[The last renewal of this page: May 18, 2009]

Encounter with the Hamradio at hamradio club of senior high schol

Right after I entered to the senior high school, I happened to pass by in front of the cabin of hamradio club at a roof top of the school building. I was shocked and nailed myself to the spot, as I heard the English conversation which was obviously spoken by native speaker. As I took a look at inside of the cabin, a few seniors were doing a communication in front of the massive machines. It was absolutely something like an electric shock, and I then found out myself getting into the room to shout "Please let me jyoin the club!". "Hum? Who are you? Oh, a first-year? You have a license?" one of the seniors replied suspiciously. Well, no reason to have the license then as this is the very first moment to encounter the radio amateur, however, it seemed I said "YES!!" in a lively voice at once.

It was a SSB on 21MHz. I had never experienced even simple watching radio, but after observing the senior's operation for about ten minutes, He said to me "Hey, you, Give it a try!" Thus I had to be in front of the microphone only 10 minutes afeter the encounter with the radio amatuer to call CQ DX!

No body else in Japan may have experienced CQ calls in English shouting like "CQDX CQDX This is JA1Y......" like this. I clearly remenber the words that the senior dropped looking at me with sullen face. He said "You, So poor.."

Well, my first QSO was with a KG6(Guam) station who call back to my poor CQ. My fist QSO was a DX QSO. I could not understand most part of what he said. I do not remenber how and what I talked to him then, however, anyhow, my historical first step started and finished in that way.

By the way, the equipment in the club was YAESU SSB transmitter FL100B, and receiver FR100B, the best combination of the radio in Japan at that time, with four element monoband Yagi put up on the roof of the school building. There were very few staions waorking on SSB then, and most of the JA were using wire antenna, so the radio shack of the club seemed to be an object of envy among other stations.


The first Radio at home

I learned what the amateur radio is, and started its activitiy at my home. The first radio was TRIO(former KENWOOD) TR-1000, the first solid state (Recently we do not hear this word, but it means all transistor, not tube) transceiver which I borrowed from one of my former classmates in Junior High School who had already started ham radio. It was big and heavy, a thick steel box looks like a shoulder bag. 50MHz 1W, and receiver covers 50.0MHz to 52MHz, while the tranmitter is controlled by five X'tals for five spot frequencies. Installed batteries are eight D size battery!! Built-in antenna was a rod-type antenna and is extended to 1.5m (5feet) long. Every thing was big and heavy.

I did not have any proper external antenna, except a long wire about 10 meters (33feet). I threw it away on the roof, and inserted the other end of the wire to the connector of the transceiver. Before long, I bought used TR-1000 by myself, and put up a three element Yagi at 8 meters high, to start the radio amateur in earnest. The antenna system contained full of my idea, and the mast (28mm or 32mm diameter) was set right off the window of my room with two step guy wire, putting a golf ball at the bottom of the mast pipe on the brick set on the ground. (Homebrew bearing system) Therefore, I could rotate the beam very easily and quickly putting my hand to out of the window to turn the mast grabbing it. I put the name for the sytem as "TE-MO-TATOR", as the well known motor rotor manufactured by Emoto was named "E-MO-TATOR". (Please note that "TE" in Japanese means a "hand")

I loved this radio very much and put many modifications. Later on, I built a pre-mix VFO, mixing receiver's VFO out put to the new local X'tal oscilator to get the carrier for the transmission. After adding this circuit, the premitive TR-1000 got to have a transceive operation feature. (I refered to an article in Japanese CQ magazine.) This let me free from fixed transmitting frequency. This modification was very difficult for me, and I visited local old timer's shack many times to ask for help.


The first Mobile QSO

The first DX QSO that I could realize other than one that I worked from the club station at school, was with a VK on 50MHz. It was AM and my power was only 1W with the TR-1000. I was in outside on a bicycle with the TR-1000 extending a 1.5meter long rod antenna.

The solar activity was extremely high the, at the peak of the cycle 19, and therefore lots of DXs were coming in on high bands in HF, with only running 10W AM and a dipole. I fixed the TR-1000 to the frame of the bicycle with wire, and with a long rod antenna, I was going to visit my local friend's home then. I found a VK was calling CQ around 52.0MHz. Well my X'tal was on 50.3MHz, but I called and called him. Finally, he found me and call me back!

This was my first mobile QSO as well as DX QSO.


The first Homebrew HF Radio

Well, my motive of starting amateur radio is, as I've written in "Hamradio and Me" page of this HP, I was eager to talk in English with U.S. people. So it was very natural that the next step for me was to build a facility of HF radio for DX-QSO.

The problem was, I was in the first grade of senior high school, and had no money with me. What I could do is to look at junk parts (from TV set, etc.) everyday, thinking about what I could build with what I had. I used to vsit local old timers' shack, and ask them to let me touch with TRIO's all band AM transmitter, TX-88A (final:6146, 10W) + VFO-1, or TRIO's receiver, 9R59. They all were all tube equipment, of course. With a simple wired dipole antenna just about 7 or 8 meters above the ground, they were working North America, and Europe very easily at that time, and I was very much impressed strengthening my desire to have the same shack.

The first homebrew HF radio was 3.5MHz (5W input) AM transmitter using three tubes, controlled by a single X'tal. Tuning was made monitoring a neon bulb's brightness. It worked perfect at the first power on in spite of the first homebrew radio. A modulation circuit was Hishing modulation type using audio output transformer for speaker. Of course, there was no way to do DX QSO on 3.5MHz then, but it was a important step for me because now I was able to transmit a signal on HF.

The next thing to do was the antenna. My house was very small, and athe inverted-V for 7MHz was the maximum size of antenna that I could put up. I set a feeding point at the top of 4 meter long mast pipe for TV antenna mounted on the roof. It was obvious that the antenna never work for 3.5MHz, and what I could do was only a local QSO.

The receiver was a STAR(mereged to YAESU later)'s SR-100, very simple, small receiver for BCL, using only five tubes, which was given to me by an old timer in local. I would be excited with tears if I could see the receiver again now. It was just like a toy, but I modified many times and all those experiences certainly grew me up together with the TR-1000 I mentioned in the above. Anyway, 3.5MHz never turned in a practical use, and major use was cross band QSO with TR-1000 on 50MHz with my local stations.


A Challenge to the practical use Radio == The first step to ideal U.S.A. ==

As I became able to work with radios with soldering iron by then, my next target was more practical radio.

There was no way to get money for a senior high student being faced to the entrance exam of University. What helped me were the used parts from the old TV set which Dad gave to me. I asked old timers in my local for donation of some important parts that I could not find from the TV set. As I then had already learned that the low bands would never work to do DX QSO, I decided to build 7-28MHz transmitter with plug-in coils. For a chassis, I used a can for cookies which Mom gave me. Oscilator was still fixed circuit using a single X'tal. I remenber the frequency of the X'tal was 3.505MHz, and therefore, my transmitting frequency was fixed to 7.010MHz, 14.020MHz, 21.030MHz and 28.040MHz. I did not have enough parts then it was only for CW. It worked excellent with 20W output for all bands.

I needed a key for CW, but I had to build it because of the money. I used a blade of a small saw which my parents bought for me before, putting it up on a wooden base. It was a lateral movement key.

I only had an inverted V for 7MHz, and the receiver was STAR SR-100 which only worked practically on 3.5/7MHz. Therfore, operation was limited to 7MHz actually. I was happy with CW, because I could commuicate in English although the most of the sentence was in a short form. I was feeling that I was then much closer to U.S.A. than before.

The next thing I thought was to get better receiver so that I could hear the signal clearer and stably. Also I was thinking to get VFO so that I could transmit at the same frequency as the station that I wanted to work. I thought that if these problem were resolved, I sure would be able to chat with U.S. stations in English sentences. My desire was getting bigger day by day.

I decided to challenge to make a RF1+IF2(1 stage for RF amplify, and 2 stages for IF amplify) type receiver, which was the most standard composition in those days, as I could feel a little confidence to complete it by then. Of course, back again local old timers helped me a lot from the body to main parts. This receiver was note very stable, but had a practical sensitivity. The selectivity was almost none, and was able to monitor all the CWs plus minus several KHz with the same signal strength. However, this experience certainly brushed my ears up for CW. Since then for forty years, I have never needed CW filters. I can not be comfortable with noise which does not contain much information coming from limited band of the frequency. Whatever the noise came, if I can concentrate in a target tone, that is the best "hearing filter" which also tells breathing of a person who is working with CW key.

After the success of this receiver, I started to build a VFO. I had no knowledge about the temperature compensation, and it actually moved even a good time after the switch on. It continuously moved and should be called "Vary Frequency Oscilator" rather than "Variable Frequency Oscilator". In comparson with this VFO, the one in the receiver was much better, therefore, I established one operation technique that is to have the receiver working even during the transmission so that I could monitor the frequency of the VFO for transmitter, to adjust continuously the VFO to keep the tone from the receiver at the same frequency.

Anyhow, thus, my radios came to be able to work good enough to enjoy 7MHz CW QSO stably. I had many QSO with U.S. stations on CW. English is English even in a telegraphic message. I was so haapy and fell into raptures to become more distant from study. My record was dropped down to the bottom although I was at the top record when I entered the senior high school.


University entrance exam, laying across the path, and discontented days

Though I was deeply involved with hamradio, I became to think I had to be changed when I became the third grade of senior high school. I tried to hide away the radios in a closet, or left them with local old timers' hand. But I brought thme back and started QSO again, and then hide them again. I repeated this many times. I even do not remenber how many time I declared to go QRT to my local friends. In the logbook in these days a message "I WILL QRT!!" is written in every five page. Reviewing those I feel shameful with my will to controll my self in these days.

Becoming these days, even the local old timers came to press me for getting hamradio license. ( Oh, Yeah! I came here without license! ) Other local friends also aligned themselves with the old timers, and told me they would not do QSO anymore if I would not get a license. Thus, I at last begun to take action for it. I took an exam and passed to get a license after all. My former classmates stations got JH1 prefix which was the NO.2 prefix given in Japan followed to JA, but for this reason my prefix is JR, the NO.3 prefix given in Japan. Anyway, thus, amateur radio station JR1MAF was born.

My dream to realize phone QSO with U.S. stations was still far away, and I had no way other than staying cooped up with what I could do. I added a X'tal converter in the RF1+IF2 receiver so that the receiver became the one for 50MHz. Then, I started to build 50MHz AM/FM transmitter. The final tube was a 2E24(a direct heat tube of 2E26), and the output power was more than 10W. 6BQ5 push-pull was used for the modulator to provide the plate-screen co-modulation for AM. A varicap was used for FM modulation, and all worked perfect and stable.

I spent all my time for ragchew with local stations at nights, and the dream I saw was only about YAESU's SSB transceiver, FTDX-400. I had to spend one extra year because I could not pass the entrance exam, but finally, I barely could get enter the University. I at last could say farewell to my cooping senior high days. And at the same time, I started amateur radio activity in a large scale, of course.



** Please refer to "Historical Album of JR1MAF 1972-" after this.



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