When I was a kid, we had an old Philips radio as big as a Wurlitzer jukebox. My father retired the radio to the basement in the early 1950’s after our family bought a TV that looked like an oscilloscope. For some reason, I was drawn to the radio and would turn off the basement light and sit in the dark in front of the Philips—and then I would do what my father told me never to do! “Don’t turn that knob past the ends of the dial or you’ll break the damn thing!” What my father didn’t know was that when you turned the knob beyond the end of the dial you would hear amazing things. I heard foreign laughter, blaring patriotic music, monotonous dialogues in unknown languages, symphonic music that sounded thin and watery--then suddenly bombastic, and music so unfamiliar in tonal form and rhythm that I was certain it must have come from very far away. All these sounds were always competing with crashes of static. And when I turned the knob even further, the voices and music ceased and instead I heard only beeping—at first faint and distant, then near and loud, then far again. My mother later explained that these were ships at sea talking to each other in Morse code in the dark of night, just like the Titanic and the Carpathia. And that’s when my romance with radio began.

I have been operating in Japan for the past 30 years, first as a member of JR1YGP, and now as 7J1AAB since the conclusion of reciprocity in 1985.

My interests include QRP (will assemble my recently purchased Elecraft K2 over the year-end holiday), mountain topping with my HW-8, DXing, IRLP (How long must I wait before I obtain DXCC on IRLP?) and solar / emergency power operation.

My station consists of an Elecraft K3 (the finest receiver I’ve ever owned) and an ICOM 756 ProIII feeding a SteppIR 3-element (with 40/30m element) up 27 meters (best Yagi I’ve ever owned). I’m still using some older gear like the Yaesu FT-736 for VHF/ UHF, FT-901DM, and FL/FR-101 twins.

In addition to ham radio, my interests include every form of music in a *ridiculously* large CD collection, Black & White photography, poetry, travel, food, writing.

If you plan to visit Tokyo, please let me know so that I can hook you up with TIARA (Tokyo International Amateur Radio Association). Hopefully you’ll be able to attend one of their monthly meetings.

Look for you later down the log.

/.bill  7J1AAB  /  NA2Y