SORRY I AM  CHOOSY

You are as choosy as I am. Animals tend to choose their own kind and specie. It is just natural for many people to choose friends, companions for travel and chat, and persons they just like. At times I choose base on my principle like I do talk to 9Ws on VHF and normal eyeball but I would not talk to them on HF except on CW. It is not a matter of taste but as a matter of Principle.

Principles can be silly or stupid but I believe a person should have at least one.

As you judge me and other people, I too judge you and the others. Judgment can can always be wrong. When I read a person's article, I would judge that person by the manner and contents of his writing. Then I would put him in a certain category base on his intellectuality. If I think he is not suitable as a friend then I will not want to see his face at all.

I believe, right or wrong, I can meet a high class ham on CW because these people took pain to enhance themselves and had succeeded in fighting challenges. Many rich people work very hard to earn big money. Yet there are others who want to get rich by begging or demanding for money, cheating or robbing. Some ethnic group live in poverty because they are lazy.

If the government draft or execute any policy which is driving the people to laziness, uncompetitive and low class citizens, I have no choice but has to sneer at the government and the policy. That's why I am against abolishing UPSR,PMR and in the radio world against the policy in helping lazy people.

In my previous experience, I have been facing difficulty with many incompetent officers as in Celcom for example. We do have workers in big company who are suppose to help the customers failed to carry out the job because they don't have ample knowledge.

Choosy people may end up with no friend. But there are many good people around whom we can respect and help each other. We don't have to pick up any Dick, Tom and Harry.

When the 9Ws comes on HF, I hope they won't cause any problem to people who want to work on CW. Surely I may come on phone talking to the other 9M2s or YBs or any DX stations. I hope no one will join in when I am there or causing deliberate QRM. At the moment we have enough of rude people and even hams. Let the number stop there. It is your right and mine to be choosy.

Even on the DX band, I can't tolerate international hams using CB lingos. So I just move to the CW portion to monitor and enjoy listening. To my judgment ham radio is even spoiled by a few CB-Ham.

Top 08/07/2010 - Abdul Rahman

WHAT I HEARD AT FUNERAL TODAY

I was informed of a funeral at my kampong. My neighbor was a poor man. Kids would go and sleep at my sister's house. I didn't find many people because they do not inform people about the death. I arrived early morning. The funeral would be after the prayer.

While waiting someone brought out the topic on the dilemma of the future Malays. He was talking about the Education system and the disadvantage of the Malays for the lack of proficiency in English. Probably his son was rejected in the job interview because he can't speak English. I just listened, nodded my head, just refused to add comments because if I did it would be a long story.

They were talking about the dark future of the next generations starting from the drug addiction to the decline in morality and poverty. I just guessed most of them do not agree with the government policy.

In fact I have written about the use of English in my blog expressing my regret on what has happened to the International Hobby of Ham Radio. The tug-of- war on language issue still continue today. Whatever the outcome private companies prefer English speaking graduates.

When my students were chosen to go to Korean colleges they had to undergo the language course. Within a short period they were qualified, joined the college and a few proudly entered Korean university. They studied English since standard one to form 5, almost 11 years. Yet they are lack of proficiency. But they could master the new language within a short duration.

This is what we call attitudes. The struggle for survival, do or die. Never look for excuses. Nobody can demand the Korean government to find the Malay talking lecturers to teach the Malaysians in Korea. If it is here people might demand and command the government to enact a policy to spoon feed them, bring everything in front of them.

At the funeral home the son told of a story about what his father told him before he died. The father was good in school but he followed his friend's way and neglect his study."Son, if I have not followed my friend, I would already be a teacher." The poor man's ambition was just wanting to be a teacher.

Then I remember parents who worried about their kids following their friends. Smoking and drug addictions were could be influenced by friends. When my student asked me about putting her son in the hostel, I said it could be a risky step as it all depends on the warden. Even with the strict wardens they would still jumped over the fence to go to town after midnight and watch movie. I asked her to keep the son at home because the school is near the house.

Friends who ask us to do good job, study and make money by honest business are not easy to find. But we can find friends who want us to follow him so that we won't be above him.

All what I herd at the funeral house had been addressed before and you can notice the response on the web site. The small issue can reflect the whole make up of a certain ethnic group.

I notice that some of us were having a locked mind. I gave one example; you open an e-mail and found a mail from me with a certain advertisement. When I say I do not send any mail to you, you would insist on saying it was me who do it, nothing else. This is what I mean by the locked mind which is typical among the people who lack of knowledge, though he is the smartest, and refused to venture other possibilities. People with a deep knowledge on computing and the internet might be able do describe the possibilities of such happening, understanding the mail server, hacking into it using some DOS commands. It may or may not be a virus.

Open mindedness, positive attitudes, educational level, analytical and knowledge are correlated and of the same category. We do have many Malays of this category. They don't beg and make noise. They would work hard for success. Close mindedness, negative attitudes and laziness actually are not owned by the Malays only. Malaysians as a whole do share identical characters though the numbers may be lesser.

Top - 07/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

SDR DOES NOT SHOCK ME

When the TV card was in the market I already expected a radio card would have to come to. Saito has been using a high grade TV card to record some vital stuffs. When they made a configuration to transmit using the Flex that was just a normal development. That was many years ago.

I did hear station using Flex and advertisements on Flex was ongoing. At the same time there were the sale of conventional radio. As much as I ignore the concept and practice of the echo-link, I also turned away from flex. You may call it 'the resistance to change'. But we can't tell those experimenters to stop building 811 or 813 amplifiers because it is an outdated things.

Keeping phase with technology is a good thing. There are so many articles on SDR and Flex radio on the web site. Detail tutorials are available too.

Jumping to SDR and Flex would give almost a total change to amateur radio. The RAE would become almost irrelevant. It would be very much easier to buy the ready made PC-board rather than soldering each component on it. Yaesu already use a single radio microprocessor to open up AM, FM, and SSB. What may be left relevant might be the element of antenna and propagation. Even that is a simple topic which does not require testing.

Let us ponder and think deep about it. With the new technology, is RAE important ? You may say it is important for the SOP. RAE does not proof even an atom of truth that it provides the SOP skill. As the technology improve and we follow them we have to throw the past quickly and fast. From the CW to the RAE. We have no choice than to rip all in the traditional package of ham radio.

Someone might say 'Ham Radio would continue to live as long as people experiments with radio and radio communication and using the conventional ham gear with the VFO, BFO, modulator, PLL, conversions and the RF things'.

SDR is not a threat but a development which alter the concept of ham radio the course content of RAE and dissolving the relevancy totally. As such the total concept of ham radio must be restructured. In fact even long before SDR and Flex, with the expansion of commercial gears people already did not find RAE was a hindrance. People buy and talk without pain. With this new invention it totally cast out the relevancy of the course content.

Among a few of us, we still find thrills with 6146 or 6JS6C, 811 and 813 home brew linear and the huge capacitors which are hard to find. In Islam the phrase 'You and your way and me with mine...' is not uncommon in view of respecting people's choice. Enjoy what you think is good and satisfy you.

When Icom, Yaesu and all other conventional radio manufacturer feels the pain of competition and decide to stop their present production and would take a quantum shift to Flex Radio then all the old radio will be dying away slowly. Radio enthusiast would be left with no choice but to opt to SDR.

Top - 06/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

SORRY FOR THE BAD HAMS

I have been restraint myself not to attack any particular persons who called themselves because in my mind there is no point quarrelling with people of less education or mentally sick. But as many other sick people they would continue to provoke people. It has been many time that I have said that as I said people are bad, people likewise can form an opinion that I am bad too. And I have always been aware of the efforts to damage me. But I just do not care about it. All because I know that ham radio will be spoiled by them and that be blamed not by me or the old hams but by their own and future generation.

I started to see the bad hams only after a long absence in ham radio. Many 9Ms who talked to me blamed several 9Ms who still live today. The state today could have been a fate.

A person can form an opinion and put up a statement. A person who came to me and said nobody uses CW nowadays could be duped as a deaf, stupid or just a bad ham. It is not because he hates CW and therefore I dislike him, but I don't know where he put his ears when thousands of CW signals were heard during contest and at other time. Even at this time of typing I listen to KH2 and DL stations on 40 meter band. It would be a bad ham if he knows it but simply opened the bad mouth to say so.

When I express my opinion about a no-code ham is not a true ham, I just believe that way. If you think otherwise and people think like you then there is nothing much that I can do. You can't force me to change my mind. I just happen to believe without code there is no ham radio and it should be replaced by other name. If you insist you are a true ham, an expert ham because you work almost all band, satellite and very well verse in everything then by all mean be happy with yourself.

A person could not be forced to talk or avoid a station wanting to talk to him. When I say I just cannot talk to a 9W on HF band because of my standing principle, you have the right to report me to the authority. A person who called himself a true ham should not simply disturb me on a certain frequency or trying to chase me away by wresting the frequency. On the other hand if I know a station who has no liking to talk to me, I would just left him alone and would not take over his usual frequency. Didn't I say before you can't forced Bush to talk to Osama if both become ham operators.

Never force people to follow you and start to shoot at them when they follow their own way. If you do, I would call you bad hams. When they take CW and move to some other bands there is no reason why you should attack them. As far as I am concerned they are reasonable and smart hams. They may not be my friend and there is no need for them to talk to me. It is good for them to to think well.

Many big men of today would remember the school bullies who were heroes and showed big muscle when bullying people, shouted at those students who studied. These bullies called the others not to raise standard. Don't study like them. Be like them.

I also have said about hams who read this and other articles. They do not believe easily what people write. They read you and your character. They read me and my character.

One 9W2 asked me where and how to learn Morse. I replied that 9Ws are not interested in CW. He denied it saying that not all share with the idea. 9W2BAL still decided to sit for CW at whatever outcome. If anyone boycotted Iqbal and criticize him for his decision certainly I would call him a bad ham. You think your way and they think their way. Whether CW is dead or not they want to learn then why bother ? They may want to work with the many stations they heard on the air.

SOP is another criteria why I called bad hams, especially when they brought disgrace to the nation. When you see me, I will show you how their SOP can brought our image down.

Again I will have to repeat my disagreement with 9M2RS when he said even criminals have the right to be hams. I just believe not everyone is suitable to be a ham. Putting them in at random would cause havoc. The good thing is that it create jobs for the police to closely monitor the band and slowly and steadily know the individual.

Top - 06/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

MEE MASAK SATU

I don't feel well since yesterday, getting fever and cough. The cough is more serious at night. Finally I decide to go to pharmacy and look for some flu medicines. On the way home I stopped at a Pasar Malam to buy Tahir Mee. Tahir Mee suit my taste and you have to queue. If you are unlucky it may take you 60 minutes. But people would go somewhere else befoe picking up the order. One bungkus costs RM3.00 but enough for a normal person. Mummy, Tahir's wife, would fry the order. Some time Tahir was there and sometime you can't find him. Tahir is about 75 years old.

If you ask me to grade the mee by my taste I would give it 9 out of 10. Today I ordered Bihun instead of mee goreng. While waiting one Chinese lady came. She looked very beautiful to me, taller than me by a few inches. "Kasi say satu mee masak," she ordered.

I was wondering what is 'mee masak'. This is the first time I heard the word mee masak. Tahir's son seemed to understand what it meant. I did not ask because the Chinese lady was there. But I would have just guessed that mee masak is mee kuah or mee rebus. But people identified mee kuah as different from mee rebus.

Even my wife was puzzled about mee masak. She too was thinking it could have been as mee rebus. If I am still around, next week I will ask Tahir's son what Mee Masak is.

One good thing about Mee Tahir or Mee Pak Chop is they make sure thee goreng stuffs are well done. There can be many people waiting but there will be no rush for Mummy. Unlike a boy near my house who can goreng 10 bungkus within one or two minutes. Yet almost every night his mee will be sold out. Now I stopped buying mee from this boy except for Nasi Goreng.

The fastest order from Mee Tahir is the Pasembor. Second is Mee Rebus.

If you want to know how the taste is probably you can go to the Pasar Malam on Tuesday and Wednesday after 5 pm. Call me up. You can also can try Mee Masak once.

Top - 13/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

RUNNING UBUNTU ALMOST ON FULL MODE

My Windows is almost closed to the internet. My Kapersky may be updated once in a while with full of risks while updating it. I will have to observe whether I will be running Ubuntu for the whole month without the anti-virus updating.

Firefox does not seem to be 100% compatible with some of my web page coding as I discovered. For those Firefox users, they will have difficulty in navigating my web page. The Internet Explorer will have no problem.

The logbook written in Visual Basic is running well on Ubuntu after some  modification from the old one. It is not attractive with less facilities. It is just like the Skype program which has no video facility. But I feel save running Ubuntu rather than Windows. I believe some sick guys will be experimenting with virus on Linux.

Opening e-mail, browsing web sites, skype chat, and  ham logging are all that I need. Writing codes is on Windows. This just serve me and it is enough. Nevertheless I am experimenting with Php-Msql and intend to write codes for data entry, deletion, updating and a few other common features with php on linus. My localhost experiment works very fine and am enjoying playing around with it.

Today, we can learn things ourselves. All that we require is the 'want to do it'. The will to learn.

There is nothing much that I can say about those who want to learn and can't learn yet want everything in the world. I just have to feel sorry for them. Even if they passed remarks, shouted and condemned the world, there is nothing that we can do. Just show no response otherwise we will be one of them. If it happened that they come into our world just by the stupidity of others, then we still can say and do nothing.

I don't ask any other person to go to Ubuntu if you are comfortable with Windows. I am just talking about learning other things to achieve what the others have. I just don't respect beggars.

Telling about Ubuntu is telling about the will to learn. Remember I am almost at the burial ground as compared to those people below 40. When the government are designing policies to drive the citizens into laziness, I am always against them.

Top - 15/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

QSL VIA 9M2AR.COM/QSLCARD.HTM

Fed up with post office and MARS's QSL bureau I decided to use electronic QSL. Any station wanting a QSL card can go to http://9m2ar.com/qslcard.htm and enter his call sign. He can also see the number of contacts he has made before with me and even choose on which day he wants the card printed.

But the present database is out of date due to several unknown circumstances like the hard disk crush and virus attacks. Being senile and forgetful, I hardly made backups. At one time even all my external drives connected to the laptop went kaput. Also I forget to change the system time when the Windows were re-installed. Of course I hope the other station can pinpoint the problem and I can edit it from here.

I have just finished this one. At the moment all the logging has to be done thru the internet, either using Windows or Ubuntu. I have yet to think how to update both of the database at the server and at my laptop. I believe one of these days the problem could be resolved. In the time from time to time I will have just to transfer back the database from the server to my local hard disk.

My card is not perfect yet. I have not drawn several things like the radio logo and the IARU region etc. In the meantime you can start printing it. What I don't know is whether it holds any validity for awards.

Please wish me luck for further development and probably we can all share the idea.

Top - 16/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

Update - The graphic display had been haywire. There was a warp and distorted image of the card. I improved it a little and now it displays quite well on the Firefox as well as Internet Explorer. In addition the number of SSB, CW and FM contacts are also shown in the list. While reading log is giving less problem, the logging part is tougher. And I have to edit the database putting an additional field for easy deleting and editing. But to download back the database to the local disk is another problem because it is too slow and at that time people might be using the database.

17/07/2010

DEMOCRACY AND MAJORITY FIT ?

Democracy, majority and human rights are symbols of progress and enlightenment. And Malaysians are moving hard towards it. Here I would like to look at them thru my own perspective.

Recently I viewed a real video on issues on pornography in the United States, the battle between court and the proponent of pornography. The Western value has changed very much on several matters with a total divorce from the old tradition and religion. Religion is used as merely a political and monetary tools. Child pornography, public sex and nudity, free group sex in shows and clubs are opened up in great numbers in the name of public demand and majority need. The pressure of human right pushed many states to allow lesbians, gays and same sex marriage.

To many of us it is an alarming phenomena. To the people of the changed value it is nothing, natural and nothing to be fussy about.

The Malaysians and the Malaysian policy makers have been looking at the West for guidance and fond of adopting the beliefs and the policies believing it would put it in the map of progressive nations together with the Western brothers. Talk on human right by the Sisters of Islam, by Rais Yatim and a few others are running well with huge supporters. The government agencies too are following the Western education system and the radio communication policy of those nations.

We have been seeing that the proponent of democracies are using force on the others to follow them. The Americans have been dictating democracy and human right to the Malaysian administration in return for some policies. The number of prisons and prisoners, death of innocent humans in Afghanistan and other land where the Western military operates do not fit with the belief in human right and democracy. Counting the number by minority and democracy the Israelis are always less than the Arabs. Yet the Americans go for the minority.

The MCA women encroached the Islamic religion on many women issues as it sees as undemocratic and unfair to woman. The right to practice freedom is for all. Not only for MCA, Americans or any other nations. If I chose to ask my wife to wear a veil and she chooses to wear it, then the MCA woman should respect my right too.

At the spare of the copy and paste operations by the Malaysians, I believe that we are moving towards a immoral country. We don't have our own thinking. Our culture is sinking. Our country is being invaded by foreigners.

Top - 18/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

THE REAL MAD GUY

The other day I was talking to 9M2SW about money. Thomas said that money is god. The Chinese saying had long said that you can pay the satan to pull the bullock cart for you. Thomas went on saying that if we take the money to persons whom we recognize as mad they would recognize it. And they were not mad looking at it.

So I concluded one way to test a person's mental condition is to give a few fifty dollar bills. If he throws the money away, he is really a mad guy. This has not been put to the test yet and it would be interesting to do so.

There are various category of mentally sick persons; from a person who talks to himself to a person who cannot assess the world value. You read about people who claim that they are prophets and ascending from the sky kingdom. You read about preachers with too little or no knowledge.

What is a world value ? You can define it in anyway. It is something that belongs to the world, own by the world with the world value. A sick person would want to use what belongs to the world as if it is his and belongs to his mother. International rules belongs to the world. If we disregard it and try to breach the rule then there could be a grave consequence. That's why the world decide Pulau Batu Puteh belongs to Singapore.

International rules and regulations are world value. The world expect us to abide by them. When a group of persons use the radio band as they like and further using 'Salam and other Islamic connotations' they have to be very sick. They disgrace their race and the religion. The world would see Islam in a very bad perspective in addition to the pre-conceive idea that Muslims are taught to be terrorists.

Even our government is more scared of Jemaah Islamiah than the drug pushers.

Articles like this open myself to attack and criticism. The wise readers would know my mentality, emotional state, educational level and the degree of my mental sickness. So is everybody's article which also carries his other attributes and characters. People can see how you think and have been wondering who you are. We can be dub as moron, stupid, fool or crazy. But certainly could  not be mad enough because we do hunt for money.

What we can warned people is that 'do not fight or shout at mad person'. Neither should we respond to their insults. No need to test them with money. But we can know the disease will be inherited. We hope so that the world will not use the 'BIG broom' to sweep all clean ( quote from 9m2lc )

The story of terrorism is only a recent phenomena invented in the Middle East and exported to USA. It is up to us to prove that we are not.

I would like to touch on some sensitive issue, sensitive but a real historical issue ie the historical perspective of the Malays in the eyes of the others. Munshi Abdullah had been despising the Malay Culture and since his period until very many years later, the Malays was perceived as 'the brown skin people who are lazy, no ability to study, cannot excel in Sciences and Mathematics.....'. In the later years there was a concept of 'subsidy mentality'. And today they are suspicious of being a Jemaah Islamiah.

We can deny by words and show our emotion and anger. Yet we don't prove by our behavior and words and the idea. We want to show we are different from others, think we are great. And finally feared of being squeeze by the others. The word 'seow' means mad of the lowest connotation. A person being branded as 'seow' should not be approached.

Proving we are not mentally sick, mad or deficient in learning ability is not something we can or want to do. The chromosome of laziness or inheritance factor enclosed our will to be progressive. We hope the others to do for us. And the others hope we do for them. When we see we are really deficient, we want to do  away with tests and examinations, so that we won't we dub as failures and stupid, and even can't learn skill.

Those are our mental state. We are just arrogance and refused to look and ponder at ourselves. We don't hope the others to prove that the Malays are smart. It is up to everyone to behave smartly, think wisely, do things others don't do which we can be branded as sick, crazy or mad.

If you have been traveling to some countries, you may encounter big problem on how you are treated. Some guys narrated how they are being interrogated and detain for a few hours by the immigration. Some were barred from entering the country and had to fly back. These are Malaysians, not the Arabs.

Top - 18/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

IS MY E-QSL VALID ?

I have not seen yet how my E-QSL can be cheated. The authority concern can always verify it by going to my web-page and verify the authenticity of the printout. Merely presenting a paper of the E-Card of course can be fraudulent. Any person can draw and print the card.

The only question is "Is 9m2ar.com/qslcard.htm" belongs to me. If it is there is no doubt the database records are real records of the QSO I made with those stations. Then I would like to ask the authority concern of the reasons why my procedure of E-QSLing is wrong and pint point any deficiency so that it could be rectified.

Of course I detest E-QSLing as much as many other people but with the high cost of posting I have to resort to the hated procedure. Local postage has increased from 50 cent to about 2 dollars for a piece of card sent out within Southeast Asian nations. I have more than 500 cards to reply which will cost me about a thousand dollars. And the local radio society is very sickly.

IARU should print a guideline for us to follow to make our E-QSL valid.

Now that I keep my database at the server, I feel safe and secure. Previously I have experienced disk carsh, malicious attack and other discomforts. Each logging is done with ease and fast. I will have to follow up to find out the status of my e_QSLing system and procedures.

 Top - 20/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

FOLLOW THE GUIDELINE

Radio operators still argue on the SOP though the MCMC has published it's Guideline. I have posted the IARU's guideline before.  The guideline is not for new hams. It is for all. Your own SOP can at time be frustrating to the others like mentioning only a single of 2 character prefixes when not in the pile up. Mentioning Seven Three or Seventy Three does not affect other people. As I have said before there are many things that we need to use common sense and understanding.

Please do read the guideline so that there will be less controversy. I have been using 73 as Seventy Three since when I became a ham. Then one 9W whispered to me that I have to use Seven Three. I checked the web page and found articles which says Seven Three not Seven Three. Then I shifted to Seven Three. Later I checked the IARU guideline. It mentioned Seventy Three. And one article was interesting. It says Seven Three is used in CW. I just laugh. But on further checking it is true that 73 and 88 was belong to Morse. For morse is seven three. No wonder using Seven Three was heard even from DX station.

I search back for the article which says Seven Three but could not find one. I guest my old Seventy Three usage was right and think I will have to go back until further development. Flexibility does not degrade us down. No point to argue. Go back to the guideline.

The IARU's Guideline publication also reminds us that frequency below 10 MHZ is on Lower sideband (LSB).

Read this article :-

No, I'm not going anywhere!

The 73 in the title is about one of my pet peeves in Amateur Radio, the misuse of "73".

This train of thought all came about because of a "discussion" (that's Ham talk for "argument") that started on the SKCC e-mail reflector. One Ham used "hi hi" in his post to indicate laughter; just as it's done on the air. Another Ham got bent out of shape about it and commented on it.

At first, I thought the criticism was pretty petty and picky; but then I remembered my own peeve. The misuse of "73". On the air, while sending CW, it's pretty hard to misuse "73". You send the numerals 7 & 3. Pretty cut and dry. For those of you not in the know; or new to Amateur Radio, "73" means "Best Regards" and is used as at the end or sign off of a QSO.

However, in the spoken QSO, 73 is often misused and for some inane reason, that irritates the heck out of me! It's "seven three" when spoken. That's it - no more and no less.

It's NOT "seven threes".
It's NOT "seventy three".
It's NOT "threes".
It's NOT "seven thirds".
and the most idiotic way I've ever heard:
It's NOT "trees".
 

Top - 21/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

SO YOU WANT TO GO TO DAYTON 2011 ?

USA is not Thailand or Indonesia where we can go without any planning. You have to start thinking now. Visa application is one of the first hurdles. It is not cheap to apply for one. The application fee is about RM400.00 without any guarantee of approval. Ask yourself are you a Jemaah Islamiah ? Is your family member attached to any Al-Qaida group. Are you a good friend of Osama ? You got to set your own date for the interview. Try to look for the available date ? Will it be within a month...two...three months ? Then when you go for the interview proper you will have to queue up.

Secondly you have to look for the cheapest flight and whether the tickets are available on the chosen date. The plane may offer you  5 tickets and you have 7 persons in your group. The cheapest right now to New York or Newark is about RM3800 inclusive of all taxes by China. 9W2EG might be able to get 1/2 price for you. Before the ticket hunting you have to decide the date of departure. If the Hamvention begins on say 12/05/2011, are you going there on 11 ? or 10 ?

Let me give you a suggestion. You cannot go to USA like going to Jakarta or Hatyai. Probably it could be the first and the last time. It is far and it is expensive. So try to see as much as you can. You can't see all for sure. You need to discuss and agreed before hand what you want to see. Different people have different interests. If you can't  fit the group then get another group of people having the same wave.

Recently a group went to VK land, one went to farmland and the rest hated that but said nothing. When they came home, the story was not nice to hear. So were a group of Chinese teachers who told me the same thing."Get people of the same wavelength."

I like entertainment and theme parks. So I would suggest Disneyland and Universal Studio as a must see stuffs. I like to know about the firing of the rocket and see the Cape Kenedy but it is on the West Coast. I want to see the City of Light of Las Vegas. I would want to see the Great Grand Canyon. These places could be reached if you are in California. Then you have to break journey in Los Angeles. It takes a week of rushing days to see all those.

So the latest flight date of departure should be around the 3rd or 4th of May. You would be able to view the surroundings by driving,  entering the state road and later highway.

On reaching New York/Newark you straight away move to Dayton. You have to sleep one night before reaching the state. At Dayton you stay there for 3 days. If you win the lucky draw you bring back IC7800.

Then you returned East and moved North to ARRL Head Quaters. After that to American Fall where you can see Niaga Fall. Go down and ride a boat and take lots and lots of photographs. On the way back you go to Corning and buy some corning ware back for your wives.

I estimate that the flight back is around 20th or 21st of May. Actually a three week travel could make you feel too short.

That's about the date of departure from Kuala Lumpur and flight back from USA.

Then you have to think of car rental. For a 6 persons probably you might want to book MPV. Get together at someone's house and together go to Yahoo web page and look for car rental. If you decide to stop at LA you need to book two times. And if you find it difficult to make the payment, then print the infos. You bring to the car rental station at the airport and show the price tag. You will be charge the price as shown in the printed tag. If not you have to pay probably twice the price.

Hotel or Motel is still cheap in USA but prices change according to demand. The price in the Northern states are much more higher than in the Southern States. I am used to hunting for cheap hotels with my family. Some of you may feel uncomfortable to look for cheap places and can't bear the hunting game. So decide now before you go as to the price of the motel you are willing to pay each person per night. The normal price is between USD25 - USD150 per room/night. It is easier to get the USD150 motel. Sharing two persons would come to about RM300 per person per nite. You want to know more about lodging seek the advise of Nazali 9M2NAZ or Aziz 9M2ONE who had had extensive experienced of the United States.

Many people are saying, get a group with the same brain wave. And make sure the RM8 or 10K spent is worth the trip. It would be an unforgettable experience, I assure you.

Top - 22/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

DEAR MCMC

You have tried your best to entertain the Malaysian citizens and move progressively to encourage ham radio in the country. Your work is greatly appreciated.

As a former government servant I still remember what the head of civil servant had been telling us about responsibility and accountability. It means we cannot pass any blame for any misconduct or failure in our system. The police cannot blame the thieves if there are cars being stolen everyday, blaming the drug pushers if all youths become drug addicts. For any misdemeanour of the hams operators or the extensive growth of piracy in the country, you cannot shrug your responsibility. I am sure many of you are very well educated and may be graduates from US universities and are aware of the consequence falls on the parent if his minor were found to steal thing like in a super market. As has happened before the whole family was deported back to the homeland ( foreign student's case ).

Even though you may pass the responsibility to the others you are still accountable. You don't pass your responsibility to any Tom, Dick and Harry. In cases of defaulted government buildings we keep on seeing contractors getting away from damage or collapsed of the structures just because the government or SPRM did not take action on the engineer who signed the certificate of fitness. Neither the technicians were thrown out. As such billion of ringgit had been thrown in the drain.

The inefficiency of many government departments had political implications. Political opponents would blame the inefficiency of the Malays as the poor or incapable administrators, and would spread about the inefficiency of the police and the corrupt practices. Even the normal rakyat is seeing the game of pointing fingers.

If and when the radio band become filthy you can't blame the fellow hams. They are powerless and do not have any authority to persecute the offenders. When the hams go about against International rulings and practices, you can't blame the society. It is not that I say you can't. It is laid down by our civil service system. Our Malayan Civil Service has once been respected throughout the world.

You have to have a system and a machinery to ensure hams have enough knowledge and ethics and would use the correct SOP as practiced by the world. You have to have a system, equipment and manpower to deal with Malaysian piracies. Even the test questions must ensure the hams who pass must be very well verse with the ham regulations and normal practices.

The connotation is ham radio is a hobby is not a simple meaning and could be a fallacy too. Ham Radio does not only transmit voice, but it also transmit our image, culture, ethics and knowledge. And in our country there are many foreigners who are hams too. When local repeaters are jammed or informative communications are being cut by noises other people would form a bad concept on Malaysian hams and may be at the MCMC too.

'If we can't beat them, we join them' is a very dangerous phrase for an effective government or government departments. Imagine if we were to say that if we can't beat the drug pushers, we join them.....

I am sorry to say that I already trace things which I call as 'filth'. You need to trace by yourself. Let me give an example of a policeman who saw a thief stealing something would not do anything unless the victim lodge a report. Or an anti corruption agency would not take action on someone who offered bribe in front of him unless the case is being reported. It happened. And public is very puzzled about it. Hence the MCMC should not asked those who trace 'filth' to report with proofs or else nothing would be done.

Of course the MCMC can choose to find fault with me instead of the defaulters just to keep my mouth shut. That's an easy way out.

Tell me the sign when MSRTS members is on the decline and only attended the AGM recently. Had not I already asked question 'What will be the future of the Ham Radio in Malaysia ?'

Old people are dying off and soon will finally fade away. And when you find that the ham band is really full of filth what are you going to do ? Leave it like what the Indonesia is doing ? Forget about responsibility and accountability ? Imagine how much we have slept when after 50 years of independent and full of economic aid to the Malays, finally we say we still do not achieve the target. Who are we blaming ?

Is this nothing to with the radio ? Yes it is. It is the thinking procedure applied by the government departments and the people higher. Easy way out, why get a head ache. Cross the river when we come across one.

It is not my intent to argue. Rhetoric and good speaking and loud voice would not prove anything. People who shout most, criticize most would still fail to do the job he/she had complained about. School  inspectorates who have been criticizing and talking pompously failed to deliver when become Headmasters. Just wait and see. No point to argue. You can give a thousand points but if it happens it happens.

When it happens you just must take the responsibility and accountable for it. Many foreigners would resign for failures which he did not do but caused by people under him. He carries the concept and ideal of accountability.

 Top - 23/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

MARTS AS I SEE IT

A few organizations survived after a some generations away after the founders passed away. That even go to major world religions which became weaker and weaker as time goes and the 'Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery....' has now it's place in the drain. The big theme park Disney broke up and was battling ownerships between the family of the founders and the others. And many business companies vanished.

The founders of MARTS were long gone. Those as society members who still survived are ageing with grave senility. The visions and the agenda went astray after the new generations took over. Members didn't have any thought of showing off their personality. They just follow the tradition. AGM used to be fun and a time for eyeballing session. The Secretary, 9M2SS, had worked very hard till people associates MARTS with him. Every year the Singaporeans would joined the meeting as many were MARTS's members. Every meeting went swiftly, quickly and full of laughs.

Though the members were small, percentage wise it was more than 85 percent of the hams population and the fun was never exhausted badly.

9M2SS and  a few members were talking of the B license to provide an easy passage to interested people without CW. The authority was not in favor for some reason. The battle went on and during 9M2RS and 9M2ZA's period the B license was finally pushed.

For some reason the trouble began. I began to hear unfavorable comments made on the 9M2 about many things which I have not known to happen among hams. Then later 9Ws came on the band to correct the 9M on the procedures of QSO. Then I started to read the exchanged between Dr Ken and one lady. One guy called me 'Babi' on the repeater may be because I commented on non-licensees using other people's call sign.

When 9Ws were in MARTS with a few 9M2s there were many stories of inconvenient start to spread. The first MARTS's meeting with the new members I attended were full of exchanges. Of course that surprise me. Almost all those who talk aloud were unknown to me. And the battle went on and on after a few years. The last one in Kuala Lumpur told about the story of incompletion and declined members.

Then I concluded that the new generation hams just would not care about history, want to do their own things in their own way. They are lucky because the MCMC provide them a lot of leeways.

MARTS's fund would be depleted soon unless some miracle happens.

Having observe several organizational behaviors, I found that loud and smart talk, pomposity and criticism do not match with effective work. May it in PTA or corporative organizations. Usually we would see people who spoke much would be elected by the members. When these people took over the organizations started to crush. Persatuan Peladang once had opened big super market and brought high profit to it. Later I was informed political people people came in and chose some relative of Dr Mahathir to manage the supermarket. And soon after it went dead.

I had warned earlier but was totally ignored. Counsel members should have wide experience in many things. It must know what is SEANET and attending it from time to time, the SEANET contests both on CW, phone etc, attending IARU or any other International meeting, rules and regulations, international guidelines on amateur radio, learn about other radio organizations in the world and even the right SOP.

During the period of the founders we can hear those people on the radio. We hear 9M2BS almost everyday and so were the others.

9M2RS, Rashid, is a good ham friend of mine. Unfortunately we differ in view about who should and should not be the hams. We also differ about the noise makers in the AGM. I believe we need ethical people in ham radio so that no bad guys would pass thru to control organization like MARTS.

A few bad people in ham can drag all the members down the drain. Rebellious hams are not bad hams. They are just rebellious. Hams who took another hams equipments, stealing equipments, financial and other cheatings, disrespectful, and other criminal records are undesirable. Hams who deliberately cause QRM like pressing CW key on others, pressing PTT on repeater while are talking, re-transmitting signals on repeaters, putting up illegal repeaters, selling equipment to non-hams are non-desirable.

And these guys would write harsh letters to me.

These are not MARTS members. They are not MARTS either. But they could be the reflection of MARTS as the illegal Indonesians on ham band could reflect the ORARI of Indonesia. I know how much the MCMC depends on MARTS. It has to perform. Perform does not mean a long stream of arguments and denials, the pomposity and the rhetoric but make us feel that it exists and strong. We used to have a News Letter representing the 'blob blob' sound of the heart.

When in the days of the founders ham radio was fun and unity, today it is an organization of factions, each trying to outdo the other as who is the best and the most capable.

I adore people who don't talk much but do things that really work like the grand antenna builder of Johor group. And people who knows much and still continue being humble and asking questions to gain any further knowledge. And always look before one leaps. And always go for self-improvement like going for further study in spite of having a good job. And recently the effort of trying to organize the Hamfest ( the want and the will. We have to start somewhere ). We are proud of having these people.

You want to choose the next MARTS counsel members you start to survey from now onwards. MARTS got to start from zero again. Make it heard. Make people know it exist and the counsel members exist. Never think you already know all. Dr Ken is still alive. Sanggat is still there and Eshee has not lost his senility yet. Bill has not migrated to Canada yet. The younger ones like Rashid, Aziz, Alex, Lee are still there. Group them at a dinner and hear them talking.

Don't just let MARTS die.

Top - 23/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

RE-UNION 1989/90 STUDENTS

There were several student's reunion of different year near each other. I could not attend the one in Kuala Lumpur and choose the one held at Bukit Merah. The organization was of the ad hoc basic and they have very difficult time in getting friends together. They only depended on the facebook.

The turnout was quite great. There were more people arriving during the night of event coming from Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Penang. Even there were arrivals from Kuala Lumpur at 1 am. I was lucky the two school soccer heros were there. Names like Yob and Osman were always in my mind whenever I went to watch any soccer game.

There were many taokeys running big and successful businesses. A few working with the government envied saying that 'we can't move far...we are at we are...those are loaded guys...' They were talking about our vocational school with pride. "Cikgu during my time there were 10 out of 15 guys were from our school who were sent to Japan and Korea.."He was one of them. There were shoe designer and owned a shoe and bag factory of his own design, air-hostess working with MAS and even an CEO of a foreign firm.

One student said to me,"Cikgu, our schools were for unwanted students, public and other schools despise us...but look where we are now..."

I was the only teacher present. The rest could not make it.

This is the 4th reunion I attended. Though the number was less than those previous three where a few hundred of people attended, I think it is just beautiful, a very beautiful and memorable student's reunion so far. I got to who see the people I want and there was one person who had wanted to see me rushing from Penang with the husband after fetching her kid from a tuition class finally was able to meet me.

Really I am a wealthy guy. Though I don't get a 100% perfect life, I got the very good and successful students who earned 10 time more than most of us.

Top - 25/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

RAIN

Only after more than 30 years later I began to learn that rain is not only rain. When it is small they called it drizzle and the heavy one is termed downpour. For many centuries since the beginning of the world rain has been a blessing to us and animals. It provides us with food and we owe so much to it.

Many says rain is provided by nature. I say it is a gift from God to mankind. But if you really observed mankind a few knows the meaning and practice what what is termed 'syukran'. Syukran means thankful to God or even to people who help them. When there is rain we do hear people scolding it for various reasons.

When we were kids we like to play with rain. We sort of celebrate it. And when we went home our mothers would be waiting with rotan. We got the rotan but that would not deter us when the next downpour came. I remember well one day during the Koran class when the rain came we stopped reading the verse. Instead we sang the famous 'Oh Bangau Oh Bangau' song. Our religious teacher came up with a rotan and we jumped down to the ground thru the windows. The next day we each got the canning.

In this modern world there still exist the rain magician and those who can control rain cloud. Magicians were called to call for rain by the  rain dance and the magic chants. If the draught continues people would move somewhere else for food and many would die of starvation.

During the wedding day it has been a tradition to throw the bride's shirt on the roof to call the rain cloud to meve somewhere else or else some ulama would be requested to recite a surah praying for the cloud to move away.

The continuation of draught would group people to pray for the rain otherwise the earth will crack, plants begins to die, people will be asked to ration water and government began to make policies to bring water from states with water to the area of water depletion.

Scientists and engineers realized the importance of rain water storage and identified areas which they called water catchment  . Here forests are vital. Water catchment areas are usually the hill tops and the mountains.

Mankind especially the greedy businessmen and the idiotic politicians only want to clear as much forests as they can for money. They called it for development and rhetorically talked so much about progress. Lawyers and some law makers follow suit with their ideas. So trees were cut. Water catchment area were attacked. People were asked to seek water from rivers which were  polluted.

Rain drops. It flows fast. It carved holes and creates underground water channels where ever the rocks are soft. Because of the lack of trees the rate of flows become rapid and it causes flash flood. Rich people on hill top are happy because they are just above the valley. The poor people have to suffer.

Rain is a blessing and a great gift of God.

Today thanks God that we have drizzle. I only realized about it when I went out. The ground was wet. It keeps the weather down, a little cooling and only 28 C in the closed shack. Today I fear of acid rain. It can make us sick and head ache. Mother used to ask us to take a bath immediately after playing under the rain.

Top - 25/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

MALAYSIAN HAMFEST

Hamfest and Hamvention has been built into the Ham Radio tradition since a long time ago. It is an occasion of hams getting together to eyeball, hear talks, buy and sell and have fun. One of the basics is the business transactions of ham equipments. People can get what they are looking for.

One of the greatest Hamfest is the Indonesian fest though it is not blown out as much as the Dayton festival. The Indonesian have more than mere sale and talks. They have the cultural show , various interesting competition like the fox hunts, project making, CW and a few others.

Now there are Malaysian hams who want to have a hamfest. I say it is a good start and we have to start somewhere. Good or bad, successful or not we have to do it. Unfortunately criticism already begins even before it take off. True the planning is short but it is part of the process and experience. The second one will learn much from the first and will have much improvement for certain.

I foresee a little difficulty but it must continue. Malaysian Hams and  Radio Societies should give support instead of sneering at the effort. But the launching committee should have first consulted Radio Societies as a courtesy step. After all the Hamvention at Dayton was not run by ARRL. ARRL participated in selling tons of books.

After the Hamvention, it is imperative for the committee members to do a post mortem and gather as much criticism as possible to correct it in future. There should be someone in charge of collecting comments and note any remark or suggestion heard in a book for the three days. It is for the better.

I don't expect perfection at all. I don't want the group launcher to regret or feel bad either. Take it as a learning process. When it is successful there shall be no pomposity, bragging and a show of a champion. Every success is due to public and member support. The maxim 'If others can do, why can't I...' should be there.

There are thousand of hams in and around Kuala Lumpur whom I think should go and support in anyway they can. A visit is good enough.

 Top - 26/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman) 

WHAT IS KL COMPARED TO AS

I have always feared driving  in KL. I only know the area around Bangsar and Damansara. Before I came I browse thru the hotels around KL tower though I knew driving around the area is almost hell. The hotel rate shown was reasonable but on pressing 'Check The Price' button the total cost shown for a couple of nights is more than RM1500. I told my wife about the price and you what her response was ? She OKed it like a wealthy tycoon. In my mind was the Wisma Belia which would cost me about RM160 for two nights. And I know the area quite well.

So at about 9.30 am we pushed off, driving at the speed of 80 Km/H. At Jejantas Restaurant I pulled off to recheck the hotel. I found Nikko would cost me RM800 for two nights. I asked my wife again. She said OK again. But I forgot to note down where Nikko is. I programmed KLCC in my GPS. From Retaurant Jejantas to Ampang the traffic was at ease. I was quite puzzle thinking people are at work. But soon after I realized it was a paid road.

What is KL compared to AS ? KL is a city of paid roads for short cuts. Government like to privatized toll road instead of using the Road Tax to provide service to the rakyat. I wish the people running Alor Setar are human enough, not to be too greedy like the lions hunting the poor deers. Profit...profit...profit.

On reaching the hotel I went to the reception asking for the availability of room. "One thousand for two nights," the lady said. I said in the Internet it shows lower price. "It's online price. You have to book online." I rang up my son to book using his card. He was busy with his work at that time. I decide to go to Wisma Belia. This was another problem because I did not know how to go there. I decided not to use GPS but to drive following 'as the wind blows'.

On the way I saw one hotel. We went in the hotel parking. While my wife waited in the car I went to ask for the price. It was more than RM500 per night. I f My mind went dirty. I stared to think it expensive and went back to my car. I was charge RM6 for the entry which was less than 4 minutes. My mind ran wild, start to blame the people in KL as throat cutter and said to myself that the Kedahkian must discrimately charge KL people differently for everything. Let buyers show their ID. Some states in the UNited States gave special prices for the residence of the state. We should do the same.

I start to recognize places and areas. I asked my wife to be on the lookout for Jalan Tun Sambanthan. She saw it and alerted me. Finally we arrived at Wisma Belia. I saw school a few hundred of school kids there. I went to ask for the room. She said they have a double bed air condition room for RM78 per night. I told them to hold on. When I went to the car my wife informed me that my kid did the booking. I have to drive back to Nikko. This time I knew my way. Still I seek the help of the GPS.

I have to pay RM400 deposit. Four Hundred Ringgit, more than the Wisma Belia.

Then I was told the parking was RM8.00 a day, the total of RM24 for the 3 days.   I glanced thru the food price. Lamb chop is cjeap, onlt RM72. I told my wife that I would want to go and look for food. I asked the reception where Mamak stall was. He described the way. I could not find it but on asking a Nepalese worker he told me there was one on the third floor of the Ampang Park in front of the hotel. I had a nice dinner of rice with a big Ikan Kembong. I bought back some Kentucky stuffs for my wife. It was much more less than the seventy two ringgit lamb chop.

What is KL as compared to AS ? KL is a place where people can spend 72 ringgit for a lamb chop. AS people spend 72 ringgit for 3 weeks of home made cooking.

The room is nice. One staff was trying to make my wife feel comfortable by providing facilities for make things easier for her to take a bath. The services were really 5 Star. Tomorrow morning I will be having a breakfast and will tell you how good or bad the food is.

Top - 29/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman) 

TIRED AT HAMFEST

The morning breakfast at Nikko will never beat the KLIA Pan Picific. Pan Pacific is excellent for providing numerous variety. I only took Nasi Lemak. Then I shoved off to Kuala Lumpur Tower guided by my Garmin. I met Pak Yob at Eshee while the rest were busy with their work. Out of the three booths 2 were selling ham accessories and  souveneirs. I brought my ICOM, two Morse keys and a power supply thinking to spar CW with Eshee. There was no table at all for CW. I knew then the organizer was not interested in CW at all.

I met several hams who knew me by my web page. We took photographs and chats. I gave them my QSL card. One was asking me about CW. He said he wants to study it no matter what. During the prayer time, I stayed in the booth talking to the persons there. I asked one lady whether she knew who worked for class B. When she replied that it was not mentioned during the RAE class, I sense the implication that it is not important because that is irrelevant to RAE.

One other lady told me she did not know anything about ham radio and hamfest. She could not answer question if asked. I narrated the story of  ham radio, what it is and the purpose. I told her about SEANET and Hamfest and why they are done. While I was narrating  the lady in charge of the booth ( let me called her Melati) returned. I continued telling about the different between the old and new philosophy, Telecom and the MCMC. The policy in Communist country as compared to USA today. Then Melati quipped and asked the different between Telecom and the MCMC. And I touched on the call sign allocation, permitting the non-licensee to operate using ham equipment and a few others.

At about 3.30 pm I felt very hungry. I asked 9M2CCC to follow me to luch. Pak Yob, Eshee and Nordin were at the canteen. Pak Yob paid for my makan. Then they were told the Opening Ceremony was about to begin. The three rushed up. We waited until our lunch was over. The ceremony was held at the top floor.

I was lucky to meet 9M2ONE. 9M2RS came later. And about 30 minutes later the ceremony began. As to the proceedings of the ceremony it was just the others. It is not my intent to narrate the detail of it and the gist of the speech. After the event I went down to the booth and later decided to go back to the hotel. I felt very tired.

I could not make or pass any comment unless I know the purpose of the hamfest and who started the idea of doing it. If the initial aim is to make a start like any other country then I would say it is a good start but I do find my suggestion of gathering comments were put aside. If it is aim at showing of the individual ability to organize and later will use it as a tool to shoot the others, then I would just feel sorry to the Malaysian Ham Radio.

DON'T BE DISCOURAGED

Almost all new hams all over the world do make errors from time to time. Never feel bad or discouraged when there are criticism harsh or soft on the errors made. Old hams always think the new ones like their sons and want the sons to grow well and be the best possible.

There is a Malay saying 'Jadilah resmi padi makin menjadi makin tunduk' ( Be  humble as  more skill and knowledge are gathered ). Most of us are more qualified and better than our teachers. That does not mean we can scorn them as inferior to us and therefore refuse to ponder over their advice.

You may not make any mistake yet you are told you do. What would you do ? Check the validity of what he says by constant monitoring of other old hams local and overseas. Then you might argue 'How do I know the old and the new ham ?' Then you learn one more thing ie the importance of being the SWL. If you have not been the SWL then refer to the guidelines like the IARU's publication. The action is always better than being discouraged and withdrew from the band.

Once I told Azlam ( 9M2AGC) that KN at the end of the message means I am about to sign off. But Azlan had read about it and told me I was wrong. Instead it mean 'only expect your reply'. That did not hurt me though I have been a ham much longer than Azlan. Azlan has proof. The point is we communicated.

The basic of minimizing conflict is to follow rules and guidelines. If there are groups who are against radio regulations and guidelines then conflicts are bound to happen. In the good old days hams feared of being caught by the authority. Unlike today we have the champion of the pirates and bravely using the ham band without any fear. Hence political behavior would take place, seeking for support and influence and using the web page to  cast hatred.

You may not to follow the tradition and do your own way. I remember once a few women questioned about why should women take 'wudzu' when bathing is already ensured the cleanliness of the whole body. Now I am asking the same question 'Would you agree that a Muslim need not take wudzu after bathing before praying ?'

If you agree to NO then following the tradition could avoid conflict. Remedying any mistake does not brought a person down. He would be respected and accepted as a very flexible person.

Ham Radio is not an arena of fighting for influence, support , popularity or smartness. We try to talk facts on practices and technicalities. We don't follow a person just because we like him. We follow the truth and facts. 28 mhz is not the same as 28 meter. That is a fact. Neither do we reject facts from a person we don't like.

At time we stepped outside the boundary. Do we insist on staying there forever ? Just jumped back inside. Who on earth never make mistake ?

Let me give you another advice. You do what you want. Don't ask all other people to follow you. And when they don't, do not degrade or insult them. It is not fair for a school dropout to stop the others from going to school and follow him. Please try to understand me. It is for your own good.

Top - 30/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman) 

ASK......THINK...

I remember when I was a student that many teachers reminded us to ASK when we don't understand. "Always ask." Kids like to ask the parents the questions of "WHY....WHAT..."And as a parent try to give the honest reply and the truth as you know. "Mummy, why birds fly ?" is not a silly question. Many mothers would answer, "God makes the birds fly...." "What is God mummy ?" These lines of questionings are not confined to kids.

"Malu berkayuh perahu hanyut, malu bertanya sesat jalan..." Who said that ? My wife always said that to me when I just refuse to ask people when I lost my way. I would say, "Let the GPS guided us." I asked a teacher a question which many would feel shy or ashame to voice, "What prayer people do after the normal periodical solat ?" And I know of people who go and learn how to pray at the old age. I would cry with joy to see such people.

But do not be disappointed when a person asked said he does not know about it. Not everybody knows everything. People might not know even a simple stuff. Then ask another person.

When I was in university Professor Khoo Kay Kim always say, "THINK". He asked the student to think at least once a day. When we hear a speech we have to think and analyzed as we hear it. Is it true or false ? Is it sensible or not ? Is he consistence ? We think about the repercussion if SPM or STPM is abolished and we have to think far and deep. Calculating events and foresee the consequences is also thinking.

Thinking is involved in problem solving. It makes our brain work and active. It also helps us from being cheated by people and politicians. As far as politicians are concerned it will be very difficult for us to stop some of them from robbing us because they can create law to protect them. But at least we know the way they go about.

Scientists study the brain structure and provide us with many information about the thinking process. They try to explain the imaginary concept of the left and the right brain and equate them with the left and the right hander. Please do read on what the left and right brain think.

Wide knowledge helps us in better thinking. It opens up a wider world. We see more relationships and able to adjust and filter before coming to conclusions.

But thinking does not guarantee truth and facts. There are things that we need to see, experiment and tested. We don't think whether the knife is sharp or not. But we have to look at it and use it to cut something. Logical flow with sensible sequences seem to bear some truth yet we have to test and run it.

Subjectivity is much base on historical experiences, the results of repetitive actions. Yet an unexpected outcome can happen.

Last but not least I would like to retract my statement about the politicians; not all politicians are bad and robbing people. A few rob a million and give away a few thousand. Some are honest and fear God. Some talk much and marry several wives.

Top - 31/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman) 

KATAK BAWAH TEMPURUNG

Katak Bawah Tempurung means a person with limited knowledge. He knows whatever is around him only. It is an unfavorable connotation.

A person with little or limited knowledge and with his worldview may not be a loser. I am a sort of such a person. The Penan is East Malaysia is another. Is the more we know the better ? To many the more they know the better. To a few other the less they know the better.

A person having a steady income may not read newspapers, do not watch TV nor mix with too many people. When he does not know the happenings he has less problem. I don't know the Ministers if I met with one. Of course I know Najib and the Deputy. I met with one in a Mamak restaurant whom I felt I had seen him before. Only many months later I realized that he was YB Johari Baharom from the local paper. I went to Australia with another Minister and he talked so much on Vocational School. I asked him whether he is an officer at the Technical Division. He said NO. Only later when I came back I knew he is a Deputy Education Minister Fuad Akashi.

The Penan did not worry about the long traffic jam which would take hours to arrive the destination. He did not worry about income tax, road tax, parking fees and PKR crosses to BN. He only feel worry after seeing people coming in with bull dozers pushing down trees and tear the land apart.

I really praise some people. My late uncle who was a fisherman at Kuala Kedah would come to the city not wearing shoes or sleepers because he never wore one at home. A Chinese man with a short pant, a cheap sleeper and a singlet carries a gunny sack of money to a bank. I saw an old Apek with as a singlet and a black short pen being kotowed by a few ladies when he entered a traveling agency.

I observe some people who want to go up fast and quickly when he just join a political party. Example of a person who just join UMNO and did not know much about the philosophy and struggle of the party ( which I called Katak Bawah Tempurung ) shoving the people around him is the kind of Katak which is not suitable. A person with a limited knowledge but wanting to be leaders and looking for popularities are not suitable at all.

If I formed a Club I would set a very strict rule for the membership requirement. The filter will be rigid. We would not accept any Dick, Tom and Harry even base on recommendation. We have to ensure the club has an excellent name and the members are well informed. In this case we have to put the Katak Di Bawah Tempurung aside.

But human being always tend to think that he is the best, the smartest and the cleverest. At time he would exploit people to move up and then later causing problems to the people. I am not an exception. When I encountered with people then I realized there are million of others out there who are superior to me. Am I not Katak Bawah Tempurung ?

Top - 01/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman) 

MORE CONFUSION ?

Terms like pulling the big switch which means closing down the station, Clear ( Clearing from frequency ) are seldom used today by the new hams. There are terms used which had never been used before by the old hams. And the codes which are being used at the wrong place. Some stations only mentioned a character to break in. The last is a very irritating practice when he can use his full call sign to avoid being repeated question of his identity.

The most recent I heard 'returning' to pass the transmission to the others. Mistakes for new hams are common and they are excusable. But a habit and later becoming a practice would be very painful to the hearing.

One more basic of communication is not to be 'kelam kabut' or hasty. When ever name or location is given, one need to speak slowly and clearly, not pushing off like a jet plane. This is more important when we go DXing because our slang might be difficult to understand. Even my slow 'Alfa Romeo' was heard as 'Lima Romeo' on many occasions. That's the reason why we have to replace the normal phonetics with the other like 'America' instead of 'Alfa'. Recently on two meter I heard an unknown station broke in saying 'How do you get a 9M when your SOP is wrong'. In my listening, the 9W2 was using the wrong word for sending the transmission because he is a new ham. The other station, a new 9M, was not traced to operate with a wrong SOP but he was 'hasty or kelam kabut' for lack of communication on local HF band. If he were to have several communication sessions say on 7.043 he might be able to learn many new tricks.

So far I remember coaching only a few stations on the tricks and art of handling microphone because I knew they were willing to learn. New stations which I think already know stuffs and may not like to learn things will not be informed of the tricks.

New hams seem to learn from the Indonesians which the old Indonesian hams do not agree too. Some Indonesian hams can count the number one and two for almost the whole day. I have not used 'ganti berganti' or 'over..over..' since the beginning because I did not encounter with one before though I had had a few hundred or even thousand of contact with Indonesia.

A long time ago borrowing Q-Codes for telephony did not create problems because everyone knows the generic meanings. Today I am trying to avoid using it so that I would not show examples to the new hams. I only use them in CW. My hardest is to train myself ending the contact with 73 or QRT. Though I never used QRT to sign off, I still use 73. I have stopped giving my station as QTH instead using Location. But many CW stations heard even change QSL with CNF, name with OP.

QRX which has been used to say 'Hold On A Minute' is taking the place of QRT, A long time ago we never use it during the signing off. The generic meaning is 'I will call you again....' which needs the time or days. Because we are not sure whether we can come on again tomorrow or next week, we replace it using 'See you further down the log'.

I do at time meet new hams who insert their own beliefs and philosophy. To these people I just bid them good luck and would not want to tell them anything.

Some old hams say that it is all right for piracy and wrong SOPs. But they never come on the band but only monitoring. They should be talking to the new hams too. But prefer to only monitor and be on Yahoo Messenger. Why they must be so ?

As I have said earlier fall back on IARU or MCMC guideline. I would recommend IARU's guideline. When you download it from my web page, please put it in yours.

 Top - 02/07/2010 (Abdul Rahman) 

NEVER HEARD AN INDIAN

When I was in Kuala Lumpur recently one 9W from Subang Jaya asked me, "Cik Rahman, we have almost 90% of Malay hams, a few Chinese and where are the Indians ? Are there any Indian ?" It was in interesting question. Before that I asked a lady ham whether she knew 9M2SZ or 9M2SS, she said NO.

When I was a SWL I knew almost every active ham in the country. When I got a ticket and went on DX band I was asked to convey my best regard to 9M2DW, 9M2SS, 9M2FK, 9M2AV and many others. I would be able to tell them who had gone silent key. I remember a story about a man who created an atom bomb who went to visit the site again after long retired and chased away for being near a secret location like a 9W2 who shouted at 9M2RS or 9M2SS.

There are Indian hams around, good and very knowledgeable. 9M2PV is one and still active both on 2 meter and 80 meter band. He is our walking dictionary on radio stuffs. Asked him anything and he will explain to the nearest pico and micro second. 9M2DY is a great man in home brewing antenna, rigs and repair ham equipments. 9M2ZD is a DIY man also expert in antenna technology. Two others are expert in Morse codes. 9W2NB is a doctor, busy with his work. Dr Bala found it was disturbing for some people who hid themselves when passing remarks on ham band.

As for the Chinese hams the number is not small either. But many choose to listen and monitor the band. One or two probably gave up after listening to the new standard of SOP and some discouraged comments on language used. The most active is 9M2HC.

That man who asked me question expressed his problem to learn Morse. I told him the 9W2s are against Morse and why should he learn it. He said he wants to know CW at whatever outcome. Then I narrated to him how I learn it even before passing RAE, and guided him to download Morse trainer.

I did not point out to him the need to be a SWL because it would be a very long story and would involve the authority too, and all other funny staffs that our country can do. It would also involve our morality which would be connected to other political happenings as seen bad by the foreign countries. The Malaysia Boleh slogan has been applied to everything else.

At least Thailand has more control and tightened it. No UHF is allowed. 2 meter band has limitation. Probably because it has traced the misused and the abuse when freedom was given. Not here yet.

If Malaysian hams living in Kuala Lumpur do not know 9M2RS saying that it is not in the RAE then what do we expect ? 9M2RS and 9M2ZA finalized the license B ticket after several years of fighting.

The issue of SWLs and SWLings as a mean to eradicate ignorance is not something simple and can be solved within a few sessions of discussions. It has to discuss the availability of receivers for HF and VHF, the constructions or purchase of them, the ownership of equipments carried by non-licensees and the enforcement of regulations. It would be awkward to make laws without any enforcement.

We can already seen a few results of the MCMC's policy today which will accumulate if it allows political behavior and it being politicized.

Those little questions on the Indian hams, and those quick answer of not knowing 9M2SS actually an image of the result of the policy. It is small and little but it is something serious. I see the future of ham radio in those and even in a simple statement like "I don't even go on 28 meter...".

Top - 02/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman) 

SPENDING ON HAM GEAR

I don't follow much on the price of ham gears today. I can't say which is the best rig around because I have not worked the local stations with the multiplicity of rigs. I worked 9M2MGL and YB6LD and heard a good audio quality as compared to stations using IC-7000. Later I knew that Azman and Don were using IC-718 which was the cheapest HF rig at that time. I concluded that for hams with a modest income or who are dependents on the parents IC-718 would be ample. Spending RM1500 is not the end because one needs to look for a tuner which may even cost up to 1.5 K ringgit. To get a cheap RM300 tuner would be enough for the start.

IC-706 MK2 G used to be RM3000 with the DSP. Now I heard it is about RM4000. I would go for a cheap hundred watter rig rather than the expensive low power transceivers. When 9M2FT came on phone with 5 watts, I hardly copy him. When YB6YBG called me using the same wattage I could not copy him. I would usually request them to switch to CW mode. From nothing heard on phone to 599 on CW was a great leap.

Everyday today I heard W6TT and W6TI on 40 meter CW band. They are on kilo-watt and a very high tower. I would just go on 100 watts. I copy them 579 and they read me 559. 1 KW and a 100 foot tower cost money. That does not add up the cost of the tuner yet.

It is not necessarily true that the more we spend the better that we get. Usually we can copy people better and people can copy us comfortably. There seems to be a positive corelation between amount spent and performance. I have been using a single 40 meter dipole since the beginning of my hamming days. My antenna is about 20 feet high. Yet I have been working all over the world. Mind you on 40, 20 and 15. However today I am almost locked to 40 meter band only.

Hence beginners and parent dependent hams do not have to spend much. IC-718 and a bamboo mast with a simple tuner is good enough. If they are good in CW they can still work around the world with a 5 watt home brew rig or just purchase a very cheap QRP rig from the internet.

I don't know much about QRP activities. I think it is highly associated with CW. My experience working with stations using low power were very disappointing. 9M2HC once was using a 5 watt transceiver which I always complain for the weak signal. I was very surprise then for an experience ham buying that rig. But Choo explained that he was hypnotized when looking at it.

How much do we want to spend then ? Depend on our income or our wealth. If we have enough money to put up a 100 foot tower by all mean do it. Get the high end transceiver, a 1 or 2 K linear, and a sophisticated antenna system. But we have to always remember our neighbors; will we be causing interference to them.

Seek advices from people who have been long on ham radio because their input may be able to help us. That's the reason why we always asked for the working condition when working a station for the first time. We want to know what sort of equipment he is using. Now I know that people using Kenwood would produce a very high quality audio. If you have not listen before then you would not know.

Top - 03/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman) 

LISTENING TECHNIQUE

I heard numerous CW stations in a pileup, picked up one and continue working with it and then picked up another. One new ham asked me how on earth I could picked up that station. The answer is simple. I have been SWL for a long time and have been practicing on listening all along. Here is a recorded example of a communication which shows how difficult it is to pick up a station. Didn't I tell you about using phonetics when working DX stations ? When I said a 9W2 came up and taught us the use of phonetics which he told us not to use other than Alfa Bravo, I was not bluffing.

When I said hamming is not only talking but we are sending more messages other than words, I am not bluffing either. The authority should be the first to understand what I mean.

We don't owe ham radio. But we want to keep it clean and ethical. Recently IARU with JARL decided to publish the Ethics and SOP for the Japanese to ensure the standard procedure remain high.

The art of talking and listening come to practice and SWLing and the understanding of the basic facts. We can't assume everybody can understand our pronunciation, have a quick ear to copy the name and place spelling and speak as fast as we do. We have to speak with clarity. We do not swallow words. We focus our ears to listen carefully. 

9M2FZ a one time ham from Penang spoke a clear with excellent English words. The best foreigners were the Americans who would speak slow and clear enough to ensure the messages are comprehensible. Though the Japanese and the Chinese might be a little different but old hams to not find them difficult to understand.

Surely you would not want to speak Malay with them when you can't understand them, would you ? Yes, it had happened before when one Indonesian ham would call for DX station and spoke Bahasa Indonesia when the other side did not understand him. And he would be hunting for the same station even after that station moved away. By God's grace that station had disappeared probably the authority had taken action against it.

We tell you not because we want to destroy you. You can judge by yourselves.

Top - 03/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

LOGGING WHILE  MOBILE

During Idris's , 9M2GL, funeral I saw a logbook in a ham's car. I was wondering how he did the logging while driving unless he took pain to stop and write down the detail and then continue with the driving. One other alternative is to ask someone to do the logging for him.

When I asked my wife just to write down the call sign and the local time, she could not do it because it shaky. Now I start to imagine to use the I-Phone for logging with the minimum of pressing the keys. Reading a few articles on Celcom 3G broadband SIM card, I hope to transfer it to the I-Phone and run my logging program from the web. There will be one button for the 9W and another for 9M. I just need to press the 2 or 3 character suffixes or would ask someone to press them. That would be all. The time, date, mode and for those stations that I have worked before name would be automatically recorded. I don't know how to convert voice to text using the web page. If it is the PC or laptop based logging I could covert the voice into text.

Anyway I do not buy the I-Phone yet. Maxis is offering the old 3G 16 meg unit for less the RM900. Of course I can wait for the I-Phone 4 which would be very expensive. Maxis and Digi are both advertising the new breed of the magic palm.

Zainal's log is with me. He passed the database in DBF format and I converted it into MDB to suit my software. I noticed that Zainal started to log from 1985 to 2003, never missed even one. Someone said that there is no point to log contact because it is not important and not mandatory in some countries. It is up to you to decide.

Logbook has a sentimental value. We can trace back when a person became a ham operator. We would be interested to know the first station he worked. Several time we have to returned the cards received because we did not find them logged.

But many of us just do not log while going mobile or even at home. It is their choice. I just wish them good luck.

Top - 04/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

From: SV1DKD@SV1AWL.ATH.GRC.EU
To  : MORSE@WW

Hello to all,
           My name is Andrew. I am 16 years old and the youngest ham in Greece.
I started my ham radio study course about 2 years ago. I like almost all at
first did not want to learn CW as I thought it was just a waste of my time.
I have no problem with my english as I was born and lived in Australia for most
of my life thus I would not want to turn to CW because of a language problem.
Then I just said to myself what use is CW to me?
  Well here I would just like to say to all you out there who can not stop 
complaning about how the CW test should be abolished and so on... 
that the cw test should NOT be abolished and if so the whole exam then should 
be scraped... What difference will we have then from the common CB'er ??.
 1) People complain (like Wayne Green W2NSD/1 ) who say CW is old fashiond and 
out of date, well I agree, and why should we keep it if by 1999 all 
professionall cw will be abolished?
 Well this is why:
   
   a) CW MAKES UP A MAJOR PART OF OUR HOBBY at least 1 out of 2 hams will 
use it to make Qso's most of the time. This means that there are millions of 
cw crazed hams out there... If we are not tested on this how can we know how
to use the morse code? And if you say once we get our ticket then we should 
learn cw , well I agree but we should at least learn the basic speed (10 wpm) 
so we will not cause any interferance while we improve on the air. Just 
imagine there where 100 stations on HF trying to learn cw at 3-5 wpm... the 
band would be in total CHAOS.
 Now lets look at the topic practically... If cw was not required for the test.
Would you ,a prospective Amateur ,once you have received your code free ticket
for HF sit down and learn and use CW ??? I wouldn't ... I would just sit down
and operate my SSB and Digital toys and totally forget cw. Thus the 
prospective ham sould be taught the fundamental aspects of our Hobby which
are Cw and SSB operating ( yes , I think we sould also have a SSB test) and
in what ways can we insure that these fundamentals are taught , by putting
them on the test.
 It is our responsiblity as hams to teach newer hams new aspects of our 
hobby ( like sats, packet, ect...) but it also our responisability to learn
and pass down the original traditions of our hobby which some are: 
- Homemade stuff....( basic stuff, nothing special, Antennas ect)
- Original experimenting inspiration ( to find out why something happens)
- and to learn certain abrivations and codes like Q code and Phonetic codes
- And ofcourse to maintain the history and base of all RADIO COMMUNICATIONS 
which is the MORSE CODE.
 
Proffesional communications will soon enough no longer use CW ( only in case 
of emergency) then why should we?
Remember we are not proffesional operators. We do not make  money when
we operate on air there fore we have no use for speed in the direct qso sense.
We are Amateur Radio Operators thus time is not money in our case so we do 
not need to abolish CW due to it's slow speed, for what we are concerned we
have all the time in the world.
  
 b) CW is the best narrow bandwidth mode for our operation. If we take CW off
the test then that means there will be more operators on SSB which means total
chaos with SSB's larger ( 2khz) bandwidth there fore over crouding our bands
and causing servier problems.
  
 c) If someone has the commitment to be serious and to become a Amateur radio
operator they have to sacrifice a lot of their spare time... First you have 
not to just learn CW but all the test subjects. Now after all the studing this
person has done he takes his test and passes... For him he is filled with
joy and feels that all the work he did payed off. This HAM has a huge 
responsiblity now as an operator and has earnd this responsiblity which is
also a privlige. This person has learnt so many new things and will continue
to learn as a Ham operator but he KNOWS CW and can put a badge on his chest
as he has learnt an international languige which will help him in many aspects
of his life. Now if a person is not willing to learn cw then what type of
commitment has he put into our hobby?? how do we know that this person will
be able to take the resonsibility of being a HAM ?? if this person does not
want to learn cw then he has not worked up to the required level which we 
all did when we got our HF tickets so this person will be cheating us. 
  If a person can not learn CW due to psycological reasons then he should
prove this by obtaining a quilified doctor's account or certificate stating 
that he is psycologically handicaped in learning morse code . He then should
submit this to the FCC and request that he should not take cw test. I think
that this will solve the problems with people who have tried hard to learn  
cw over the years but have not succeded. These people deserve not to take
the cw test as they have proven the commitment they have made but can not
learn the code due to psycological problems.
 
  c) CW is practical to the poor Ham who does not have the budget or the 
space to create a "Big Gun" station. When I first got my ticket I had a small
40 meter QRP rig. I have worked lots of DX using this rig and it fulfilled
my HF operating desires untill I could save up to buy an All band Rig. Now 
if CW was not on the TEST then , knowing my self, I would have never learnt 
CW then this rig would have been useless to me and I would have probably 
given up on the Hobby and throughn the rig in some corner to collect dust.
My point here is that by learning CW for the test , you also have learnt it 
for after the test things as well... Just imagine trying to work DX with 
100 milliwatts and a 1/4 wave antenna on SSB!!! I think you would be so 
dissapointed that you would forget about Amateur Radio.
 CW provides more power in a certain bandwidth than SSB does thus alowing
the poor ham to have his fun on HF as well. On CW with 100 watts and a good
antenna you can easily work DX but on SSB you practically need 1KW + power
to work those far away ones.
 
 
2) 
   (a) There are people who complain that not all of the aspects of our hobby
are tested and only CW is, intstead of also including packet,ssb ect.
   Well first of all there are hundreds of hobbies with in this hobby.(like
packet, contesting, dxing, eme , sats, ect.) We could not possibly be tested
   on all of these just on the fundamentals.
  In Greece in the exam we are tested in many areas... below is the list:
  i) Radio electronic theory
 ii) Radio procedures and rules
iii) MORSE CODE RECEPTION in GREEK and ENGLISH
 IV) MORSE CODE TRANSMITTION in GREEK and ENGLISH
  V) Q CODE
 VI) RECEIVING ENGLISH PARAGRAPHS AND PHONETIC CHARACTERS
VII) RECEIVING GREEK  PARAGRAPHS AND PHONETIC CHARACTERS
VIII) On hands operating on a rig in the exam room.
  IX) personal examiner interview with verbal questions
 
 There are no multiple choice questions and all questions have to be in full
answers. As you can see (this exam is the basic C catagory exam)  it covers
most of the fundimental areas of our hobby. We even are tested on SSB 
reception in English and Greek. So If people keep on complaining that 
you are only tested on cw techneqes well soon enough your exam could 
become like ours and I'm sure that you would not prefer to be examend on 
more things.
 
 (b) Why is it that most of the people who comaplain about CW on the test are
either too lazy to learn cw and not yet hams or are hams who have never had
a real time QSO in cw. You can not complain about something you have not 
tried or do not know about. I have never heard from someone who uses both cw
and ssb evenly to complain about abolishing cw in the test. It turns out
to be people who have rejected the code and are not willing to learn any more
 
 (c) Why do people complain that old timers are only the ones who use CW,
 That is wrong ... The majority of young Hams are cw fans!. CW is F U N and
that is why we use it. Do you really think we will go and do something like
packet if it is not fun?? or practicle to the young ham?... First let the 
young ham experiment with the basic modes like CW and SSB and then let them 
go into the HIGH TECH stuff like packet,sats ect. But DO NOT SHOVE THE HIGH 
TECH STUFF DOWN THE YOUNG HAM'S THROGHT! beacuse to much of it is'nt fun but
boring.
 
 
 
Conclusion:
----------
  Why did I write this account you ask.. well I have been an amateur radio 
operator for little over a year now and have made around 4000 contacts, 
which about 2000 of them are in CW and 2000 in SSB. I love CW and SSB.
I love this wonderful hobby or science even. And I want to try and stop
destroying it. 
  My intention by writting this is to try to stop the WAR between CW and SSB
fans and to unite them to become one. I do not want to start a despute over
this account and I would very much like to hear your opinions. I just could
not stand to see CW fans bettering on SSB fans and vise versa thus I would 
like to try to start a proccess for us to work out our problems and 
differences together and make this hobby the most advanced hobby in the world.
I hope
I hope I have shed some light on the matter.
 In Greece, all of my teenage freinds ,who are hams, and I are fasinated by
this hobby. We are all interested in digital modes and all have tnc's and 
computers. We use amtor, rtty , packet and so on. But we are also interested 
in other aspects too.
 I personally have :
- Gone on two DX-PEDITIONS
- Operated in the Amateur Radio Emergancy Task Force (AMRETF) during one 
  earthquake and two major forest fires.
- have operated on sats
- used vhf,uhf and shf ssb/cw equipment
- operated on 6 meters 
- have contacted over 160 contries
- made my own 3 element 20 meter monobander yagi
- made my own 40 amp power supply
- made my own electronic keyer
- have set up a club at my high school
- have operated verious contests with special calls. SSB AND CW CONTESTS
- have operated in the J O T A
- set up packet radio digipeaters and emergency repeaters 
- can work big SSB PILEUPS!!! 
- and can now receive 30+ wpm code ( at first only about 5 wpm but a little 
  hands on operation does the trick)
 
 Yes I am proud of my self, I have done all this in one year and I am a 
student in the 11th grade. I go to a British school here with full time 
english in all classes. This hobby has changed my life and I now will apply 
for a BA degree in ELECTRONIC AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING. As you can 
see because of this hobby I have chosen a High Tech career. So please do not 
reck it or cause disputes because the newer generation of hams will not see 
the "light" as I have.
     
     
     OR I'll see you in the CQ WW DX contest , I'll be on Salaminas Island IOTA 
EU-075 with the call  J 4 8 Y . I'll be QRV on both contests SSB and CW.
 
 Very best regards and many 73's ,
                       best dx and good luck,
                                             Andrew Georges SV1DKD

Top - 04/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

HE SAYS CW IS DEAD

Talking to short sighted people can drive one to madness. Their mind simply cannot accept arguments. The basic point is either they are lazy or lack of mental ability to acquire the skill. Race and educational level can pinpoint the possible reason. We have argued on the relevancy factor which would also call for the scrap of RAE  because RAE is not relevant as well. We have pointed out the unique class of ham radio as compared to other technology. We have said that it is not a hobby to compete with other technology. We asked them to monitor the CW contest. Ask the participants the number of CW stations they worked.

Bad no-code hams went all out to kill CW by disturbing people working on Morse, using the Morse frequency for illegal transmission. You want to know the mentality of these people listen to the recording above. In fact we have more proofs of such things.

Read the article here and think about it. Just because we don't know we think others don't know too. Only this morning I heard DX CW stations were numerous on 7 MHZ. These people were either deaf, arrogant, ego or just simply unfit for ham radio.

Some people love ham radio so much that they would still want to go hamming even after the serious illness like heart, paralyze or even went dumb. I have worked a station who probably had done the throat operation, but could not understand him well. Another like him had to come on CW mode. We don't pray that the anti-Morse guys would be strike by the deadly stroke just to make them learn Morse. But we do have ham whose mouth position changed and his words were difficult to understand. Bad mouthed person deserve to suffer  and become mute. Give him a mic to talk.

When I said I can't hear stations on telephony and the signal changed with CW do you think these people would believe it ? If if they are in front of the rig and witness it, they would not admit it. These are more than one station encountered with similar experience.

I joked with 9M2ZC about military abandoning CW. In this area the Malaysian security is not fool. The intelligence sections must master CW. Read the printed article below

Morse Code is not dead; Back in style by Russian Spies in 2010

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During the Indonesian confrontation 9M2FK was taken to Singapore to capture and decode Morse. When Hams claimed that they are to support the nation during emergency, the lack of Morse ability would make them as good as any other citizen. We are not military or spy. But we can be assets in case of state of war.

General Japanese and Americans are worried for the nation, not the hams when they still push and train their hams to learn CW. I worked Japanese and Chinese stations on CW not 20 years ago but in the recent months. Check my web page about a young Japanese SWL giving the CW report.

I also joked with 9M2SW about nobody including the authority do not know CW. So thieves, and robbers and smugglers would use them. Yes in fact it is something serious. The police is well aware of these and ready to intercept all mode and all language messages. RTTY, AMTOR and others are good for sending. CW skill and knowledge is for monitoring and spying. If the police and the army throw Morse all together like the some stupid guys our country will be very vulnerable.

The Malays especially the lowly educated ones could not be better than the Americans, Japanese, Chinese or the Russians though some Americans are dumber than the Malaysians. The Malays cannot be much smarter than the Chinese or even than the North Koreans. They easily gave their country to the British just to get recognition as a King. That same flow of though and words are still herd and they are very loud.

Read the headline here

9 years old Katia, RZ9UMA in CQ WPX CW contest

I feel shame when the 9 year old Katia participate in CW contest. 9M6YBG worked CW with this boy several time. 9M6YBG is a new ham who defied all odds to sit for Morse test.

If these guys don't want to learn CW do not call others to be as stupid as they are. Be stupid themselves.

The saddest thing in Ham History is when we have people who called themselves hams but simply calling others to be like them.

PS - You like no CW, no test ? Now your kids will be free of examinations. You know what SPM is school based. Do you know what school based mean ? It means lots and lots of cheating, problems in the job market, only good and well known graduates have easy access to the world of work.

You want it, you get it.

IS HAM RADIO DEAD ?

The role of ham radio in the disaster assistance has been narrated by the recent experience. Radio equipments have been replaced by other electronic gadgets like the mobile phone and the wifi stuffs. The other body like the Red Cross had it's own communication network. All services like the police and the army have their own hardware and procedure.

Hams are kept happy to think that they are the most vital accessories for the government. In reality HAM is left with the hobby per se. Look at the original ham package

                 a. Experimental
                 b. Standby in case of disaster
                 c. CW and RAE
                 d. Ethics and SOP

It was never intended to take place as communication protocol or any other communication methods. When it started there was no sign of internet communication, or the I-Phone. Even though there were ham radio was not to compete or be compared with those others.

But when the new breed of human being appeared they started to talk about relevancy. Electronic communication systems are changing to packets. Electronic and computer design do not use BFO or balance modulator. True CW is not used in the modern communication system. But being biased these people simply refuse to address the irrelevancy of RAE as well. We hardly find even 1% of the knowledge is being applied. People without RAE can operate any radio even better than those hams.

When they kill CW as mandatory they took away the element of Ham Radio. Then today CB lingo, unethical hams and indiscipline has ruled the band. The great pollution hardly left the identity of Ham Radio. The support for pirates and giving away call sign to others to operate have taken almost all aspect of the amateur radio. What is left then ?

What is left then are the bunch of talking people thinking that they are hams. With the breaking up of the original package, ham radio is also broken. The people who get involved in it also broke up. Many old hams do not agree with the new people. The spirit and dignity of the ham radio vanish. HAM radio is going a slow death living a bunch of talking people.

You want to hear real hams you go to listen to CW local or international, listen to CW contests. These people still carry the tradition and the package.

People may not want the assistance of hams during disaster but there is nothing wrong to be ready all the time.

 Top - 04/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman)

I CAN'T COPY ALL MORSE

Am I good at Morse ? No. I can't copy many stations even they may come below 12 wpm. On the other hand I could read Mzwan at even 45 wpm. I have been training my reading skill by listening to essays and articles I put in my CW trainer. It means I learn to hear words instead of characters. But for slow Morse i have no choice but to read character not counting dit-dah stuffs. If I hear a character wrong then I can't form word. When someone sends AND, I may hear as PD because he combines the A and N together. Then my mind would go stray especially when I do not write down.

For the high speed CW, I don't write because of my slow hand. No time to write. So I listen for words sounds. If you send a sentence without any pause for each word then I will get lost. I hardly read Hellohowareyoutoday. I would be able to copy hello how are you today.

Good CWers may be able to copy no matter what. I have not come to the stage yet.

A few call sign may not be copyable at all. Last night I totally failed to read a station. The whole call sign seems to be long and repeated like 9M2AR2AR follow by a K. Sometimes I herd KH2 as K52.  I would realize it after another checking from either QRZ.com or web search.

When I woke at 7 am I would still find many DX coming in. The strongest this morning was LZ05WWF operated by LZ2SX. HS0ZEE was also strong. I could read them very well.

While 9M6YBG had worked several young hams below 12 on CW, I may have worked only one from a club station around Eastern Europe. Kids and beginners usually send slow and steady Morse.

Anyone can have any attitude on CW. But going around and discouraging others not to learn by saying it is a dead language is something not right somewhere.

My saying that hams who don't know CW are not the True Ham is merely what I think. If you think you are then you don't have to force me to agree with you. You can say that I am working with those dead people. You can say the thousands of CW heard during the contests are all coming from the grave yard. You can say those nations which made so much CW sounds on the air are dead nation. That's your freedom.

Top - 05/08/2010 (Abdul Rahman)