressing the PTT while driving. Remember we can be charged RM300 if caught talking while driving holding a microphone. Are we calling the PTTless microphone a PTT too ? If you like to use Q-Codes so much and fell in love with them, then go CW. And even in CW they are used only at the right place. We have been hearing CFM instead of QSL now on CW. Getting the 9M or being an old ham do not give them license to use their own style of SOP, STANDARD Operating Procedure. Top
	GROUP CHAT THE MALAYSIAN WAY The Malaysian way for group chat is called Round Table. The Indonesians have their own way. When the Indonesians want to join the group they have to adapt to our practice. If any Malaysian hams want to accommodate  any Indonesian station who broke in following the Indonesian style, it is appropriate for him to ask that station to move away to another frequency. Moving frequency is not uncommon when we have a big group. You just ask for the permission or inform the group that you are going to bring someone in the group to other frequency. There is a term 'left in the cold'. We don't want our friends to be left in the cold. The Indonesian style tend to leave people in the cold. But there is nothing wrong with it if it has become a common practice. New hams should try to understand our Malaysian Round Table practice. If you have been an Indonesian citizens who are now having the new citizenship, and you want to talk to Indonesian stations, you are at your lberty to do so in any way you like, but when the group contains Malaysian hams, especially the older hams , please show a little respect. If I don't say this, who will ? Then I have to mention it, not scolding or hurting any person. It is just a reminder for all of us and for new hams. That's the reason why we are telling the Malaysian hams to mention their full call sign inclusive of prefixes when break in. We want our Malaysian tradition to continue. As I said there is noting wrong with back and forth communication in a group. It is just we did not practice that way. However the back and forth did happen for short questions or when some conclusive information is needed. That is not a habit but at a certain circumstances  it had to be done. This is totally different from the other back and forth. You notice many Indonesian stations would take the transmission even the microphone is not passed to them. It is not that they forget the SOP of the mentioning of the call sign but it is due to the habitual practice. We do notice other persons in the group would pull themselves out once someone in the group use the back-forth Malaysian - Indonesian communication. The Malaysians do not give report using 'deng deng'. We say 'Five Nne' or 'Five Nine Plus'. We don't say 'Your signal is strong deng deng'. Sometimes we wonder why the religious department forbid religious preaching without certification. Teaching religion is good and better than committing crimes. But teaching the wrong thing about religion worries many section of the population. Likewise about the teaching of ham radio. It is a good work. But we fear the teachers teach the wrong things and the virus would spread and making ham radio the Frankestine of the grand hobby. At time I tend to  blame the  authority for not thinking of the system whereby nonsense should be omitted. Not passing the microphone to anybody during the group communication is not tolerated after the person has been advised about the procedure. You may be the President of MARTS or the licensing body, you must follow the international standard to ease mental agony of many hams. Top
	CAN I STAND IT ? Technology moves fast. Someone shows me an object as shown above and how he surfed internet using it. I passed the phone shops several time and saw phones with big screen which are quite strange for me. I did not want to know about it because I didn't want to spend much on hand phone. My budget for the called pre-paid has been RM30.00 per month and no more. But these few days I started to ask question about it. I saw Samsung which display the price of almost RM3000. I asked about Internet and the girl kept on telling about Wi-Fi to access internet. I didn't have any idea on what she was talking about. Then I went to the nearby Maxis. The ladies there were talking about the Plan. I wanted to know how much would my monthly expenditure to access internet and the phone price. The iPhone would cost almost RM3000 too. The basic monthly commitment is RM155. Now I am paying RM30 for my mobile phone and RM88 for Streamyx, giving a total of RM118. How much more ? 155-118=37. How about the RM3000 for the gadget ? 706 Mk2 G costs almost RM4000. China trip would be about RM3000. How much happiness the iPhone could give me as compared to the trip to China ? If I can stand and a wait a little more time, the technology will improve. There will be more competition which will drive the price down. The decision is tough but I have to decide. I asked 9M2AU what does 3G stands for. He said 3rd generation. I belong to the generation waiting to go 6 feet under. cont... I went to Maxis again today (27/12/2009) and saw the advertisement 'iPhone 3Gs 16 giga RM1290'. "Is that the price ?" I asked.                                              "Yes but with 2 years contract of RM155 per month inclusive of the internet." I browsed the internet again to find out the real price of the gadget. They never come cheap. The price range from RM3000 to RM4000. What a nonsense. Even the Samsung costs almost 3K. Then I concluded that RM1290 is cheap. The offer last a few more days. I need a little more time to think of the 2 year contract. I did more reading on the iPhone stuffs. I think I should wait a little longer till the competition opens up. There are tings like 'jailbreak, lock and unlock' terms to be learned. After making a downpayment some people got to wait for 40 days before they got the iPhone. Not an easy purchase like buying te goreng pisang. Top
	UNDERSTAND OUR NEIGHBOR It is imperative for Malaysian hams to understand our neighbors and also our local hams. To know our neighbors we have to constantly monitor them. We also need to know what the old timers think about them. A ham radio operator is a person and a human being. Somehow human being differ from each other. It is good for us to know the real and true fact of a person we are dealing with. Put it this way, as a parent you don't want your kid to bring home anybody at all whom he/she just know it or met in a super market. But you don't mind if he/she brings his class mate who have been to your house before. It is true that ham radio is friendship thru the air and all hams are friends. Yet I am sure President Obama would not want to say to Ben Laden "Good luck in all your undertaking and I pray for your success". The reminder is not without purpose. We just don't want our friends to fall victims to a few who had been known to cheat people and who took people's things away. It is actually difficult to apply the premise about hams and friendships. After knowing and understand our neighbors and local hams, then you are free to do whatever you decide. However a little respect is required when we are among the local group. The local culture of communication should be observed. For instant we don't use the CB style among us. In a group we should always mentioning the call sign the station to whom we are passing the transmission then followed by ours, not just say 'over' or say nothing at all. It would be irritating. That is the reason why we call upon the Malaysian hams to download and carefully read the IARU's guideline. To understand our neighbor you have to do a lot of SWLing from 7.000 to 7.1000. You will be learning their culture and habits which may be suitable to them. Having understand them totally then you got to find out whether those culture is agreeable to the old timers. I mentioned 'old timers' because they have been long enough to understand our culture and system. In the United States a term elmering or mentoring is used to mean the importance of the transferring of the old heritage from generation to generation. In Malaysia the history of 9Ws did not start well. Only a handful of 9Ws ever heard of 9M2SS or 9M2RS. Hence mentoring and elmering is almost impossible. While many are happy with their own culture, a great number would search for greater ham identity; the proper SOP, experimentation with various antenna system, reading and asking questions after questions. Most of you have graduated with flying colors yet you may not recognize fellow hams yet local or otherwise. Many old hams can tell you their experience which may surprise you to hear them. I have to tell 9W2TZ one story so that he will be extra careful next time. It is a story told by a ham who had undergone the stage. An article similar to this warning has been written before. This is just the reminder. Top
	ME THE PLUG AND PLAY HAM A Plug and Play ham like me do not acquire skill or knowledge. No home brewing. Buy and use. Though ham gears are usually bought, hams would construct their own antenna from a simple dipole to the more complicated multi band yagi. But I bought everything. The Half-size G5RV I am using now was purchased when I attended the Daton Hamvention. The availability of stuffs in the market at low price made our live easy. We don't have to have any technical knowledge to operate a radio. What is there to know about calculation and computation of inductance and resistance. Modern gears even have the built in tuner. If there is a mismatch it wont transmit and thus protect it. Old rigs not only need manual tuning but it will also go silent key if we forget to connect to the antenna. Hamming in the old days really required skills in home brewing and repair. The simplicity attract more people buying equipments and antenna. Hams and non-hams can make themselves heard on the air and travel around the globe. The concepts of Plug and Play and User Friendly eliminate the need to know the technical knowledge and service manuals. We can learn thru exploration to discover all the functions available. We don't have to attend courses to operate them.  I bought a Slim Jim for RM30. My friend home brewed one for RM70. His extra kick would be "I home brewed my antenna" whereas I just mentioned it. Going the long way gives experience and fulfilling.  It gives us pride, especially when we use the home made SSB transceiver. People will respect us more. We will really understand the various stages and components. We feel we carry on the culture of experimentation and construction. Since parts and components are difficult to find , we have no choice but to buy them. What is left is the antenna constructions. The point is with the simplicity and availability of everything people can go on the air without any special training at all. To be part of ham radio community we only need to follow a certain procedure so as not to cause problems and conflicts among ourselves. These have been laid down and we just need to read them or follow a half day course. We can go on the air even without knowing what an impedance, resistance and SSB is. Many people are doing it now. When these people come on ham frequencies we call them pirates. When they come on 27 MHZ we called them CB. With the world get more organized it formed various research bodies to test, experiment and construct. Let the professionals and the commercial people do all the R&D . Even in USA the government do not build military hardware. They are built by the private organization. Once R&D is done and hardware is found to be viable, they are sold to the various bodies or individuals. The users would be using the User Friendly Plug & Play hardware. I would like to call my fellow hams to put a thought on this concept and think about it without any bias. What is the implication of the plug and play stuffs in relation to amateur radio ? Top
	ARRL HANDBOOK ARRL Handbook has been a bible to some hams.The price is about USD33. A 120.00 ringgit book is considered normal in Malaysia. I have a very old one bought in a local book shop. I don't know whether it is available in the local market. If it is, I would like to advise the Malaysian hams to get hold of one. The book is not to be lent neither should you borrow it. Just buy one. The handbook contains almost everything that a ham needs especially the homebrewed goons. You refer to this book on things that you don't know. I don't have the new one either. Look for this book and keep us informed where we can find it in the local market. The original version is better than the Asian version. It may a little bit expensive but it will worth the money. More than 50% of things lent may not be returned.Two of my communication receivers were not returned. You can lent the unimportant and cheap stuffs but don't expect to get it back. The ARRL Handbook is a gold mine. You can't afford to lose it. It is a very good investment. In the era of computerless the main reference is the handbook. A few own RSGB as a resource. But our old hams recommended it. In the tradition of ham radio technical knowledge, CW and other ham practices are relevant though without them people could still go on the air. Having such a book in our shack is like keeping the spirit of ham radio within our world. Once it was part of the basic; the ARRL Handbook, the CW key, the 24 hour clock, the thermometer and the logbook. Looking at the diagrams and illustrations one can understand the constructions of a project. The non-English speaker will find it as useful as any other people. Almost all hams have had at least 6 years of English education. Majority is up to 11 years. We may not be good at it but we can understand the instructions and the explanation. Top MORE FREQUENCIES FOR CB Either abolish RAE or open more frequencies to CBers. Such a policy clearly recognizes the ideology of freedom and 'no-discrimination'. It is recommended that 10 and 50 meters should be given away to CBers so as to narrow down the gap among the radio hobbyists. There is no point to argue the necessity  of technical knowledge in the world of plug and play where everything can be found in the market. Those who are interested in learning electronics and radio technology can do so if they like. They can sit for the exam for a special class certificate. But to operate a radio station it is not mandatory. Eventually the line between hams and CBers will disappear. If IARU can put the fate on CW to a vote why not also on matters pertaining to RAE ? It has been all proven that people can operate radio without any technical knowledge. There are thousand of CBers around the world. We hear them on AM and SSB chatting using their own procedure and lingo. Not only the CBers, we also hear pirates operating using the ham lingo on ham bands. The only different is that they do not sit for RAE and are not legal. I am not the proponent of CBers or pirates. But I take up the arguments that have been used against CW, on the point of its relevancy to the modern day. By co-incidence it is also true that communication skill of the CBers are not to be despised. We just don't like their lingo and their SOP because we love our way. For what reason we prohibit them from using 10 or 50 meters ? Or even 6 meters ? Scrutinizing the FCC or IARU carefully the policy and the decision was not based on rational thinking but something behind; ego is one of them. Neither the argument was base on the concept of tradition and heritage. Just because we can't learn CW, we oppose it. Then those who can't learn technology should be given similar treatment. If our ego say that we can't change the rule, then give more openings to other radio hobbyist as well. Are we not talking of democracy and individual freedom, and discriminationLESS society. Pirates are enjoying a very wide spectrum. We hear them on almost all bands that their radio can go. A few simply love to use the ham band and talk in ham lingo and style. The IARU should address this issue seriously and discuss it vigorously together with frequencies for CB and the true relevancy of technical knowledge. The No-CW must go together with No-RAE. Hence the close hobby can be opened to ALL. Would giving more frequencies to CB ensure the increase number of CBers ? We could not be sure. But we can expect an initial increase in number and soon after will slow down and come to a stand still. IARU can try with the award of 10 meter band in all mode to see the response and to test the hypothesis. It would be a very interesting test which could also cover the conclusion made on matters of No-CW argument. The expanding and shrinking population theory should be tested in a variety of situations; no-RAE situation, giving more frequencies to CBers or other form of Radio Hobbyist. It is better than the show of strength between two different minds in which the people with authority will always win. For the sake of freedom and discriminationLESS society I dare the authority to move with the free for all radio. If not stay foot with the grand tradition of RAE & CW ham radio culture. Top
	NEW YEAR NITE 40 meter opened up on DX. On the CW portions stations swarm like the bees, coming very strong right into my shack. I just monitored them. From the CW portion I moved to the phone sections. I could here only one or two stations. I found the SOP was not so pleasing to my ears. Like usual I made a wild conjecture and accusation about the situation. Those hams who are pro-CW prefer to come on CW just to avoid talking to the newly No-CW hams. There was no point quarrelling and arguing. If ones don't like the new breed of low grade SOP hams, then ones just avoid them. My guess could be 100% wrong. If so there should be an alternative explanations for the lack of phone communications as compared to the CW mode. Certainly hams in USA are devided. The non-mandatory rule did not stop the pro-CW from attracting new hams from learning Morse and join their group and continue with the culture. These category of hams would learn the old tricks and proper SOP. The elite group might prefer to spend greater time on CW to Phone conversation. Of course just because of on the new year nite CW is swarming the 40 band, we could not derive at the conclusion above. But that's what it displayed, giving a unique impression of the status of communication modes. Who knows may be one day we will realize that my conjecture turns out to be a real fact. I come to remember of the Malaysian Chinese who still send their kids to art class although art and craft is not a compulsory subject. They send their kid to learn music, swimming and play badminton. Not free. Comparing to the Malaysian Malay, most Malays would not spend money on things that are not compulsory. A few might send their children to music class but not to the art and craft class. Hence what the West is doing to enhance the use of Morse could be likened to what the Malaysian Chinese is doing. Some of us are improving the Morse speed. It is not a mandatory thing to do. Neither it bring them any financial gain or even get an award of Datukship. They just want progress wanting to cope with the international Morse they hear on the band. The basic speed heard was 18 wpm. The normal speed is 25 wpm. In Southeast Asian countries the Indonesians are normally superior and running the CW net almost every night at various speed. In the great humming of the Morse a few small nation are dead silent. Only expatriates would be waving the nation's flag from time to time. I remember as a kid, when I went to see an Olympic movie, I just want to see the Malaysian flag. In fact the Malaysian school boys would clap and shout just having glance at the flag in the Olympic Stadium. In the lingo of bees, you can still hear Malaysian together with the rest of the world.  Top
	CAN THE OLD AND NEW HAMS MEET ? No wonder some articles I read indicate the old and new hams can never mixed in some countries. Last night I heard one 9Ws talk about the procedure of communication which is altogether against what is said by the IARU's  guideline and he insisted that his way was all right. This guy either does not read or know stuffs or simply refuse to follow the right path. Hence many others follow with arrogance. I feel very sad for amateur radio. No wonder also when they finally come on HF they continue with their way. One Old foreign ham used a very harsh word to describe a new ham who claimed that there is nothing wrong to use the CB lingo in ham radio. In fact many new hams took the challenge and fought for their right to follow their own method. Likewise it is the same here. I don't think the word arrogance were wrongly applied. Words like PTT, Handler, Handle Operator and Handler Operator are used widely by the new guys. Nobody seem to care about the meaning and application of plain language. They say Q-Codes are short cut. Tango Kilo is said to a short cut for Thank you. What a big joke. Having heard all the arguments the IARU reproduce the guideline and I put up in my web page for both the old and new hams to download. In spite of that the bragging went on and on with their own conception of amateur radio. When you tell them they write you poison pen letters and e-mailed you a nasty stuffs. They brand you a bad guy. That could be the reasons why many foreign hams come on CW, avoiding meeting with the new hams who used styles and words painful to the ear. Active old hams are few. Talking to them is a real pleasure. But in the euphoria of interesting talks and topics, the Indonesian would cut the flow by breaking in and only exchanged report and address until the rest are left in the cold and slowly signing. The old Indonesian hams would not have done that. With the younger generation of authority and hams, I do not see the original ham radio will cease to maintain it's identity. It is losing the ground. The pirates fight for their right to be pirates and even use the ham bands, the pro-pirates license hams are happily teaching people to be pirates, the new ones are showing their greatness and power in their style of radio operations especially very proud of OVERRRRRR. Internet old-new hams quarreling is slowing down but it was before. When the fight went on the loudest group won. In Malaysia the 9Ws are the loudest group and they could win everything. In every society you can always find even ONE guy who dares to fight and die against a thousand enemies for the right path. I was a ham before those 20000 become hams. That time it was like that. When the new 20000 came in, it is the same to me. I do not feel their existence even if the 20000 boycotted me. I sat the same way in my shack the same way as I sat 30 to 40 years ago, using a dipole for almost the same long period and says di di di dah di dah dit dit when the QSO is over for all over the years. I did a small change from dah dah - dah di dah dah- dah dit -di dah -dah dah- dit to dah dah dah- di dah dah dit . ( My name to OP ) and on phone from QTH to 'My Location' 'Seventy Three to Seven Three'. The experience of a lecturer who told my teacher and me that END must always be at the last line of programming BASIC is repeating over and over again. I think it will never end, passing from the LP to cassette an to MP3 and to IPod. The songs carried on.... Top
	SHORT CUT ? Historically a few of CW codes are borrowed in phone. In those days every ham know and competent in CW. In fact when working a station on phone, the other usually request a short CW session just to log it down as a record. We just take thing for granted and playfully plundered with terms. For instant I been hearing people giving news of so and so is a silent key. Taking for granted a silent key means a person is dead. Looking at it seriously the term could not be applied to everybody. The people who never made noise on CW and unheard off is always a silent key though he may be alive and kicking. It is not appropriate to say the no-CW person or person who i his life never touch a key be termed a silent key when he goes to meet God. In CW mode short forms or short cuts has been the feature since it's beginning. The Q-Codes are invent for Morse. International hams are beginning to use location instead of QTH in phone, and 'affimative' instead of QSL. Articles and guidelines have been written about Q-Codes and Plain Language. In CW we say TKS or TNX instead of Thank You. In phone we say 'Thank You ' or 'Thanks'. To use 'Tanggo Kilo' does not make one different from all other radio hobby. All other radio hobby is able to mention it. To be different from all the other radio hobby one must be skillful in CW. Then use all the short forms you want and all the Q-Codes in the list. The Q-Codes and the short forms tailor made for CW have not been strange when CW was mandatory. The hams who come on phone were well verse in it. Toggling words and terminology had not been offensive. Yet the toggling was under self-controlled. Both the old and new hams here like short cut very much. And even brag about it on the National Link , creating the impression of his authoritative teaching about ham radio lingo. This kind of teaching had never end. It started with some guys telling the 9M2 about the usage of phonetics and the language to use with it. Also on national link. He forbid us from using America or Boston. To tell you the truth I am waiting to hear his communication using the common ones all the way. Old hams should take a nice approach and not to anger the new hams. We did. I have done it many time. many have been talking about IARU's guideline, read it . Understand the neighbors well. Be SWLs and trace the problems and understand them. Questions about any irregularity like 2 persons transmitting at the same time in a group. Why it happen. There are many things that are not found in the book. Also I have been telling stories about people who have just learn computer and boasted that they know much more than other people and even condemn their old computer teacher. These are all the soft approaches. Instead some would turn and wage war and show the arrogance on the air. 'Apa nak heran dengan nasihat..we do our way.' When 9M2CW said, "New people has alot to learn..."The new ones say "What to learn, we know everything about radio, technical stuffs, antenna, satellite work, APRS etc etc Old hams don't  even know  two meter......using tuner again on 144...." Knowledge can be found on the internet and in books. Skill is in a person itself. It is not a cut and paste or copy and paste stuff. Listening is a form of skill too. It involves the choice of materials, the choice of people from different categories, the assessment , checking for validity and finally seek confirmation of the facts. It is also in a person. Without the skill one would simply follow and imitate what one hears. That's why we hear even a Malaysian ham says "Di copy di monitor...." when speak to an Indonesian ham who even rejects the pirate lingo. Phone conversation required a plain language to be used either on HF or VHF. Q-Codes are for CW and not a plain language of phone communication. Sometimes people made fun by saying that he is going to UK. "Wow...UK ? UK is cold now....You won't enjoy the weather.." a friend might response. "No la ..I want to go to Ulu Kerai la.." At times a few words is shorter to mention in plain language. 'Thank'  is shorter than 'tanggo kilo'. 'Pa rit Bun tar' is shorter than 'Pa Pa B Ra Vo'. 'My wife ' is shorter than 'My X Y L'. Plain language is easy for all listeners to understand. We assume that there are two plain language in Malaysia ; Bahasa Malaysia and English. Using any of those the words chosen must be understood by all. Of course once in a while we use foreign words used by hams as their plain language like arigato' salom, desodania, marhaban, ja Jian, Jie-jie etc. They are still the full words of their plain language. When even a ham does not understand the CW language how do we expect the people to know if the Morse language is put in words. We don't say, "Your signal is 5 N" as we say in CW "5NN". In the world of No-Code, no-code operators should not use any Q-Codes at all. Anything belonging to CW should be thrown aside and should be a taboo. Throw one and throw all. The word 'silent key' is not at all appropriate because they never use the CW key for communication.  Top
	SILENT KEY Talking about Silent Key, the controlled ham word, I have had discussion with 9M2RS about the best age to die. Rashid was talking about the global warming and the sinking of Maldive and I was talking about the on coming natural calamities that may hit Malaysia. The older we are the more difficult for us to escape those disasters. Rashid asked me if I have the choice at what age I want to die. I said 65. Rashid said 70. The next day when I talked to 9M2SW he said we made the wrong choice. For hams there are only TWO ages to choose from namely 73 and 88. One main problems about ageing is forgetfulness. I have been losing a lot of things plus cash amounting to almost a thousand. Even my denture was missing. The last was my hand phone. Almost every other day I would forget something. One common thing is forgetting to take my medicine along when I already packed them. I usually have my meal outside and every time I forgot my health consumption. This is very dangerous indeed because it can cause me my life. When a person went a silent key his family will face problem. People come to claim goods and money from the livings like your wife or kids. For hams people might come to claim the rigs or any other equipments saying the dead borrowed from them. I am telling everyone that I don't borrow people's gear. Nor do I owe anybody any money. I don't keep any mistress too. So if you hear any woman claiming my properties saying that she is my mistress or a secret second wife, it is a pure nonsense. So you are advised to tell your ham friends if you mary a second or third wife, or even keep a mistress. When my grandfather passed away, the relatives found money everywhere; in the pillow, in a vase, a cut bamboo and other places. Old people like to hide their money at those places. They don't believe in banks. I think we should ask Eshee, Bahar and those over 70 where they keep their wealth. I like to ask people the cost of a funeral. When I visited United States I asked someone who flew from South America to attend a funeral. I asked our Chinese friends too. Even death is an expensive affair. When you go to Mecca to perform a Haj and your life ends there, it is a simple event. Thousands of people pray for you. I think in Mecca funeral procedure is simple and cheap. Some communities believe in the next world the dead person need money to spend. So they burry the type of money that will be used in the next world. Rather than building a bamboo rig, I suggest even the real ham gear should go also. But human is human. Living people dug the grave looking for gold teeth and even bones. If you tell them they can strike a 4 digit digging a certain grave they will do that too. Hence burying the IC756 or FT897 could be very risky. If you bury the CW key, it will be there forever. People just don't like CW. Living people don't respect the living and dead people any more. Historically they leave their ancestors far away. Some treat the living like animals. They rob the graveyard for housing and super market under the name of development. If they do not respect even the living people we can't expect them to respect the dead. That's the reason some people do not prefer killing their enemies. They torture them. They tie you and let the water drops on you day and night, and tickles your foot with feathers. They let just one ant crawling on you. You prefer to die than to suffer. If I die you can use the word because I am punching the CW key everyday. When you don't hear the key for some time you can ask "Is he a silent key ?" Top
	NEW HAMS AND CW It is indeed encouraging to know that there are new hams who are working CW among themselves and even moved to DX band with confidence. I think they smart because they have studied very hard for it and do not want the skill to fade away. In fact last night when the band condition went down and I finally hardly heard 9M2ONE and 9M2GET on 7.043, I cranked down my CW power to the lowest I could and press BK to test whether they could copy me. I think they could. But Hairi on listening on 7.043 switched on to CW mode on the same frequency. This is a simple trick a few do not understand yet. If you hear CW on 7.043, the station on the mode is always lower down. So, when you want to come on Morse with you do not switch your mode to CW using the same 7.043. You switch to the mode and then move down to hear the CW station. You will hear him around between 7.042.24 or a little higher but not on 7.043. Remember, if you don't practice you will lose the skill. There was one Malay man who went to England during his school days. 30 to 40 years later he realized he could forget the mother tongue. So he made a point to go to the airport or to meet the Malay students just to speak Malay. Comparing the old hams in Malaysia and Europe, the different is the Westerners always go on the mode to ensure the acquired skill will be maintained. Knowing the mode and use it does not make us any richer in term of money. Neither can we made a beautiful actress to love us. But it gives us a kind of feeling with an enhance esteem that we keep to ourselves. You have pride in yourselves. Truly the tradition of Morse is beautiful. It makes ham radio merry and give a special meaning to it. When your mother have you in the house as kid, the noise you made, the cry, the shout and the quarrel among small brothers and sisters make your house alive. When you grow up and move away living the old folks alone, the house is very quiet and serene. The house is almost dead. You just wait a few more years when your kids move away and all the noises vanish. While I am typing this I parked my rig on the CW portion, listening and working. It is ham radio. Real ham radio. Go to CB and pirate frequencies you hear voices. Now that I have been hearing new hams talk about CW and worked on the mode, I have every confidence that there are generations who will continue with the tradition which will give life to the hobby. From time to time, I have been telling people to think deep and long before any decision is made. A wrong one could be fatal and could not be undone and many turn out to be too late. If you look back at history you will find there have been many wrong decision that we have to live with and will eventually destroy us. I wrote about the decision of my former school to build a structure on the small green, the only beautiful green the school has left. When I was working the driver, the teachers, the gardeners and many other had been telling me not to build any structure there. I followed their advice. But this year the tradition was broken. A building was built. The beauty has been killed. Many saw the ugliness. Nothing can be done. When one day houses on the hills slide down or sink in the ground and Malaysia experience the lack of water, we will to pay a very high price for the human greed for killing the green and the forest. The greedy gains. Public suffer. When the FCC kills amateur radio, it can never undo it. It is up the ham to preserve the dignity of ham radio, and to resurrect it again. When they come on CW like bees they are telling the world that ham radio is alive and kicking. Do you know why the mamak curry is so sedap ? The curry that was cooked 20 years ago carry forward till the very day. A portion yesterdays' curry will be put in today's cooking. A portion of today's will be put in the tomorrows'. It will continue as long as the business run even for 400 years. The origin of the old curry is carried forward. You taste it, you say excellent. That is the tradition of th mamak curry. That will be the tradion of CW. Top
	OLD AND YOUNG GO When I read newspapers I would not miss the mortuary section, not to find out whether any of my friend had passed away but looking at the age of those who had left us. The average age is 60. A few passed 80. There are a few below 40. When I was working many younger staffs much lower below my age went away. The common illness was stroke. In fact in the recent months news of a departed ham was not delivered around. A young ham from Penang passed away. Yesterday I was talking to 9W2FA, Tarmizi, who informed me about 9W2BB, Pak Deen, who was suffering from stroke and had to undergo some form of an operation. At least there is one sickness that we don't know and we can't see in ourselves. We always feel good and healthy and therefore never go for any medical checkup. It is called the heart disease. We would not know whether we have any blockage. Sportsman like soccer player would never suspect that he can be attacked by such sickness. Famous soccer player like Awang Bakar collapsed and died while playing the game. As far as death is concerned everybody can go. Hams are advised to have a regular medical checkup and try to stay away from sugar. Testing blood-sugar can be done at home by buying the machine and strips. There are many brand of the High Blood pressure gauges too. the price is within our mean, very much cheaper than our radio. Somehow one day you will see your blood-sugar level is high and will panic about it and think you are going to die tomorrow. A few will start to find the traditional medicine. Friends will advise them to consume herbs and exotic plants. Some will tell us that it is due to the food we take which are not balanced. We tend to lose money when panic. People can sell stuffs at RM500 promising you a balance diet and safety from heart and other sicknesses. There are truly effective traditional herbs but there is no dosage measurement. A big number were known to go hypo when consuming those kampong medicines. The best is the medical doctor with certificate not the kampong doctor without any. Believing in hospitals does not guarantee perpetual living. Doctors die too. But the young can be sure they are not going to leave their young wives and kids alone too early. How young is young ? My personal view says age below 50 is still very young. A big bulk of ham operators are below this age. Doctors would tell us to exercise daily. Many non-hams do that while a big number of hams would stay in the shack yaking away every evening. Then do it twice a week. Yet we have other unplanned programs when we are free; we may have visitors, kenduri, wife asking to go to super market etc. So the days passed away. Top
	THE RIGHT In an organization it has been a habit of some of the workers to come to work late and go home early. A few who were known not in the work place but the punch card show their presence. Some work place are gambling heaven. When the HOD sent the show cause letters the group would unite and a few even threatened the administrators as if they are right and the HOD is wrong. The phenomena of criminals, gamblers and indiscipline thought they are right and the others are wrong is very common. Similar happenings exist in amateur radio. It ranges from piracy, the lending of call signs to the thinking that ham radio belong to them. The latest is the usage of the call sign. 9X2DDD is used as only DDD on the air or the mentioning of 'Nine X-Ray Two Triple D'. When we think we have all the right and ham radio belong to us then we would start to invent our own SOP. We condemn those who told us that we are wrong. We think we are right. We get together and tell the group of our right and start to create enemy with the other people. The concept that everyone is our friend is not acceptable. Friendship and respect must be mutual , meaning it has to come both ways. I can't respect those who do not know what respect is. I could not respect those non-licensees who would come and sit on ham frequencies causing discomfort to those hams who are communicating. Last night I heard them even on the Indonesian CW net ; so daring and so rude. If you say anything to them they will fight back. They think they are right. When I was in foreign countries and encounter with the Singaporeans at places where people are queuing up, I would feel safe. I would whisper to my wife not to worry about jumping the queue.  I have the perception of the high discipline Singapore citizens. We don't go out and buy any radio we want. We choose the ones which are selective and sensitive. Similarly we would tell our kids to choose friends. And I have always been telling the ham friends to be careful in choosing friends. There are hams who have been cheated on money and equipments by fellow hams and hams who thought of nothing but only on making money out of the hobby. If you vote the wrong ones to lead you, you would bring disaster to amateur radio. The transfer of good habit within a person between jobs and tasks is always there. A person with a high discipline in his work place tend to transfer the good habit in ham radio or ay other circumstances. A person with a bad habit in one tend to have the same habit in another, thought it may not necessarily be true. But bad habits and attitudes can always change thru a series of processes. Inculcate good habits in schools are done thru extra co-curricula activities like going outing in the forest, camping, outbound activities and group work. Students learn how to depend on each other and respect in order to survive in the jungle. They have the sense of belongings. They form the good habits unconsciously. Going to study in a good university is also a process of change. One will have to learn to organize oneself, struggle, training how to look for facts, comparing various facts and to choose the best. Hard earning manual workers and a businessman has to learn to organize themselves too. Only the successful ones survive. These are all the processes of change. After having reach a limit he pushes himself more. That will make him a better man. Without the vision and the good attitude he would not go further and stay foot. The habit will never change. A reasonable person sees what is right and what is wrong. In my perspective he is a person who can be a friend to most people. The other day 9M2GET told me about the foreign hams who returned the extra payment made to the expenditure of the certificates. Hairi was amaze at the honestly. I said , "That's the kind of ham which we can call a quality ham." I know of a ham who was given more than RM200000 check for a business without any agreement or any document of proof. The man just trust our fellow ham that much. I just believe that good habits are in chain. it comes together with the ability to recognize between the right and the wrong. Top
	THE INDONESIAN RADIO AUTHORITY Good people try their best not to make enemies or hurting other people's feelings. I am not a good ham and I can't stand the Indonesian pirates all over the ham bands. I can't help but  to say nasty things about our neighbor. Once many Malays would choose the Indonesians over the Malaysian Chinese. But now the situation is reversed. I have tried to control myself from saying nasty stuffs, but each day I see red in the bad behavior of the citizens over the ham radio frequencies are growing from bad to worst, like people of no culture or morality. And the authority is doing nothing about it. Officers are not ashamed to ask money from public, even from the non-citizen. I said so because of the experience I encountered before. Many other people were telling me of the same story. It could  probably be due to the corrupt practices that the Indonesians are throwing filth all over the band. So I associate with the other Indonesians living in this country. We have much bitter experience with the ungrateful people. They burnt our flag and wanted to wage war on us. We helped them when they were facing disaster. They threw stone at our people and plane and charged our students before we can leave  the disaster area. Yet we gave them citizenship. I remember a friend said to me about 20 years ago that the Malay unity is not important. What is important is the Muslim unity. Sooner or later we will understand what it means. I am sure the ORARI does not agree with the pirates occupying ham band covering almost all frequency spectrum. ORARI must know that it agitate many people and the blame will be put on the Indonesian Radio Authority and eventually on the citizens. It has to explain to the world why there is no control over the pirates. Indonesia is not a poor nation. It is a wealthy nation, endowed with fertile soil and rich in oil. It has the ability to buy the monitoring or military equipments. I think the resources are just missing. In order to turn people's focus on corruption, they call the people to blame Malaysia and call the Malaysian as robbers, demanding some share for the usage of their culture forgetting they are also using Western culture free of charge. Not only the Indonesian pirates had thrown a bad image of the nation but also the Radio authority. Circumstances drive others to blame the whole nation inclusive of those innocent people. The Iraqis suffer, the mosques bombed and the innocent killed because of Saddam Hussein and George Bush. Civilized people resolve problems in civilized ways. Corruption is not one of them. Effective re-enforcement will earn fear and respect. A big nation with discipline could be ruined by it's enemy within 6 days as what had happened in the Arab-Israelis war. A corrupt nation bring shame and weakened the country. Likewise the Malaysian Radio Authority must not sleep and gives too many leeway until it finally no control over pirate radio and earn a very shameful reputation from the world over. Remember the limit people can bear. The pirates in Indonesia is too far and too much above our degree of patience. Top
	CONTACTLESS CARDS A hobby knows no boundary. The limitation is the financial resource. I started with ham radio, then BASIC programming and continue to chase the progress. But I can't. The progress is too rapid to chase. I bought the thumb print scanners for thousand of dollars and still keep them in stock. Then I ventured into the memory smart card, wrote a few programs from the sample. From there I got involved with the RFID contactless smart card. I am just lucky that my bio-metric system were used in several schools. I did not go around to sell them. But it covers the cost. Because I found that the finger print system is not 100% efficient I have to find another cheap method to solve it. I noticed there are very difficult fingers. One or two out of 100 fingers had difficulty. I experimented with RFID, solving the problem of capturing data when waived, learning the basic structure of the chips and start to write data on them. Later on I realized it can only take 16 characters per block. The chips are divided into sectors and blocks. I wrote a software to write in 32 fields. It worked very fine. I was very excited about it. But then a card is not safe. Cards are known to be punched by the others. Even a person in Jakarta had his card punched in his work place. I have to solve the problem if I want to recommend for usage. I went to bed thinking about it. I could not sleep. At 2 am the idea struck. I woke up and search for materials, wrote a few codes and tested it. Eureka ! It worked. The next few days I perfected the registration software, the read card software and the write/edit card. I ordered 100 blank cards from Kuala Lumpur and wrote data for 50 teachers for testing. The next day I took to school and showed to the school principal plus the security portion of it. Teachers cannot cheat anymore. The principal was impress with it and decided to use it for various purposes. All students and teachers will be using the card for libraries, entry into a special room and other planned usages. I am not a businessman and not a professional. I can't supply them with colored cards with designs. In fact I had asked a local shop and it is charging RM12 per card to print. I scan the website looking for the card printer and can't afford to buy it. Schools do not have money to spend on the printer. It costs between RM6000 - RM9000. The solution for the school is to print and paste the design on the card. It does not look professional but I think it is alright for a time being. The school pays for the cards and the card reader. I don't know whether it will pay for the upgraded software. It says it has no money. I intend to charge for the library software which uses the barcode to read the book and the smart card to record the borrower. The library teacher had paid RM4000 for the software they bought before and in fact had asked for my free service. The most I can get will be RM500. I can't make a living with the school but it is the flat form I can observe the performance of my software. But each day I am learning a new thing and each day I am getting older. People would say old people like me should just wait to go 6 feet down under. But it is a hobby. So the printer problem is still hanging unless I can get 6 K somewhere. If the other school's principal make a visit here and told about the card usage they might want to try using them. I am sure anybody seeing the demo will tend to like it. It is fast and fascinating. It also work with WAN network. Hanafi, 9W2TZ, and other people were asking me where I picked up computing. My answer is ," From the internet where there are many unselfish people giving the knowledge away." Many a time I have repeatedly said that we have to thanks the Western people for sharing their knowledge with us though we may not agree with them politically.  Top
	DROP RAE OR FACE INCREASED PIRACIES The other night I heard two Indonesian pirates were talking about antenna and balun which is almost unthinkable topics discuss by pirates. Indonesian pirates sing, talk nonsense, shouting and counting numbers. The technical discussion indicates that they are getting more sophisticated. Some are heard to use 100% ham lingo like 73 and QSL. Hence there is no argument that can justify for the continuance of RAE. Pirates live as long as there have numbers. Numbers tend to grow when the authority failed to check them. The authority is facing problems as the number become bigger. If they organize themselves internationally and moved out of the ham band they would probably feel more free. Even though they are on ham band nobody can do anything. And now they are occupying almost every corner both on USB and LSB. Once, they are very scared to move out of 7.000 Mhz. With the false call sign and the good communication skill, one hardly recognize the status of the station. He does not sit for RAE and yet he speaks like any normal ham. The menace could grow up and explode if we put a barb wire of RAE ahead. Of course removing RAE means removing of CW too. Both must go, not just only one. It is meaningless if we just remove one one of them. If the authority could not manage in coping up with the illegal operators, it would make life easier by removing the barb wires. Do it. Why wait for the world. Once we do it the world would follow suit. Pirates seem to like the ham band because of the wide openings unlike the CB. The CBers and the pirates can organize and send petition for more frequency allocation or the dropping of RAE. Sooner or later they will have a leader to fight for them. In a small country like Malaysia pirates can arrange for a meeting and plan ahead to win their demand. In fact our Malaysian authority had once fall to their argument and legalize piracy by allowing the setting up of repeater for them. The point is not whether it is right or wrong, but the line of thinking with this concept already exist. USA and even the IARU saw the image of relevancy and barb wire of CW and decided to put away with tradition. Yet pirates never seem to die off but instead growing stronger and bigger, at least around Southeast Asia. Let us all remove our own selfishness and urge for the removal of all barb wires or else we will continue to make enemy with people we call pirates. Top
	DRIVING WHILE MOBILE During one Hamfest at Dayton Ohio, I observed a group of hams queuing up for a mobile microphone gadget; the headphone and the Vox microphone. In my previous chat I remember someone said he is using such kind of the headset with the VOX microphone. It is not cheap but people buy it. Why people buy those headsets ? Similarly in Malaysia there are many cyclists using the bicycle helmet when going cycling. It is not a mandatory thing to use helmet when going on a bicycle. In Europe and the States almost everyone uses helmet while cycling. Whether mandatory or not using a headset with the VOX microphone is safer and wiser. The choice is ours. But any resulting problem must not affect any other people. People has the right to smoke but they should not spread the cancer disease to the other people by smoking in public. Most of us don't know whether using hand phone while driving is a traffic offence under which section. So you can risk doing it and don't pay the fine and go to court. Ask for the section number and the content of the clause. Does it specifically mention hand phone ? MCMC cannot make regulation for police of traffics. At one time hams said pirates can come on repeater because Ahli Persatuan Radio allowed it. A radio president cannot make a radio regulation or a traffic rule. Imagine we go to Thailand and caught for a certain traffic offence, we can't say our prime Minister gives us the permission...... If you are caught talking holding a microphone with one hand and the other hand is on the wheel, we can't say the MCMC give us permission to do that. Then you may want to argue with the traffic and demand him to show under what radio regulation you can't talk in that manner ? If you ask such a question in court even the judge can't help laughing. If we are caught we pay. So far no one is caught doing it. I go mobile too and talk when the police is not around. When arriving at the police road block, I put my microphone away. Remember, the traffic and the ordinary police is not the same. The choice is ours. I don't say we can't. Neither do I say we can. It may not be legal under the traffic regulation. You can't blame the MCMC for it and says the body gives you the permission. Giving a mobile license needs to be scrutinized and we have to be very careful not to anger the authority because if the MCMC exercise the mobile regulation we will have to pay for the ticket and the named rig can only be placed in the numbered vehicle. Write a formal letter to the traffic and ask about this matter and see what the reply is. Many would say 'better don't'. Why not if you say the MCMC gives you the permission ? p/s - One known ham already was fined RM100 for using microphone while driving. QED. Don't be a lawyer buruk. Most of us are especially me. We argue and argue and finally we will so everybody else is stupid. So and so is stupid...the judge is stupid and I am the smartest. I always say I am the smartest. So much so I have been beaten in chess games over and over again.
	9M6YBG and CW There were no 9M2 stations when I called CQ on CW on 23/01/2010 in the evening. After an evening napped I went to 7.043 to call. Again no 9M2 came back. Then I heard a weak station which I hardly copy the call sign. After some time I managed to copy the call sign. It was 9M6YBG. I have worked Go several time on CW. In fact the night before I heard him working DX stations, coming 599 into my shack. But he could read me 59. Then Go came back on CW. The signal was fantastic as compared when he came on the phone. He suspected the microphone problem and I asked to make a thorough investigation on his SSB mode of transmission. There could be something wrong somewhere. We had several round of contacts using both CW and phone. I used phone and Go on CW. His CW is 30 wpm. I would consider it quite fast. Good sending gave me no problem in mental copying. Had not because of CW I would not be able to communicate with him. To some people CW is handy. As I said before hams that lost their voices due to operation can always come on Morse. Those who went jungle tracking and lost the microphone can still send message in case of disaster or emergency. There is no requirement to know high speed Morse but it good to progress to higher speed. We can be versatile with the skill. We can go slow with the new beginner and can response to the experience high speed hams. Go is not a joke. He has ample skill and very excellent in Morse codes. Most Malaysian boys especially the new comers will have difficult time to work with him at the speed. Top
	WELL YOU ARE GREAT . GOOD LUCK
	I observe people well. Because I have encountered with many people with pride in my profession and noted their performance to compare with the haughty nature, I did not think I was wrong in concluding the nature of some of the new hams. The rebel and those who think they are great enough simply refuse elmering but instead criticized the old hams. When we tell them about the rule of going mobile, they said it is not stated in the regulation forbidding talking while driving. When you tell them about logbook, they say the MCMC said log book is not mandatory. Bad person like me always say, "so be it...do whatever you like...good luck.." It is good for them to solve their own problem without having to fall back to any old ham. But people like me do not feel happy if a station whom I have worked 5 or 6 times keep on asking my name every time we have a contact. In CW I have come across many stations and local too. If they do have logbook, I am sure they would know my name. But I don't expect a station I worked 4 years ago to remember my name. At least a ham should device a system for easy and quick reference. Of course an electronic logbook would solve every problem especially of tracing fellow hams. When one argues that logbook is not mandatory and unimportant, so let be it. True, a harsh word hurts. But it won't be thrown if one has not criticized the others. Some like to copy the style of their neighbors who like to count from one to two, days in and days out, and count with the 'deng' sound. We hear no word of microphone but of PTT, and short cut to call sign like 'triple or double D' instead of 'Delta Delta Delta or Delta Delta'. I have received e-mail and poison pen letters on whatever I wrote. Be it. But how to BE IT if it finally falls back on us for help. They may not ask for my help but seek someone else; also from a fellow ham whom they showed no respect before. We welcome new hams who think there might be something that they might not know yet, even the Q-Codes which they can recite so well, in the proper SOP which they have been using from day one till they got the 9M2's ticket, the art of using a PTT without having to pause for a break for people to come in, the practice of a roundtable chat, the knowledge on logging though they have been hams for 4 years and of course knowledge pertaining to antenna especially on the security against lightning, and on the art of tuning. I would add on the knowledge of the current frequency usage; to know which frequencies are used by which group, to avoid unnecessary clash. Stupid people like me had never used 'my handle operator is.....' We say 'My handle is....' or 'My name is...' Worst is 'My handler is...' If you insist you are right so be it. I know many don't like what I write. So be it. Top
	9M2SZ on TV
	Shah looked very young on TV1 last night (25/01/2010) discussing some law pertaining to religious issue. You should have seen him. The make up showed Shah like 20 year old college student. And another lawyer with Shah, a Lady, was also beautiful. If I were our 9M2SZ, I would have tackled the lady lawyer. I tried to call fellow hams to tell them about Shah on the TV. But it was too late. Some hams like Hanafi used to go to bed at 9 pm. Probably they might have gone to  bed early since the next day is a working day. Shah is a CW man, a high speed CW man. I have yet to work him and when I do I would like to discuss some law issue. I am very sure a big number of Malaysian hams do not know 9M2SZ. Members of MARES might know him well because Shah is quite a regular visitor to the club. I was with Shah at ARRD Port Dickson. Shah brought a beautiful wife with him. Another wife he brought along was the electronic keyer which was borrowed by the Japanese operating the ARRD station. We talked on many topics and the longest was on CW. When Shah came on TV, we felt that the whole ham population was there. The flag he carried was not visible to many eyes but that's what he carried. At that time one thing that might have not realize ie millions of people were focusing on the TV set and on him. His leg could have shaken if he could see the million of viewers. Go Shah Go... Top
	SERVICE MANUAL FOR IC-706 MK G When I first became a ham my predecessor told me that a ham is a hobby not to make money out of it. I found it was so fit with the definition of a ham radio which mentioned that it is not for pecuniary  motive. My first experience was seeing hams helping each other in setting up stations. Most old hams get free co-axial cables and plugs. Of course we did not expect a free rig. But in the later years especially now people are making money at things which do not involve any capital investment. We can pay for the cost at a reasonable price. We don't expect a fellow ham to cut our throat. I would not elect any person selling ham gears as my radio President or Secretary. He is more suitable to concentrate on business dealing rather than doing a voluntary job. A few years ago I could easily download radio manual. I downloaded IC-706 MKII G for free. I don't remember where I kept it. Today my rig went haywire. It just could not transmit. No power. I open the web pages looking for service manual. Most are not free. Some free ones went missing or corrupted. Those who allowed free download must not be happy with a few who gathered the free stuffs and sold to others, and stopped the service. I don't understand why the downloadable manuals were all corrupted. I smell something fishy somewhere. In my mind I was trying to analyze why the change occur ? I put many possibilities in my head. You too may be having guesses similar to mine. But I don't find it amusing. Finally I decide to search for the file. My hard disk and back up disks were attacked by a vicious malware. Almost all of my data went missing. My CD-backup contains only old files. After a long CD searched I found nothing. I tried my luck in my ham folder which I called ham1. The file is there. Now I am putting it here for you to download. Please be an honest ham and help the other hams by passing the manual to those who need them. Those who need money for a living can try to find money by some other ways. Top
	IS 9W2ZZK OPERATED ILLEGALLY ? On 30/01/2010 9W2ZZK was heard to operate on 20 meter band using digital mode. It was not a happy scene for most Malaysian hams who want to preserve the dignity of amateur radio in Malaysia. Of course it will be awkward for the MCMC to allow such call sign to operate of 20 or 80 meter. Hams want to know whether MCMC gave such a permission. It has been suggested that the RAE and CW be both abolished to allow free for all radio operation. Otherwise the rule must be followed as stated. Proof will be taken from the corresponding stations soon. And the MCMC has no choice but to act unless it formed a new radio regulation and award the free for all operation. On the other hand anyone can use call sign belonging to the others. It could be a pirate using 9W2ZZK which I believed to be doing it. 9W2ZZK therefore should try to find out which person was using his call sign to operate on DX band and lodge an immediate report to the authority. The failure of the authority will bring our amateur radio nearer to the happenings in our neighboring country. If 9W2ZZK does not read this article, I hope a friend of his can notify and alert him about his call sign being used by someone. He too must continue to monitor the band and do what he can to clear his name. The MCMC must know that to generate more people from joining the ham radio is not by allowing them to break rules. It is better not to have rule then. Do away with all the regulation and sell the ham ticket like selling the Goreng Pisang. It makes life easy for the MCMC and easy for everybody. Radio business would be better. It would also generate higher GDP value to the nation. Top
	WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT HAM RADIO At a 'kenduri' I met my old friend who is lecturing in Universiti Utara Malaysia. "Are you still in a ham radio ?" He asked. "Yes."I said. "Where is the position of ham radio..what is so special about ham radio ?" I hesitated. He continued to say that computer and internet so far ahead of ham radio. He always have a video conferencing with his students all over the world and friends in London. Instead of responding to him,  I switched topic about going to Dayton Ohio. He got the point. In 1983 - 2001 I lost contact with ham radio except for a few visit to Hamfest in Athens Ohio and Bloomington Indiana. Day and night I chat using the IRC with people all over the world, discussing and joking. That time video conferencing like Skype and the others were unknown. I did not foresee of the superb progress. If during those days Skype and other conferencing softwares were available, it could have been possible, I would  not come back to ham radio. Even right now many hams go back to internet to chat. 9M2ZA is always on Yahoo. Skype is one of the most popular. Technology wise ham radio is far behind. Internet is far more superior. My passion is CW. The degree of excitement and pleasure of working high speed Morse especially in ragchewing is beyond description. How can you explain to a man without a sex organ the pleasure and enjoyment of sexual intercourse. The other night 9M2HOO gave a description of ham radio saying that communication thru QRM, noise and hardship is the real ham radio. He further said that if we want clarity just use phone. Ho was trying to put the idea of the challenge and the thrill. As I have always said that you can go up to the top of the mountain by a helicopter. Yet people choose to climb it. They go to the rapids and fight against the rough rivers. The jumped down the plane. The thrill is the hardship. I avoid discussing with my friend for fear of insulting him. I expect a University lecturer to know much things about the world and human nature, the concept of life, and of course of people who challenge hardship and even the impossible. Flying to the outer space was once considered impossible and nonsense. If video conferencing could give me the utmost pleasure I would have discarded ham radio and go for it. I don't even have the Yahoo Messenger, not to mention Skype. Last night I worked VU2MDM. In CW VU2MDM sounds beautiful. VU2 call signs are very musical. Name like ESHEE is fun to send. Word like SESSION give pleasure to the finger to press. Old timers in CW are developing melody in sending the code. That is what so special about Ham Radio. Not everybody can have it and can feel the pleasure unless he goes into it and be serious about it. It is our fingers and hands combined with hearings that provide the untold pleasure. I bet if we use machine to send and receive there will be zero satisfaction and fulfillment .  Top