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One Eye Monster RF Liquid	Tin can	QRX Hold on a minute (Hold on a minute, I will call you again) I will call you again in.. (QRX 5 minutes) MENTION YOUR CALL SIGN SLOWLY AND CLEARLY	Pull the big switch (Closing down the station)	Q-Codes are for CW  Morse Practise Download 9M2ARCW Trainer SOP Guidance 1 Taj Visit Time Attendance The Grand Tradition Extended Topics ( VK Trip)
	Roger is not over. CB'er and pirates use it to mean over. In USA old hams condemn new hams using CB lingo.

Clandestine Radio       Top ranking CW Man    How to know ourselves    How Patient Are You           It's Not A Ham Without CW           Ajaran Sesat MAS Do No Fly To New York                      Abusing A Club Station Short Live Excitement      Maybank Rejects Credit Card Application Take Care of Your Health                             Amplifier By AA8V       The Old Jargon Is Dead   In Respect Of A Religion  CW- Follow My Way The Clash of 9Ws    Skill and Knowledge Acquisition  Pak Yob 9W2YR      Morse Code Trainer Return  Characteristics of Traditional Hams Be Careful When Buying Rigs                      Mobile Frequency ?      Lightning Strike       How Long Have I been Using Seventy Three Radio Technology                Cocoa                You Want To Know Your Station ?                 Do I Need Help ?      CW IS KUKUK NYOK Sekolah Atap Revisited                                 What is a call sign                                            Fighting For A Boss

LET ME TELL YOU THE BAD THING ABOUT INTERNET - There are more cheaters and robbers on the internet running after your money in many ways. I would sense many are Africans dressing in European dress disguise as beautiful women or handsome young men looking for preys. Many fell. Beside hacking the e-mail server to get your e-mail, they also involves themselves in various friend finders stuffs and even in face book. You may get an email from a beautiful lady saying that she is from a mix blood family whose mother once live in Malaysia. She would correspond with you several time exchanging pictures, expressing her love. Finally she would say that she is coming to  Malaysia and need a little plane money. Out of your love you invite her to your abode and made elaborate preparation and send her not only the airfare but extra green pieces. At the end you discovered that you are conned. Though ham radio might contain a few con men but it is not widespread. You only all the time be bothered by the Indonesian pirates on 40 if you are a CWer. There has been attempt by a negligible number to cheat but the fellow ham quickly took an action to publicly discredit those guys. Or softly we would whisper to fellow hams not to trust so and so with money or purchasing equipments for him. But internet has no boundary of cheaters. There are women looking for partner with a view to marriage were left pregnant by the cyber friends. Today the internet chat could be dangerous. You can fall  prey at any time. I have always insisted that people must be screened to qualify for a ham ticket. It is within our control. Quality could be enhanced if a non-English ham could speak English. Some quarters believe English that English speaking person think differently from those non-educated person, the truth of which is very remote. But certainly English speaking hams would enjoy ham radio more. Technologically Ham Radio is inferior to the Internet. Many find it comfortable and at ease during the group chat. There is another bad thing about the internet is something that I like to see; the pornography. There are millions of free movies you can download, giving you the impression that people in the world has nothing to do but live 24 hours with sexual act. Kids are accessed to these free movies. Our wives will get attracted to some huge John and may be dreaming to taste it one day. Some may want to experiment with wives swapping. Thirdly national security could be weakened by the Internet. Schools and office like to use e-mail and other stuffs to send stuffs which are detrimental to national security and even the government. Most head of departments are not smart enough to think about it. With radio frequency chips it is more vulnerable. I would not say internet and computers are really 100% useful. Today your email is read by the police. Our websites are observed. Nothing is secret.

CLANDESTINE RADIO Clandestine Radio station had been very dangerous to a certain countries. During the Emergency Period there were several radio stations that were targeting their attacks on Malaysia. The authority encountered them with jamming devices. Though most of the clandestine radio operated outside the country the government would not want any local illegal anti government radio station. Expensive equipments were purchased to monitor the air waves. Before the independent, the local people in Indonesia used the radio equipments as a mean of communication. Because of the temporary in nature and it was all over the country the Dutch had a hard time in controlling it. And when 'People's Power' took the street during Marcos's period, ham radio were used to call the people to raise against Marcos government. In the era of the states of the arts technology, Communist countries still control and watch ham radio closely. Security wise it could pose a potential danger to the national security. As compared to the internet radio poses less danger. Intelligence gathering process is easier thru the internet. Internet lines can be jammed. Digital signals can be hijacked. Military stuffs and secrets passing thru the lines and radio wave can be intercepted by foreign countries and the microchip makers. That's the reason in the good old days many military messages were transported by human beings. Today there is no more clandestine radio attacking the country and the politicians. Yet there is a new form of danger; the terrorists, the possible political conflicts and the drug menace. We can't just simply ignore about it. The criminals want to have communication equipments which can monitor the police activities. They can escape before there is any raid. Short distance communication equipments would be handy to the courier of drugs and weapon smugglers. The propaganda has shifted to blogs. Blogs have been turned into a battle flat form between the government and those against it. In fact the government can use the flat form to rebut and counter attack any accusation. Educated people read them and weigh the truth. But the government has the advantage of using the radio and TV media to appeal to the public and plan what and how to brainwash. A pure ham will not want to know and care about anything controversial. He just want hamming. He invests thousand of dollars for antenna and other equipments. He hunts for DX stations both on CW and SSB. But the authority should always be aware of the potential danger. Top

TOP RANKING CW MAN In my mind the best CW man in Malaysia is 9M2ZN. My judgment is based on the errorless high speed sending and his ability to copy at the speed of about 50 wpm. I would consider Mazwan, a teacher, a new ham as compared to those those old timers. Other flawless CW ham is 9M2YP, Yee, whom I have not heard for a very long time. My assessment on Yee is incomplete because I have not heard Yee on high speed Morse. Our legend Eshee has not been on the band for quite a long time. I have never seen him working the 45-60 wpm Morse yet. New hams who passed the CW are scared to come on. My suspicion is they do not have confidence in reading even the 12 wpm. 9M2MGL is disappearing both on SSB and CW. So is 9M2AGC who could go more than 18 wpm. At the moment only 9M2GET seem dare to venture DXing even with this mode. How do I know whether a person really knows CW ? Simple. A question asked never get any answer though it is repeated several time. CW is not merely sending. You need to know what the other side is sending too. You can always say QRS or  'PSE SLOW DOWN' when you can't copy. Never try to send fast just because you can do so, if you can't copy at the speed you are sending. Otherwise even without any QRM or QRN you are going to say QRM QRM or QSB QSB. Usually people would know that you can't copy not because of the QSB, QRN or QRM. So send slow Morse. There will be people coming back to your slow call. It is good to find a sparring partner. I prefer to practice high speed Morse with Mazwan, not with foreign station. Mazwan already knows my weaknesses and strength. I can't send fast though how hard I tried due to my slow muscle response. They call it neuromuscular co-ordination. Ageing is one of the factors. Exercises can help to speed it up. But 9M2ZN could send a perfect message in plain language while CW rag chewing. And may be I am wrong to put Mazwan on the top. But I think Malaysia's best is 9M2ZN. Hams should be able to quickly reply after the transmission is passed. They should try not to write message and send by reading it. Don't let the other side wait. Some professionals need to write first because they were trained that way, to ensure they send the right message. Because we are not originally from police, military or ship to shore people, then we must learn to see the words in our mind. True that the clarity of the spelling is vital. Long words with complicated spelling do give problem. At time we only write these words for reference. CW skill cannot be required by reading or talking. But by practicing. Practice makes perfect. Top

HOW TO KNOW OURSELVES ? Most of us, including me, are still living under the coconut shell even after more than 12 years of formal education, and despite being told over and over again. I realize how small my world and vision is when I watched the republic Of China, CCTV9, yesterday on the English Speaking Contest. The participants were from universities and polytechnics. I was amaze at the fluency and the choice of words as well as their perfect slang. There was not even a slightest of Chinese essence in words pronounced. Some sound pure British and some pure Americans. Then we know we are more deeply by looking at the others. Most of us know the Chinese as a group who want to maintain it's national identity; the Chinese and the tradition, the lion dance and no Western. China did not progress by merely dancing with the dragon. It leaps to the outer space by the seriousness in acquiring knowledge and the positive attitudes. The students who study foreign languages speak the languages with profound pronunciation and grammar. Are we saying the Chinese are not nationalistic because they do not ignore foreign language and even had the English Speaking Contest ? I have been telling time and again that I have been almost dumb in English. And later I found out there are many other hams who were like me but continue to struggle expressing themselves on the ham band. Calling other people unpatriotic is just dismissing the progress of those Asian countries like China who had beaten us by leap and bound. In many ways we can learn more about ourselves by learning about the others. If we look at Indonesia we might see ourselves as a little better in attitudes. If look at America, China and Korea we see ourselves far behind in mentality, technology and positive attitudes. Last night I happened to watch a soccer match between Kedah and Kelantan. The crowds were unhappy with the referee and the linesman. Many shouted and threw curse used all the bad words they can hurled on. A old man kept on cursing the linesman. One group of young men behind me shouter ,"Sabar Pak Long..Saba Pak Long..."( be cool uncle..be cool uncle..) Of course I did not expect those young people to say that. While those who curses the referee only saw thru one angle, there were a few who were not blind. I saw Kedah did not play well and the coach did not even care about the teaching of basic and tactical move. Today the teaching of computer program is in English. I do not go against it because I believe it can help the students very much. If I can learn computing thru the internet, the students can gather much info and knowledge from the web site too. New hams who has acquired their license must not be discourage to use English on the ham band, especially the young ones who are having the bright and better future. If we can't talk English, we talk Malay but never chase people who speak English away. The MCMC should touch on the issue of language, Q-Codes, manners, attitudes beside the rules and regulation when giving briefings to the new comers. New hams should always be reminded that they are carrying Malaysian flags and the ambassador to Malaysia. They represent the people and the government. They must be the first class ham. Remember, we are not Indonesians. I don't mean to create enemies but that's what the 40 meter and most frequencies are all about; Indonesian pirates even on the WWWV. People cannot be demanded to keep quite about the Indonesians pirates on 40 meter band. We don't look at Indonesia as our mentor. We can' see much of ourselves by looking at them. We must not encourage pirates and must not disgrace those who speak English. Top

HOW PATIENT ARE YOU Hams must not be rude and must always be patient. Yet I remember hearing hams scolding the Russian hams during the days of Russian helicopters. At that time every ham believed that the helicopter sound came from Soviet Union, The very strong disturbance disrupt almost the whole DX band. The DX band at that time was 20 and 15 meters. Today the Southeast Asian hams are expected to tolerate the Indonesian pirates who cover 7.000 to 7.029. I can't be a good ham because I can't tolerate them. I can't help but to blame the authority and compare the pirates with the regular Indonesian hams to see whether they have identical behaviors. It is a bad thing for me but I can't be patient and be calm at all time. It is true that ham frequency does not belong to anybody. No wonder the Indonesian allows their pirates to go all over the ham band. But I did not old Malaysian hams rudely or not would sit on frequencies used by our neighbor. Out of a 'Gentleman's Agreement' we stay out frequencies like 7.045, 7050, 7055 and many others. We are happy that they can run their net well and keen to support them. On the other hand frequencies we use to run our net were not spared. Finally after many years I chose 7.043 thinking we can find some tranquility. Instead while we are using the frequency, we hear people tuning, counting numbers using high power and even come and sit on it. When our fellow hams asked to QSY I told them tat we can't keep on being a fugitive. I remember being cheated while in Jogjakarta when we paid for the hotel booking which was rejected when we reached the hotel. And the spate of thefts in our areas. And finally our plane was hurled with stones and our aid was taxed. OUR AID WAS TAXED. That was a long time ago but I will always remember it. And even our flags were burned. That is not to talk about the fate of Tabung Haji's ivestment. How to respect when the bad happenings are still on ? When 7.000 was used by them we all can tolerate. Certainly you can't say their regular hams operate on the CW portion on phone ? I am very sick. The disease of a hatred wide spread even to those innocent people, people who are not hams and people who adore those other people. Though Osama was the enemy yet the United States began to distrust all the Muslims; the Hydrogen bombs were dropped in no-war zone. The other day when my friend asked me to visit Jakarta, I simply refused. Jakarta did not cause me any paint but the pirates do. The radio authority of Indonesia does. Just type "corrupt Indonesian" in the yahoo search engine and see what the world has on the corruptions there. I would not go and spend my money in countries that burnt our flags and encourage radio piracies. Top

IT'S NOT A HAM WITHOUT CW I tend to agree with those opinions which say there is no ham without CW. While I am typing this my radio is parked on 7.015 a CW mode. What do I listen to ? A group of Indonesian pirates rudely making noise on the ham band. Like those many others who imitate the Indonesians pirates, I would put these people under the same roofs. One loves the other hoping to get favor and the other loves their friends for some unknown reason. The CBers in USA are known to use vulgar words while driving trucks. Generally they are not hams and do not know Morse codes. People just like to be grand. They can't be radio announcer or a dee-jay, so they would use ham gear to announce things on the air. They want to be hams but could not learn CW, so they attack CW. They want to hams but could not learn electronics, so they use the ham bands and talk like a ham. I want to be Professor but I am too stupid, so I use the free blog writting nonsense thinking I am one. Many American hams who became ham without CW are training themselves in CW and want to be a real ham, the full pledge ham. But as always, we can call ourselves with anything we want and other people can call use by anything they want. The split in sects is something inevitable. They want to call themselves ham, they can do so. So they have pride with the very long mobile antenna on their cars. People like me do not even recognize the word silent key to be given to any dead man. Silent key is a word to be given to those who have been using CW key once in a while. That is the symbol of ham radio. Ham is about dit and dah. You don't agree with me ? I won't cast you aside. I am not forcing you to agree with me. Neither can anyone took my belief away from my mind. It's not a ham without CW. Which CBer use Morse on 27 MHZ ? On 10 meters ? Yes, there are many hams who work on 10 meters. If you don't want to associate No-CW guys with CBers theen No-CWer can be associate with the Car Parking Attendant or The Majlis Bandaran people, and now even the nasi lemak seller is using ham gear to communicate with their home. But the kings are pirates who  pride themselves as some great guys. Or else open a new world for the No-CW guys. Give some grand name to it and allow them to roam the world as well with due respect. Do away with RAE and Morse but don't call them ham. Any suggestion for some glamour call ?

Top

AJARAN SESAT

All over Malaysia the state authority is getting alert to watch the movement which it called 'Ajaran  Sesat'. Ajaran Sesat is the teaching which is contrary to the original or real teaching of Islam. Recently there were several arrests in Putrajaya and Selangor. One of the most famous of the leader is Ayah Pin preaching the Kingdom of the Sky. Ajaran Sesat or False Teaching does not only happen in religion but also in Amateur Radio. The followers consist of new hams who just got their licenses. The widespread of Ajaran Sesat is due to the lack of initiative and control of the authority who wants the radio matters to be overseer by the hams and radio clubs. The system thinking itself is swaying from the right path and hence the virus continue to grow. After a long usage and practices people will be saying they are not wrong and will do anything to protect the teachings. When the MCMC put emphasize in the Q-Codes, the body does not show enough experience in Amateur Radio. The MCMC should remove questions on Q-Codes in the RAE altogether and arrange them together with CW exams. Choose only the regular Q-Codes that CWers always used during communication and put the question in the answer sheet of CW listening session. The sample is shown here:                                                                                                                          CW ANSWER SHEET                       Write down the meaning of the Q-Codes here                     QTH ______________________________   QRT ___________________________________  QRU ___________________________                     QRZ ______________________________   QRX ___________________________________  QRS ___________________________                      -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                    Write Morse Below   Every year we hear of new stuff on ham band. The word Canopy is still heard. MCMC must insist that hams must used plain language. IARU does give attention to what is meant by plain language and it has been defined. It is better for a ham to use My Location instead of QTH or Hold On A Minute instead of QRX, My Wife rather than My XYL. One new ham told me that QRU means signing off. I had to explain the usage of QRU telling him what it means. Hams that are very proficient in CW uses the Q-Codes at the right time and in the right place. Once in a while when they come on phone they tend to carry along a few Q-Codes with them. The Islam must first look at Al-Quaran, then Sunnah. Then the ulama will meet to discuss what is not found in both. The ham radio operator has the IARU guideline and other publishing. Hams are advised to refer to these publications rather than asking their friends. The Indonesians are not the source of reference but the IARU publication is. There is Kedah Malay word to be used with some people. The word is 'ketegar' which is similar to 'arrogance'. They just simply feel reluctant to open the book in front of them. Then they teach the others. We just feel sad that the Ajaran Sesat of Ham Radio has penetrated the once grand hobby. Top

THE DIFFERENT BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL How smart am I ? How much knowledge do I have ? Do I understand things ? The answer is I am a dumb, real moron. I don't have much knowledge. So are many other people like me, lack of knowledge. But I can always look for information quickly by a click of a button. I been writing computer programs this way. We can read on medical, science and engineering. Of course the next question that follows is do I understand what I read ? The answer is not all. I have to really imagine some abstract concepts, which some I cannot graps. It takes some form smartness to understand all things I read. A skill cannot be obtained or amass by reading. Even how much we understand, we cannot acquire the skill. We have to learn by doing, repeatedly until we are good at it. A doctor could not be called a doctor if he just pass written exam but cannot carry any form of operation. In the modern days a skill is considered as a form of intelligence different from mental intelligence. Some people are gifted in making things even without learning or training. To operate a radio a person do not have to have either knowledge or skill. Buy a walkie-talkie and give it to your 5 year old kids, and see what they will do with it. Then why do we need RAE ? Historically a ham must have a profound technical knowledge on radio because a ham was expected to be able to construct a good working transmitter. He needed the knowledge on VFO, oscillators, mixers, modulators, balance modulator, amplifier and antenna. Even to repair an equipment one has to know and trace which could be the faulty section. Today a radio operator just buy everything he wants. Then why the RAE ? Every examination or a test must have a purpose. What are testing for ? Certainly for knowledge ? It has to be a relevant knowledge. Good questions should focus on the common usable errors. Follow by the application procedures and rules. And there are techniques of forwarding the relevant questions. But RAE here does not seem to have any philosophy behind it. However I would accept it base on the tradition perspective. While those knowledge can be acquired even without examination, some people are just lazy to refer to the authoritative literature. So we have all the technical and non-technical knowledge, does it mean we are the authority in amateur radio ? An expert in electronic who knows much more than the ham could not claim he is the authority too. Say the expert pass his RAE with A++++ and then tomorrow he says "Thank you for passing the PTT to me...." The tradition says a ham must have a CW skill. This is something which one cannot read. A million books read would not instill the skill in himself. There are many people who work hard to acquire the skill. Having acquired it will make him a complete ham by tradition. If a PHD holder claims to be smart ham when he does not know CW, my mind just simply cannot accept it. A knowledge can be obtained easily but a skill needs to be instilled in a person by practice. I respect hams skill in CW and knowledge and capable of constructions. It is not rare among the Americans but rare among the Malaysians. I already traced a few hams of this category. One person says, a ham must be able to rag chew. But I told him, no. A ham must have CW skill. Top

MAS DO NOT FLY TO NEW YORK ? I used to fly to New York by MAS including on 777. We hear good stories during the period of Aziz as MAS chief and the worst during Tajuddin Ramli. Then came the Jala which I heard something bad too. When I plan to go to Dayton for the Hamvention, I first looked at MAS. But I could not find any flight to New York. Under United States only Los Angeles is listed. What went wrong. But I had had several bitter experience with the airline, which I hurled big curses each time. One of them was about food. As always the air hostess would ask 'beef or chicken ?' When it came to my turn I said 'beef'. 'No more beef', came the reply. I told her that I did not take chicken. That was it. She went away to the next person leaving me hungry for the whole flight. It was the long distant flight. On China airline when there was no food that I could east the air hostess asked, "Can I take you bread ?" Simple ,wasn't it ? Without the Haj and Umrah flight MAS could suffer more. Nobody talks of the pay cut of the top managers. They should be paid as much as the pilot or lesser as long as the air line do not make profit. It looks like MAS took the step of cutting flights to unprofitable routes. The cheapest airline to the United States remain the China Airline. No Foreign International carrier flies direct to Dayton. The embarkation ports would either be Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco or Chicago. The last time I went to Dayton, We port of entry was Los Angeles where we stopped for a week and traveled to Las Vegas and Mexico. Then we took the domestic airline, the United Airline. American domestic airline always delay. During the last visit the delay was ONE day. When the announcement was made the passengers just sigh and relax. It looks like the delay is not something strange. Nobody would provide free food or drink for any delay. You pay from your own pocket. In such a case our Malaysian carriers seem to be better than the American Airline. If MAS is sold to private company, I am sure things would be different. You may be able to fly to New York again and proceed to Hamvention in Ohio. Top

ABUSING A CLUB STATION A club station is not for anyone to operate. Some guys think they are so good ham operators that they simply go to a club and call CQ without following the rules of managing and operating a Club station. A person may have been working 10000 DX stations on 10 meters, but that does not qualify him to master the club without following the International Rules of the station. The argument is very simple. Almost everyone know how to ride motor cycles especially the kampong boys of 7 to 10 years old. They have been doing so for several years. Does that qualify them to ride motorbikes forever without a license ? A club station must be opened and closed by persons assigned to take care of the clubs. They are the full pledge hams. He should be there to ensure that all the rules are followed and proper SOP are followed. Managing a club station is not easy. The concept of encouraging amateur radio by allowing rules to be broken is something sad in amateur radio history. It is sad and awkward if the police scolded and punished those who reported crimes. Remember, once the public was accused of not co-operating  with the police. But such things seem to be happening today. You report and you get it. We don't encourage people to become hams by licensing the pirates, by encouraging them to go on HF and operate club stations without the station masters. We don't do it because we are in civilize world. Unless we run our country as a tyrant. Are we tyrant ? Our Minister always mention we go by the Rule of Law. The authority can change the rules of the club station if it wishes but it has to published clearly for everyone's perusal. The world can look at it as well. The rules of the club must be displayed near the rig. It would be better for a 9M2 to operate as portable rather than using the club call sign if he is not a caretaker. But worst that had happened before a club station assigned special call signs to the members. The matter was reported to the authority. Ask the authority of the action taken. 9M2 should show good example. Just because one has been a ham for 15 years does not mean one can lead the new comers to break rules. We don't sell ham gears to unlicensed people and we follow proper procedure in importing ham gears. A government servant breaking rules is something serious and no a playful thing. What more if he uses the government properties for advertisement. Top

JAKARTA - Aksi penyokong Indonesia yang tidak menghormati lagu kebangsaan Malaysia, Negaraku ketika pasukan kebangsaan Malaysia menentang Vietnam dalam pusingan kelayakan Piala AFC Futsal di sini, Isnin lepas, mengakibatkan Persatuan Sepak Bola Seluruh Indonesia (PSSI) didenda AS$5,000 (RM 17,006). Tindakan itu diambil oleh Gabungan Bola Sepak Asia (AFC) setelah pengurus pasukan Malaysia, Datuk Hamidin Mohd. Amin membuat bantahan rasmi mengenai kejadian itu kerana kelakuan itu telah mencemarkan maruah sebuah negara The topic has nothing to do with Ham Radio. But indirectly it has. It is about the culture and the history, about politeness and babarism, about what is happening on the radio zone. What you need to do is just to observe and hear. We can't stopped anyone to insult us and treated us like morons. But we have to make sure our people would not follow those culture of disrespect and rude behavior especially on the ham band. We have been hearing people who can't differentiate between the rights and the wrongs, the good and the bad. Didn't 40 meter has been a bad band where people just follow the sending of CW signals and called CQ without the call sign ? These are the stories of ill mannered people with radio transmitters. And they love to imitate the Indonesians slang. The corrupt and ungrateful culture shall never be forgotten. It never ends. It will continue as long as they can't make money out of us. Did you not read the news about the payment you must make before you marry one of their girls. They want RM170,000. They burned our flags. Hurled stones at our military plane. Worst occupying the ham bands with songs and all sort of stuffs as if the ham band belong to them. Of course there are exceptions to the general rules. Not everyone agrees to the barbaric behavior even from people of the same stock. It says we can't generalize things. If we don't like Bush, we can't hate all the Americans. Likewise one cannot generalize that all Muslims are terrorists. There are ten of thousands of killers and murderers who are not Muslims. Yet people interpret persons with beards and robs as outcasts. People in the correct state of mind will not imitate and adore those who continue to act foolishly against the others and behave rudely on the radio band. The whole stock is accontable and responsible for the doing of heir own siblings.  Top

SHORT LIVED EXCITEMENT The decay of hams in Malaysia comes fast. When first awarded with the ticket chatting went on almost the whole day especially on mobile . Slowly fading occurs and a little later it vanishes completely. The period of decay varies from person to person. Some took a few years and some several months. Many stations seem to disappear totally after 5 years. What could be the reason ? One is the nature of a person. He is a quiet person and does not like to talk. He would speak when necessary. He became a ham because his friends induced him to be one. Some of these people were known to pass their call signs for others to use. Occasionally he would come on when going mobile. Out of topic is closely related to the lack of knowledge. When a knowledge is only confined to his world of work or profession, he could not be invoked to discuss other topic. He can't even ask question on matters strange to him. But he would express a lot when he is asked about his job. Most of the time you would hear people repeat the same thing when talking especially in a group communication. Every time they will give signal report and then pass the transmission to the others. Eventually boredom would creep in and the decay starts to take effect. Fail to acquire CW proficiency and can't speak English. Because of those, the boundary of ham radio is limited. A few would put up a high antenna looking for stations in Indonesia to talk. To go on 10 meter a limited English speaker would not find much excitement later just by exchanging report and giving name. At the early stage they would go for DXing and later found it to be boring too. An English speaking ham can venture more into rag chewing and exchanges information on the working condition, and other stuffs. The reluctance to speak English for fearing criticism from peer hams hinders further excitement. Many hams still find internet communication interesting as compared to ham radio because of the impressive technology of audio, video and digital. The visual conferencing with clear image made internet to be more superior to the radio. Internet could gather more friends faster. It is economical, fast and informative. We see many names on the internet are hams whose voice are unheard on the air. Talking of myself, I find that the continuous excitement is giving by CW. The challenge is there everyday and it really test our patience. I am fighting hard against myself to improve my speed in both copying and sending. The practice continues until I can acquire enough skill to work DX stations. Till now I dare not work foreign stations because they are too fast. International CW is less than 12 wpm is very rare these days.  If I stop working on this mode it would mean I am killing the excitement of ham radio. Each day I oscillate between CW and SSB. Allow me to give a little remark on the pirates; why they are there everyday not getting bored ? I believe that in poor countries when youths are jobless radio can keep them off the street and can take them away from drugs. At home when nothing to do they would hang onto the microphone singing, talking love and say anything just to pass the day. Many have their own broadcast stations at home. They become dee-jay and find excitement in their own ways. Today we seldom hear the first batch of 9Ws. Or we do not hear them at all. Even the second batch are not heard. Even those who only work ISS or RTTY will soon experience decay. The decay of the very old hams is inevitable because of ageing. When their antenna dropped down, that will be the end of it. No more climbing. When their rigs went kaput, that will be the end too. Many are waiting to sail to the next world. Top

MAYBANK REJECTS MY CREDIT CARD APPLICATION Maybank  rejects my credit card application probably because of my financial standing. But I have been a client of the bank since I retired in 2003. The government forcefully put my retirement payout in this bank for some reason or te other, not in the bank where we received our monthly salary. This means I cannot hire a car if I were to visit USA. My intent to visit Dayton in May has gone into stray. Somewhere in my web page I wrote about the bank sending me insurance schemes of all sort from time to time. The health insurance was extended to 65 years of age, which of course surprised me. Insurance companies prefer younger and healthier people to join the scheme. When I computed carefully I found the bank could make big money by extending the scheme. I also found that many payouts had to be made to people of below 50. Credit card is of course not my interest. I applied for it because of the requirement in car rental. I need to rent car to drive from New York to Dayton. Unless someone with the credit card is willing to travel with me. Rusli has indicated that his family would be visiting China at that time. Then I have to put off my trip to Dayton. For many years I have been to USA alone without renting a car but my movement is limited. To go to distant places you need to take a bus or a plane. The bus is expensive though comfortable. Compare with our express busses and other public transports, ours is 10 or more time cheaper. Am I unfortunate ? NO. If I don't get it then I just don't go. Hamfest does not mean everything. I could always go somewhere else. Shall I choose other bank to keep my money ? NO, because I don't have much money either. Top

TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH A couple of days ago one of the loudest voice on Ham Radio was strike by the killer disease called stroke. 9W2TZ did not want to believe he suffered from stroke, thinking his left part of the face was effected by a kind of virus. Today the doctor confirmed the blockage has been there for some time. Hanafi's stroke is mild but it is dangerous enough to kill a person if one does not think it is something serious. True everyone will die, the older ones like me will go first. A HAM had said that 9Ms are waiting to go to the grave yet we have been hearing the young hams around 40s have been leaving us. God gives and God takes. But God also asks us to work hard even for good health. Common diseases today like diabetes and heart are alarming. Food is one of the killers. We are what we eat. Excessive sugar intake can be fatal in a long term. But most of us think we are healthy and fit. So we never go for medical checkup, especially people involve in sports. These killers would attack you whether you are young, old, sportsman or otherwise. I was sad to hear friends who are much younger leaving us so soon. Of course we prefer the immediate death to paralysis. I myself am the same. I prefer to die rather then experiencing a prolonged illness. When we die our wives can re-marry and kids can have new fathers, otherwise they will follow our sufferings. Certainly we need to avoid the unnecessary while we can. If you are scared to go to the hospital then buy some measuring instrument to check your blood sugar, pressure, cholesterol or any other gadgets. The moment you find your blood-sugar reading is 7 and above and your HBP is 150-160+ for several days, you need to go to either the clinic or hospital near you. NO KAMPONG medicine, please. Won't I die with these medicines and regular checkup ? History has indicated 'YES'. While I am waiting to die, I have been hearing younger people passed away. You make your own choice, whether to ignore the health care or start to monitor your health. Hanafi will be in hospital for a few more days. I wish him a speedy recovery. Top

LINEAR AMPLIFIER BY AA8V Detail descriptions of the project can be found on http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phys/latta/ee/ wing813amp/813schematic.html                         Top

THE OLD JARGON IS DEAD In the old days we used to say 'Ham radio keeps a husband at home'. Wives  regarded their husbands are having a second woman to play with and were happy to see their husbands at home. Man used to think that he was the king and the master and wife had no right to question him where he went and what he did outside the home. In man places there were 'ronggeng'. Some old coffee shops were hiring women called 'Pelayan' to attract more customers. That was the kind of flirt a husband could have in those days. Keeping husbands at home was not a simple task then. The wives of Hams could boast to their friends and neighbors that ham radio keep their husbands at home. Of course there is a big BUT. A  man who likes women and  flirting would continue to do so no matter what. However hamming could occupy time. We tend to stay at home rather than going to coffee shop. Old coffee shop was very popular those days, a kind of a club or a meeting place where people discuss politics and other topics. Going to coffee shop with 'Pelayan' would give more fun with women but the pocket would go dry fast. Today situation changes. We heard of hams gathering and meeting every night at certain spots. Of course wives are told where the husbands are going and the wives also feel safe because the meetings only involve fellow hams. Hence to say that ham radio keeps a husband at home has become a false statement. Today the jargon is dead. Hamming is not merely talking. SWLing has been a part and parcel of it. People listen to broadcasting and other communications, searching for Morse stations and try to copy the messages, modified the radio to listen to police or possibly military stuffs. A big number would buy communication receivers. Communication receivers contain BFO which is used to listen to SSB and Morse signals. Being busy with these activities wives had to call their husbands for meals. There was a Penang ham who was keen in CW. He would go CW. In spite of staying at home his wife did not trust him. I think he must be a Romeo and had been mentioning woman's name in his sleep. So the wife secretly learn Morse code though she was not a ham just to spy on her husband. The secret was only out when the wife found that there was no contact with any woman and there were no love talk. True that ham radio post less danger as compared to computer. Computer provide dating, sex meet and other form of flirts. There are numerous illicit sex as a result of the modern internet system. Husbands or wives can sneak out quietly to have those relationships. Lucky of me that I do not believe in computer dating and knowing a person thru cyber space. Hams are not only with ham radio per se. Hams also facilitate the gadget with at least a PC for logging, referring to QRZ.COM, looking for circuits and of course quietly would search for adult materials and flirting women. Technology OH Technology...it has shaped mankind, changing their culture, tradition and character. Computer is more dangerous though more advance and sophisticated. For that reason I repeatedly say that we can't compare to ham radio at any other time. Ham Radio has it's own tradition. You want some other form of communication without having to sit for Morse exam then go Skype or Yahoo conference. You have the video and the voice come along. Giving a good treatment to ham radio and carrying the ancient tradition ham radio should keep a husband at home, no point of daily eyeballing after the daily rigorous and vigorous chat on the band. Top

In Respect Of a Religion What I am writing here is not based on rules or guidelines. But each of us is rewarded with a wealthy mind to think about. I have been an active ham since 1978 with a name 'RAHMAN'. That's what I had been giving to my contact stations. One night I talked to one station from Saudi Arabia whom I later known as a Prince of the Sultanate, who advised me to change my radio name to something as such as ABDUL. I asked him whether MAN was OK. He approved it. The Prince told me RAHMAN is a God's name. The Muslim are told to call name like  ABDUL RAHIM rather than RAHIM. You may be hearing old hams addressed me as RAHMAN indicating they are really old hams who were together active me me in those days. Malaysians of multi-racial should be aware of the meaning of some of the words to other races like POH KEE or KAM BU TOH. Rude Malaysians can make fun out of those names. Usually out of respect we called them MR POH or ME KAM. Similarly to the use or assignment of the call signs. 9M2GOD has never been given by the Malaysian authority during the days of the British out of respect to all religion. Malaysian hams are of the habit of calling persons by the suffixes like GET, OUT or MKY. Today the call sign 9W2GOD is assigned. I would say there is no respect at all given to religion. So the authority should know that those people tend to call this person GOD. Though we know many people do not respect religion even of his own, does this mean it has to come to ham radio. Don't bury a person who does not respect religion in the normal mass grave. He has the power and use it like a tyrant and as he likes. He who is arrogance can only be buried in his own piece of land. Many a time we have been saying 'THINK HARD AND THINK DEEP AND LONG' before making a decision. Old hams have been been saying that use the 2 letter suffixes until they are exhausted. We surely do not want to hear that they do not have much more left or say 'We have no choice...' If the argument continues later someone may say 'Forget about respect to religion...we don't believe in one...' Do you ever notice about 'tutup aurat' ? When ulama says about tutup aurat, some big guys will find another ulama to say '..tak tutup aurat is tak haram...' If you are given such a call sign, write back and ask for another one. On the other hand the authority should refer to any guideline if any or apply it's common sense before issuing a call sign. Mistakes are acceptable but always think first before you leap, and think hard and deep. The British of 1940's has predicted many things about Malaysia today and now the predictions came true. Can't we think that far, far for the future ? Radio name on the other hand need not be flowery. It is usually short. Common name s heard are like IGOR, VLAD, YU, YO, YI, DON. Radio name of one or two syllable is highly recommended. As for the call signs, one of the ways to economize it is by dividing Malaysia into zone. 9M8 and 9M6 would stay as they are and the peninsular Malaysia could further be divided into several. At whatever cost call sign like 9M2GOD, 9M4GOD,9M6GOD, 9M8 GOD or 9W2GOD must be avoided. There is no point to play the game of power or flexing our muscles. Top

CW - FOLLOW MY ADVICE PLEASE When I talked to future CW candidates I had always get the counter response from them. They describe their smart way of learning. It sounds great in theory. Immediately I would stop advising them because they seemed to reject the initial advised. We don't learn CW by memorizing the dit and the dah. If you sit and pass the test by memorizing them you will not acquire the skill even after passing and would not dare to come on this mode. The best way is by the sound recognition. There will not be any mental translation taking place. You will recognize the character by the sound. There are about 40 odd sounds for you to hear and listen to them until they become familiar. The association of the sound to the characters can come later. After repeated association you will immediately creat the character as you hear the sound. There are many people who can associates words to sound like HPE C U AGN  or 9M2AR or 9M2MGL. But for beginners character recognition is vital than the word recognition. People who earned skill and finally go fast CW are people who recognized sound character or words. There is zero mental translation. There is no time to translate the dit and dah into characters. For once stop being too proud of your smartness and think we can learn from the others. You don't have to have me as a teacher. You can teach yourself or get a group and practice more on it. If you do it rightly I can bet you are going to have plenty of fun among  yourselves even though the CW test is two years ahead. I remember 9M2ZN told me that they were 5 or 6 of them went for the Morse test, only he and 9M2ZM get thru. Now 9M2ZM can send and copy Morse while driving and Mazwan can go 45 wpm CW. Morse is not cut for a certain human specie. You don't have to be special to acquire the skill. You only need to follow the right approach and in one of my articles before I did mention that there is only one right approach; repeated hearing to recognize the sounds of the characters and automatic with characters association. And practice makes perfect. Millions or billions of the world population are learning languages and recognitions by repetition, days in and out they have been hearing and seeing things. You just follow my advice and you will pass with flying colors. Top

THE CLASH OF THE 9Ws The clash of the 9Ws is something inevitable because of the incoming of good and bad people into the ham radio. Good people want to abide by the rules and regulations and willing to learn more about amateur radio and do not have time to organize group to throw and invent curses. Bad people have aims different from what has been defined as amateur radio and have some ill intents. When we hear trashs on the repeater then we know the origin from the bad hams. Many hams are saying that they try to avoid the local repeater nowadays. Some say filthy materials were being transmitted thru the repeater. Occasionally there was an exchange of insult. There isn't much different between a person with an illegal gun and a person with a radio. Each can shoot the gun at the whims and fancy. When he has the opportunity to shoot he will do it. A person with a radio likewise would do similar thing, using fould language locally or internationally because he thinks he would go scott free. It is good that I don't have a group. If I hear good QSOs with proper SOP I might stay longer to enjoy the SWLing.When I found a QSO is nut, I would switched off my radio. More often than not I do not listen to the local repeaters. The unhappy hams would express their unhappiness with some of the developments. Ham Radio should not be a free market words but should be a divine phrase. We don't want to see any animal to carry the label in it's mouth and doing the free barking. We keep it's dignity by not push it around freely like lending the call sign to the others, letting wives and family members to use them or use them when they are not ours. And the non-ham who want to become hams arrogantly defy every law on the earth. Casting aside a fellow friend who want to sit for CW test and boycotting the CW exam do not make them a better ham. These people do not learn the history or know the ham radio history in Malaysia. I bet that many do not know what SSB is and how to suppress the AM carrier. Or even what is BFO for. Not knowing every electronic concept is of course not a sin but the further action of discarding or insulting any friend trying to go for CW really aggravate the situation; degrading the value of amateur radio. I am very glad that there are many 9Ws who have been working very hard to pass their CW. 9W2YR was in the examination hall 5 time before he finally get thru. Someone in Trengganu is about to retire when he passed his Morse recently. To me it is not the passing that matters. They can fail but they have the good and adorable attitudes. If they had had joined the wrong group, probably they would have been discourage from sitting for the test. Top

PAK YOB - 9W2YR 9W2YR, known as Pak yob, had been SWL for more than 35 years. Even before the introduction of a license B, Pak Yob whose real name is Rashid, had been patiently waited for the  full pledge ham. After his fifth attempt on C W test on 17th Marc 2010 he finally pushed thru. Unofficially many said he has passed. He is yet waiting for an official result. There are many good things that one can learn from Pak Yob. Beside being a jovial person, he is a tough man, climbing steps and cycled for a hundreds of miles. Pak Yob is nota teen age person. The positive and strong attitude is what we can find in him. Only one or two of his contemporaries sat for CW. Some just shy away after failing the first time. And there were those who registered who didn't turn out for the test. Pak Yob is around. New hams can always go and look for him and seek his advice on life. Wise men are rare these days. What have you got to lose to approach him and learn his secrets, his persistence and perseverance, his mental strength and guts. Another person, 9W2VEB, is also on the verge of retirement who passed the CW test. Update - I was informed that 9M2LN when he was hospitalized and could not talk, the family members seek the help of the hams friend to get the communication going. Morse code was used by him as a mean of communication. Top

MORSE CODE TRAINER RETURN This trainer is not a new version. It has been put on the webpage for download before. I  put it back here for those who believe in it and believe they can be a high speed CWer if they use this one. Let me tell you a few things about it and what you need to do to run it. a - This trainer runs on the DOS sound. It may not work on the sound card. But I have tried with all my lap tops and it works fine on all of them. b - Make a folder in your laptop. Download and unzip it in the newl created folder. Run the setup. c - Create subfolders name buku, artikel.. in the folder. You can save all the text files in these foders. If you don't have any file, you can copy files from the internet explorer on any topics and paste it in the trainer and save it. Look for the button to save it. Or you can type words, characters or anything you want to train yourself to hear and save them. Play around with the buttons to  see what they do. The present speed is quite high. You can reduce it by moving the slider a bit to the rigght to slow it down. The current speed is the speed I am training myself. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Top SKILL AND KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION Most of us become good drivers not at the time we passed the driving test but long after that. Similarly the knowledge on radio technology and communication and Morse skill come after we passed the exams. We don't stop looking for knowledge after passing the RAE and stop Morse code after passing it. However if we believe that the technical knowledge on radio is not important then we must all together demand that RAE must be abolished. If not we have to keep ourselves well informed of the basic principal if we say we are already qualified by the RAE. Today we are lucky because we can find free information from the internet. I am a little shocked to find out people do not know what SSB transmission is all about. Not knowing is not a crime or a sin because we can always acquire them. But at time we bragged too many things which at time has the connotation of insulting the others. When this happen people would go retaliate by asking us whether we have enough knowledge as claimed by what we bragged. Once someone asked me 'What is so great about ham radio ?'. I just kept quite . He said, "If you claim you talk all over the world, I also talk all over the world. And my friends on CB too talk all over." But I just avoid arguing by discussing other topics. One of the good practices is to acquire enough knowledge and Morse skill. If we are lazy to read, we can ask the walking dictionaries like 9M2PV and 9M2DY who have ample knowledge on radio technology. Even old timers who forget things go for the refresher course. 9W2FA is also an expert where we can dig gold from him. Of course ham radio is not the testing field and people don't want to know how much you know. But as a radio enthusiast we would be ready to explain things when encountered with questions on radio technology. If we are asked why we hear many stations at night than the day time on SW1,we don't want to answer that during the day time there are a lot of interference but at night none. These are not facts. Hence the knowledge on propagation is vital for the explanation. Put in another way, if a person says that he is an expert in antenna and had a PHD degree on it, but his signal strength has never been good in spite of living in a padi field, what would we think of him ? Top

BE CAREFUL WHEN BUYING RIG A transceiver is not cheap. It ranges from 1.5 K - 10 K. Most beginners with low income would go for the cheapest. Because of the high price we have to make sure it has a warranty and a guarantee. At least 6 months. Not all sellers will give you the warranty. There have been cases where the vendor refuse to take back the faulty rig with all sort of excuses. When I was in Singapore I witnessed the rejection to repair faulty rigs saying the price sold was cheap. The ham shop called Sun-East sell at higher price but provide warranty. There have been records that even new rig went kaput within 6 months. You would feel very frustrated if the seller refuse to repair it or ask you to pay for parts and services which could amount to 1.5 K. Several people had to send back to Japan. It was not cheap to do so. When so and so told me of a local dealer the first thing I would ask is where does the dealer got the supply from ? I would not buy if he mention a shop of a certain name. The Thais are good in repairing 2 meter equipment. My friend 9W2JL brought a faulty rig and it was repaired within 3 hours. But the Thais don't sell HF transceiver as they sell VHF. Don't jump in buying expensive equipments. Ask around. There is a saying 'look before you leap'. Top

MOBILE FREQUENCY - You always come across cars with mobile antenna on the highway and the state road but you don't know who he is. It would be good to have a common mobile frequency which is of course a non-mandatory one. The frequency may be the same as any of an area assigned frequency. That does not matter. What should we choose to be a mobile frequency ? 144.600 ? 145.200 ? Shall radio societies decide on one and announce to the members via the web pages ? Shall the authority do it ? I think we do not have to involve the authority. At the moment people use to monitor to MARTS or ASTRA national link. Imagine mobile stations use a special frequency and we come across a car, we can always ask "QRZ KK1212 ?" A few words of exchange will do like name, home town, destination and may be eyeballing at a certain R & R. What do you think ? Top

LIGHTNING STRIKE My wife called for the dinner. I was just finished talking on my 2 meter rig V8 handy. It started to rain, strong wind with thunder and lightning. But I just walked out my shack without switching off my power. The static built on the antenna was there. While I walked out there was a strong thunder. I knew it must have hit something. The light went off. Somehow I managed looking for the fuse box, plugged out a fuse and miraculously the power came back. I went straight away to the kitchen and had my dinner. I told my wife that I think the lightning must have strike my two meter antenna. After finishing the meal I began to investigate the damage. V8  went kaput. 20 amp power supply went kaput followed by the 40 amp power supply, a wireless phone, built in modem for my laptop which was on all the time, a DSL modem and there would probably more. I did not check my mini bar and the washing machine yet. I had a spare old modem. I installed and tested it, worked with another lap top. I used the spare lap top and install the anti virus, transfering files and folders from the other laptop to the present one. I then searched for a low power VX1 Yaesu, connected to the 2 meter antenna which was truck by the lightning and triggered national link on1 watt. It get back the response. So now it is a real holiday for me. I am not going to borrow any equipment from anybody. 9W2TZ offered me his v8000 and a power supply. That won't be necessary. My HF antenna came down because of the rotten bamboo. So there will be no CW, no morning chat with 9W2KB and just stay at rest for a time being. I am waiting for my eye to recuperate before I start to be active again. The 2 powe supply will be going back to Hatyaii. By late April I will be back just like before. But there are several medical appointments that will be coming on. That forbid me from going for holidays oversea. However I will be opening my e-mail every now and then. Good luck and enjoy your radio.   Top

HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN USING SEVENTY THREE At the beginning when I became a ham in 1978, I have been using Seventy Three to sign off. Our days were no RAE or CW class. Our training was SWLing and that was what I had been hearing when signing. In 2003 a friend of mine 9W2JL whispered to me that someone told him that the right usage for Seventy Three was Seven Three. I said nothing, thinking what was said could be right. At the same time I read thru. The IARU handbook which I have here for download mentioned about the usage. From then on I start to use Seven Three instead of Seventy Three. I noticed that almost old hams are using Seventy Three instead of Seven Three. 73 or 88 is not a Q-Code. Certainly it is not a plain language but people use them widely. The usage of XYL and a few Q-Codes on phones have not been debated before because almost all hams know CW and have been using them vigorously. They know the meaning and their applications at the right place and time. But with the emerging of new people in ham radio, we have been hearing too many awkward terms like canopy, PTT and plenty of Q-Codes, all sort of short forms in the phone communications. Hence I believe all hams, old and new, must check back the proper usage, to set good example to the new hams. We don't teach experience people but we asked them to discuss the IARU stuff; ask them to download from 9M2AR's web page and read thru and proceed with the discussion in the next communication. I don't do that to my friends who have long been the SWLs and hams. They can continue to use those terms with me but I won't follow them but expect them to find out why I used Seven Three instead of Seventy Three. As long as the basic SOP is there and done so in the right way. To me tuning on frequency used, passing transmission without mentioning the call sign, do not at all mention the call sign from the beginning till the end, using Q-Codes without knowing the meaning and using the wrong term like PTT instead of microphone are major stuffs that I can't tolerate. Many things that we can change and avoid if we want to but they are not mandatory or painful to hear; like using QTH instead of location. my wife instead of XYL.  Though the word OVER is not necessary, there is no harm using it but to say OVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR is a bit too much. Since there is a guidance then read it. The IARU publication is handy. Those who read it surely would be anxious in telling what they found out. They are not telling us to follow or force use to follow them. They just told us what they found out. Update: I monitored the DX band and heard most guys ended up with Seventy Three. 73 is a CW numbers, a short form for 'My love to you' which later means 'Best Regard'. Many hams do not end up with 73. 9M2GL used to end up with 'All the best'. Others ended up with 'Best regard to you and yours. Bye.' The Muslim hams are heard to end up with 'Best Reagard. Assala Mualaikum." But for habitual user it is difficult for them not to use 73 when ending up.   Top

RADIO TECHNOLOGY You don't know the basic of TRF and superhet and the LC circuit, the BFO and the tracker, the principal of conversion and the basic of transmitter like the oscillators, AM, SSB and FM, the carrier suppression and classes of amplifiers. It is OK and no harm. You can't recognized the resistor values. No harm either. Without those you can still operate a transceiver and work worldwide. You pick a little here and there on the antenna design. You still can call yourself a radio operator. Do you follow me ? Then you have to agree the knowledge on radio technology is not important to get a ticket from the MCMC. Then why the RAE ? Why waste time on it ? It simply bars the public from acquiring ham equipment. Likewise you use the same argument to do away with CW. It is just not relevant. I challenge everyone of you to speak against RAE. What about SOP ? The applicants of amateur license are called for a day course on SOP. After that the licenses are issued straightaway with 9M2.  I am sure a large number of general public would welcome it. The MCMC get more money and quickly too. Put it to debate I am sure 'NO RAE' will win.   Top

THE POWER OF YOUR STATION My antenna lies flat on the ground amidst tall grass. When I switched on my rig and put on 7.043 and 7.130 I could here your stations ? Who was the strongest ? 9M2GET the S-Meter shows on mark 7. Secondly came 9M2ZC mobile 53. It is considered a powerful signal when even on the ground my antenna can still pick it up. 9M2RS was 5 and 0, 9M2PV 5 by 0, Balan from Telok Intan 5 by 0, 9M2ONE 5 and 1, the third strong signal behind Zek. 9M2ZAE was 5 by 0 and 9M2ODY was 3/4 by 0, the weakest and hard to copy. You can congratulate yourselves if I can read you more than 0. Ody has been the weakest so far either from your mobile or base station. One of the best distance station is 9M2MSL who came in 5 by 5/7 while my antenna is on the ground. The 50 watts transmission power is not bad. May be the height of the dipole which is going the good job. 9M2MSL is worried about the DX station not picking him up when there were several calling stations. Many stations go DXing with 500 watts above. This is where you hear the Indonesians using only suffixes instead of the whole call sign. At a pile up some people only mention their suffixes for initial call. And the clarity of the words you mention also count. For MSL you can mention Mexico Santiago Lima instead of Mike Sierra Lima. In an antenna height does count. The higher the better. In this aspect 9M2GET has all the advantages. Your investment pay. Not everyone can be lucky. Hams who are farmers and living in the padi field may have a wide piece of land, as compared to someone living on a flat. A big majority depend on the mercy of propagation. I have living with a dipole since 1978. I used to enjoy ham radio when there was no interference from my wife. I have to find places to move my antenna when she decide to build structure where I used to have it there. And when my neighbor knocked my antenna poles his wife did not agree to pay for the poles, and I do not want to have a sour face just because of the radio stuff. Money talks. People can spend betwwn 4 to 10 K for a station plus the antenna system. However if the DX station gives you 5 and 5 on your dipole, you should be happy. What more if you only run 50 watts. You want better report then you need to invest a little bit more.   Top

DO I NEED HELP ? Do I need help ? Certainly I would call for help when I need one. Right now I need none yet because I need a long long rest. It is good once in a while to go out with Hanafi to settle my bill, buy fruits and more so have a chit chat. The other day, driving slowly to CB electronic bringing my 40 amp power supply, the nyonya at the shop scolded me after I said I can't repair the power unit due to my recent eye operation. She started to tell me about her uncle who went total sickness after continuous driving after similar operation and told about her farther who pantang and quit smoking as a step to ensure good health after the eye work. She said she could not repair but asked her worker to carry the supply and put out in my car. "Don't drive again," she warned me. So far already 2 unknown person who really scolded me. A few years before retirement I stopped by a shop and bought myself a can of Coke after jogging. One fine looking man came into the shop, looked at me and lectured me about my bad habit, telling me that I should not drink Coke after taking much effort to exercise ."Buy just mineral water."He commanded. Two of my power supply will be taken to Hatyai for repair. That may be the time when I may call someone to help me to Hatyai because I can't remember Amon where we used to repair stuffs. Right now I am not in a hurry. I went to CB as a stop by on the way back from the market.ew There are many things in life that one must try to depend on oneself. When I can't solder well, I would ask for someone's help to solder things for me and that was what I had asked 9M2GET to do, bringing me a meter of co-axial cable soldered to the male plugs. I did hear 9M2AU requesting hams to help me putting up my 2 meter antenna, which is not necessary at all. As I said that when I need help I would call for help. One day I called my former teacher whom I had trusted when I was working and get him a quick pay raise to drive me back home from hospital because I was not allowed to go back alone. That time I really needed help. He answered my phone with so many BUTs. On the discharged date, I called him. He switched off his phone. Of course I told myself that this is another type of person who cares nothing after you have retired and powerless and has nothing to give. The Malay termed it as Kupang Tembaga. Tun Mahathir is seeing the kind of men he believed in so much. I am not naming them but people know. One night I measured my blood pressure and found it to  be below 100. I was scared. I called the young nurses who gave me their phones asking for advice. "Pak Cik makan kerang.." Then I rang up 9W2JL asking him to get Ko Teow Kerang. Halim rushed to my house and took me to Amal Ko Teow Kerang. When I need help I do not hesitate to call. Thank you to all. Top

Could hot cocoa be the next "wonder drug" for high blood pressure?  Harvard researchers praise stunningly simplediscovery! According to recent estimates, nearly 1-in-3 American adults has high blood pressure. But for the Kuna Indians living on a group of islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama , hypertension doesn't even exist. In fact, after age 60, the average blood pressure for Kuna Indian islanders is a perfect1100/70. Is it because they eat less salt? No. Kuna Indians eat as much, if not moresalt, than people in the U.S. Is it due to their genes? No. Kuna Indians who move away from the islands are just as likely to suffer from high blood pressure as anyone else! So what makes these folks practically "immune" to hypertension -- and lets them enjoy much lower death rates from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and cancer? Harvard researchers were stunned to discover it's because they drink about 5 cups of cocoa each day. That's right, cocoa! Studies show the flavonolsin cocoa stimulate your body's production ofnitric oxide -- boosting blood flow to your heart, brain, and other organs. In fact, one study found cocoa thins your blood just as well as low-dose aspirin! But that's not all. A Harvard Medical School professor claims cocoa can also treat blocked arteries, congestive heart failure, stroke, dementia, even impotence! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Painless cholesterol cure works in just 7 days -- and drives the "food police" crazy! Want to lower your cholesterol so fast it'll make your head spin? It's a breeze, just eat guacamole -- or any dish containing avocados! Most health experts and nutritionists will tell you this rich, delicious Mexican dish is BANNED from any cholesterol- watcher's menu. But not Dr. Steven Pratt. That's because new research shows eating avocados can lower your cholesterol even faster than drugs.... without the side effects! One study found after just 7 days on a diet including avocados, LDL ("bad") cholesterol and triglyceride levels dropped by 22 percent. Meanwhile, HDL ("good") cholesterol shot up 11 percent -- something most cholesterol- lowering drugs won't do! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The cinnamon cure for high blood sugar Sprinkle a little cinnamon on your toast, cereal, oatmeal, or sliced apples. It not only tastes good, it lowers your blood sugar! In a recent study, people reduced their blood sugar levels by as much as 29 percent in just 40 days. That's with NO drugs, NO diet changes -- just plain old cinnamon! The fat that blasts away cancer You've been told cancer runs in families. You've been told what to eat and what NOT to eat -- including LESS fat. Yet Dr. Steven Pratt says there's onefat you should eat MORE of. It's the monounsaturated fat called oleic acid,found in olive oil! It should come as no surprise. After all, olive oil is a staple of the Mediterranean diet. And people in Spain and Greece are far less likely to develop cancer than in the U.S. But what's really interesting is how olive oil not only prevents cancer, it blasts away cancer cells that already exist! So if you're even the slightest bit worried about cancer, this is oneSuper Food you don't want to be without! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW prostate-protecting champ trumps tomatoes! Unless you've been asleep under a rock for the past decade, you've heard the news about tomatoes. They contain a potent antioxidant called lycopene that's been proven to reduce the risk of certain cancers -- in particular, prostate cancer. A famous Harvard study back in 1995 found that out of 48,000 men surveyed, those who ate 10 or more servings of tomatoes a week reduced their risk of prostate cancer by more than one-third. What's more, they lowered their risk of aggressive prostate tumors (the kind that are really tough to treat) by HALF! But before you reach for that slice of pizza or bottle of ketchup, listen up. What if I told you about a sweet, refreshing food Dr. Steven Pratt recommends that's even betterfor your prostate than tomatoes? This NEW prostate protecting champ is watermelon! Ounce for ounce, watermelon is even richer in lycopene than tomatoes. And since you probably eat more watermelon in one sitting than you do tomatoes, you don't have to gorge on it 10 times a weekin order to slash your cancer risk! Just a few times a week should do it. Knock out an ulcer with broccoli?! About 25 million Americans will suffer from a peptic ulcer at some point in their lives. To get rid of their ulcers, most will take an antibiotic like amoxicillin. Pretty tame stuff, right? Wrong! Amoxicillin can bring with it unwanted side effects like fever, nausea, stomach pain, diarrhea, headache, even a yucky condition called "hairy tongue"! And if you think that's bad, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the cost of treating an ulcer with antibiotics over an average 17-day period can run upward of $1,000! Fortunately, there's oneunconventional treatment with NO side effects Dr. Pratt swears by. "Eat broccoli!" he says. Why? Broccoli contains a remarkably potent compound called sulforaphane,that kills off the H. pylori bacteriathat cause most ulcers. Not only can it knock out an ulcer, eating one serving a day for a month might run you 20 bucks... a fraction of the cost of drugs. Life is very short, so break your silly ego, forgive quickly, believe slowly, love truly, laugh loudly & never avoid anything that makes you smile. Top

CW IS KUKOK NYOK Some Malaysians are smart and having a very top class mind. Once their mothers fed them with tapioca with coconut, find ikan puyu to make pekasam and blend sambal belacan with udang kepai. Today they don't want those stuffs and sniffs them off. They prefer Pizzah Hut, Mac Donald, Secret Recepi, KFC and many others. And we don't use kukok nyok now. So the the thousand of Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Americns and Europeans are stupid because they are using kukok nyok ? So let me join the stupid people and left the high class people alone. We the kukok nyok people are not fit to join the genius and the state of the arts mental heroes. Whenever the band opened and you hear the kukok nyok swarmed the frequencies, you hear 9M2, 9M6 and 9V1 kukok but not from the smart Malaysians but from the Japanese and the Westerners. No wonder today ham radio has been politicized. Earning tickets are by lobbying and probably buying. Then people in the hobby consist of people who cheat their friends by the thousand of ringgit, borrowing expensive items and never return. And even criminals. Unfortunately I looked high on people with the kukok nyok and disrespect wealthy people who have no morality and shame. You have been reading my political views to understand the state of my mind. I am aware there are many others who are like me.  I have known Hairi and his wife not so very well because it is just before Hairi went for his CW. When he came to see me asking for my prayer, I knew his positive attitudes. I heard his wife talking and already knew that she would pass her CW and everything else she worked for. I was lucky to be a teacher and have observed very many people. At the same time I observed the opportunist and the people without principal, ethics and morality who are willing to do anything and say anything how immoral to achieve something. Greatness does not come with money and social status. Sadam and Edi Amin died worst than a poor man. Top

SEKOLAH ATAP REVISITED The story is unending. It passed from generation to generation as human life cycle take effect. It is about a person who acquire knowledge and once he learn something new he started to feel that he know much more than his teachers and once he got his Phd, he starts to think all other people are morons. Then he would become arrogance. A few emerged as champions and claimed to be Si-Fu, refusing to accept that Amateur Radio does not own by Cherok Ketiak people, and arrogantly chased people who spoke English out of a repeater. And then they group together talking of the stupidity of old hams. Not enough with that they would go on the air and told the old hams things which they believed to be right. There were cases where the show of power, smartness and strength by refusing to co-operate in setting up a SEANET convention in Malaysia. Bragging went on day after day. Today and now they use radio terms to their likings without knowing the situation and nature of the usage. We tell them to read the IARU guideline, they stubbornly refused. They challenged the old hams. When I was working some guys from MARA college came to sell computer software. I told them we had our own. They asked me to show ours and we did. Then there were barrages of criticism. Later there was one lecturer who came to observe one of the teachers who made the teacher cried when he said the teacher could not the word END in the last line of the BASIC program. Professor Khoo Kay Kim used the term Pseudo Intellect on these people. Lately I have been monitoring on 2 meter band and I was happy to hear superb SOP from 97% of the operators. The 3% still use the Q-Code wildly when closing a station. At time I wonder where do they pick up the right stuffs. Even though many are smart and people like me are already senile and forgetful, let me advise one or two guys who are killing their rigs. Pressing PTT continuously can kill a rig. And on HF when tuning carrier  is made, keep the  period as short as possible and do it with a short pause. The period of 5 to 10 seconds would be good. The shorter the better. Top

WHAT IS A CALL SIGN A call sign consists of a prefixes and suffixes. 9M2 is a prefix and AR is a suffix. An amateur must mention a call sign when passing a transmission, not the suffixes or prefixes. I met several persons and asked them their call sign. I get the reply XXX. Mention it AR, it could be 9W2AR, 9M2AR or he might got an Indonesian YB6AR. Or AR can be Pakistan and XX can be Macao. Verbally in coffee shop talk, mentioning Ayam Panggang for 9M2AP among the 9M2 groups make everyone knows who he is. But on the air there are people monitoring, hence Ayam Panggang can mean anything. International guideline call for hams to mention the call sign not the prefixes or suffixes. Have the courtesy to mention full call sign while on the air not simply 'Ayam Panggang, Ekor Gajah overrrrrrrrr'. Unless we invent amateur radio and it is not an international property then we can abuse amateur radio in whatever form we want. We don't want to throw a gun at anybody who can use it to have a shooting spree. Because ham radio used to be a respectable hobby and had had a high rank once, surely we don't want to put it in the drain and customise it. It is an international property. The usage of passing transmissions without call sign have been very rampant these days. It is an agony to the ears. So please use the call sign not the prefixes or the suffixes. Top

FIGHTING FOR A BOSS Would you sacrifice your professionalism if your boss ask you to do shit ? Many would do so. And in ham radio if you observe carefully you will find people who fought for personal and family and their bosses. Of course they would find justification without using their own mind. They want to be heroes. When they were successful and the world is full of shit they would just stay away and refused to see who start to fill the filth. Once some people fought hard for license B without much thinking, just want to be heroes. Immediately after that the filths were thrown on their heads and trouble began to increase and they just keep quiet an adamant enough to take the blame. The problem with human being is that each thinks he is the best an most perfect. And he wants people to think his way. He would sell his ideas and trying to gain support. When you do SWLing you will gather all sort of people and it is fun to know them. Do not easily buy talks. As I have been saying about Chad and Harun Gila who spoke like politicians and I saw a man talking to coconut tree.  I have been a ham since 1978 and those days I have many girl friend and male friends. I want them to become a ham like me. I wanted to teach them radio technology and Morse code. But I never want to think any short cut way to get any ticket for them. I found out when I was a teacher in SM Kiet Hwa that the Chinese students were not pampered as much as the Malay students. They worked hard. They run the club activities, produce class magazines and even run the school brass band themselves. Today I went to an electronic shop belonging to my student and found a group of girls from polytechnic. My student was explaining something about a group project they have to make. I said to him, "Chong, don't teach them, let them think on their own." I have had experience with computer graduate teachers who cannot developed school base projects on data processing because 'We learn basic only'. The basic gave them a big A. Not that I don't know current VIPs when I was in university. They are big people today and even become the Head of State. But I did not lobby by introducing amateur radio and promise them with free tickets. I only wish them luck and they have much better things to do to the country. We have enough of politics. We should stop politicking in ham radio. Read all my articles on ham radio to understand what ham radio is all about. Don;t be one of the killers. Top