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Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

Friday, February 16, 2024

Shuji Nakamora and his (Juliano) Blue Gallium Nitride LED


Lots of great stuff in this video:  

-- They get the charge carrier thing right:  contrary to many presentations, holes don't really move in a semiconductor.  Electrons move to fill holes, making it appear that the holes are moving. 

-- Interesting that Nakamura was so willing to defy company orders for so long. 

-- The description of the discipline that powered his inventiveness is inspiring. 

-- The way he was treated (badly) in Florida because he lacked a PhD is sadly illuminating. 

-- The discussion of corporate infighting is interesting.  

We wrote about Nakamura before:  https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2021/02/shuji-nakamura-inventor-of-juliano-blue.html


Monday, January 15, 2024

Clock Chimes from Japan - Contact with JA0LBE


This contact with Masa was a lot of fun.  2300Z January 14, 2024.  15 meters was obviously in great shape.  Suddenly I started hearing clock chimes.  The sound seemed to be coming from my rig.  Then I looked at my watch and realized we were at the top of the hour.   Masa-san's clock chimes were being picked up by his microphone.  The microphone was in his I-pad, which he was using to connect to his ham radio station.  Very cool. 

This email came in from Masa: 

兼子政彦 

Sun, Jan 14, 7:54 AM (20 hours ago)
to me
Hello Bill

Thank you very very much for your Email attached the video of our QSO.

Your homemade transceiver is working excellent! I was very surprised to watch the video. I checked transmitting of your equipment is very good this morning. And this evening I understood receiving was also very very good. Congratulations on your homemade equipment.

I have tried remote operation for several months. But I’m afraid my transmitting is not good.
Thanks for your video, I could tell following things. Thank you so much l appreciate it.
My remote signal has almost no blinking up,I felt.
There are about 2 seconds latency on my transmitting.
Most important thing I realize is English conversation over the phone is very difficult for me. I need to learn intonation and pronunciation of English much more.

Again thank you very much for your Email,I appreciate it.

Have a nice day. And good night from Japan.
73!
JA0LBE, Masa in NAGANO

Friday, December 29, 2023

7J6CBQ on Okinawa -- And a Translation of a Science Fiction Novel about Ham Radio in China

 


The article about Sergeant Malik Pugh USMC on Okinawa brought back memories from the 1990s. David Cowhig was 73 Magazine's Hambassador on Okinawa -- I had the same "position" in the Dominican Republic.  David and I were both in the Foreign Service;  we joked that 73 had afforded us our only chances to be ambassadors of any kind.  David's Okinawa QSL and the opening from his initial report to 73 magazine appear above.  You can see more here: 







A couple of my own "dispatches" as Hambassdor to the Dominican Republic appear here: 

Back in the 90's David sent me an old QST Magazine.  I wrote about this on the SolderSmoke blog: 

Later, I learned about another "Hambassador" who was still active as a radio amateur: Ron Gang 4X1MK:  

Finally (and this is really cool):  David Cowhig has been putting his language skills to good use, translating Chinese written material.  He sent me his translation of the opening chapters of a Chinese science fiction novel about ham radio.   Readers of the SolderSmoke Daily News will like this: 


We Live in Nanjing 《我们生活在南京》

Thanks David! 

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

A Marine's Home Workshop on Okinawa

 
Sergeant Malik Pugh recently won the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal for stepping forward and 3D printing a part that was needed to put a satellite terminal back in operation.  That's was great, but even more interesting for us is the fact that Sergeant Pugh has a home electronics workshop in his place on family quarters on Okinawa.  See picture above.  

The workshop seems to be focused on RC cars, robots and drones, but there is clearly ham radio potential there.  This may be the first time since David Cowhig WA1LBP's tour on the island in the early 1990s that we see a workshop like this one.  David was 7J6CBQ and, in addition to his duties at the American Consulate at Naha, Okinawa, served as 73 Magazine's "Hambassdor" (I was the Hambassador to the Dominican Republic at the same time).  

Read about Sergeant Pugh here: 

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Super Solar Storms May Not Be So Rare

 
Click on the image for a clearer view

Yesterday's Washington Post had a good story about large solar storms.  We are all aware of the Carrington Event (September 1859) but there were others.  The Japanese painting above depicts an event of February 4, 1872.   

Around 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 4, 1872, the sky above Jacobabad suddenly brightened, as if a portal to heaven had opened. A passerby watched in amazement and terror, while a pet dog became motionless, then trembled. The godly glow morphed, from red to bright blue to deep violet, until morning.


Electric communication cables mysteriously glitched in the Mediterranean, around Lisbon and Gibraltar, London and India. Confused telegraph operators in Cairo reported issues in sending messages to Khartoum. One incoming message asked what was the big red glow on the horizon — a fire or a faraway explosion?


This of course reminded me of the event that I witnessed as a teenager in New York in 1972: 


 https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2009/09/carrington-flares-aurora-where-were-you.html  


That post has resulted in a steady stream of comments, mostly from non-hams.  Apparently people remember seeing the event, then search the web for clues as to what it was.  Google brings them to that post on the SolderSmoke Daily News.  The comments are usually along the lines of, "Wow!  I saw it too!"  Very cool.  


Thursday, September 14, 2023

Building Nixie Tubes for a Hiroshima Project


Thanks to Bob Scott KD4EBM for alerting me to this wonderful video.  It seems especially timely, given the recent release of the Oppenheimer movie.  

I posted back in 2000 about Dalibor Farny and the Nixie tubes he makes in a castle in the Czech Republic:

In this more recent video (above) Dalibor describes a very cool and very challenging Nixie tube project:  A museum in Hiroshima Japan was presenting an art project designed by a Chilean artist.  The display needed a lot of large, custom-made Nixie tubes, some of which would display Japanese language characters.  So: Museum in Japan, Chilean artist, Nixe maker in the Czech Republic.  There are big geographic challenges before you even get to the technical challenges.

Dalibor does a great job in describing all of the challenges that they faced.  The technical stuff will be especially interesting to SolderSmoke listeners.  His description of the evolution of his Czech workshop fits very well with our "other kinds of workshops" theme. 

The video is really worth watching.  Check it out (above).  The ending is quite moving. 

Thanks again to Bob Scott.   Congratulations to Dalibor, his crew, and to all those involved in this Hiroshima museum project. 

Sunday, September 11, 2022

An Especially Good (Old) SolderSmoke Podcast


February 22, 2008    
-- We were in Rome.  
-- I read a 1931 QST ad sent to me by my fellow "Hambassador" David Cowhig, WA1LBP; David was in Okinawa when he sent it. 
-- I describe Wes Hayward's comments about Pat Hawker, G3VA. 
-- I talk about getting on the air with my HW-8 (after fixing it!), re-tubing my Drake 2-B, and putting up a 30AWG antenna in Rome. 
-- I describe meeting up with Roman hams (including amplifier manufacturer I0ZY!) and visiting the local radio club.
-- The Science Museum in Florence, Italy. 
-- DSB from Rome with my NE602 rig. 
-- Tony Fishpool and Graham Firth's Test Gear book. 
-- An important corollary to Murphy's Law. 
-- Listening to SolderSmoke from safari, under the Southern Cross in South Africa. 
-- Ron Sparks calls in from Dubai. 

You can put on a playlist of all the SolderSmoke podcasts here: 

Monday, June 20, 2022

QRP Labs HQ Tour


Really cool to see Hans describe his QRP Labs workshop in Turkey.  Lots of soul in that worshop.  Thanks Hans.  

 And here is a 2022 Turkish media interview with Hans and his team in the workshop:  

Sunday, May 8, 2022

The JF3HZB Digital VFO Dial in the DJ7OO Direct Conversion Receiver (Who is JF3HZB?)



Pete was talking about this beautiful Digital VFO dial in the latest podcast.  In response, Klaus sent me an e-mail with links and the video above,  describing how he used the VFO dial in a very cool Direct Conversion receiver project.  TRGHS. 

Here is the web site (you can easily get the English translation by clicking on the UK flag link): 
http://www.kh-gps.de/uni-rx.htm

Thank you Klaus!  And thanks to JF3HZB!  (Does anyone have more information on him?) 

Saturday, December 4, 2021

A Great Morning on the Old Military Radio Net: AB9MQ's Central Electronics 20A, W3EMD's Dynamotor, WU2D

Just a portion of Masa's shack

I usually try to listen in on the Old Military Radio Net on Saturday mornings (3885 kc).  Lately I listen with my Mate for the Mighty Midget receiver.  

This morning's session was especially good.  For me the highlight was when Masa AB9MQ called in from Normal, Illinois using his Central Electronics 20A (see below).   That was one of the earliest SSB rigs.  A phasing rig, it also ran AM (which was what Masa was using this morning).  He had it paired up with a Central Electronics 458 VFO.  You folks really need to check out Masa's QRZ.com page: 

https://www.qrz.com/db/AB9MQ

Buzz W3EMD called in from Rhinebeck, NY.  I could hear his dynamotor in the background.  Buzz said hello to Masa in Japanese.   FB.

Always great to hear Mike WU2D


Thursday, September 23, 2021

Great News for Homebrewers: JF1OZL's Amazing Web Site is Back!


I was very happy to read this morning (on the G-QRP e-mail list) that the amazingly useful web site of Homebrew Hero Kazuhiro Sunamora has been resurrected after too many years in 404 status. 

Here it is:

https://www.qrp-ja.net/jf1ozl/index.html 

There is a LOT of tribal knowledge and lot of great ideas on his site.  Kazuhiro-san has apparently quit wireless, but is climbing mountains near his home.  We hope is doing well and that he will someday return to radio (perhaps for the peak of cycle 25).  

We last posted about him back in 2011.  In the comments to that post you can see the sad news about the demise of his web site (which is now back on the web): 

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2011/12/homebrew-hero-kazuhiro-sunamura-jf1ozl.html

JF1OZL's bio: 

My name is Kazuhiro Sunamura. I am a 50 year old mechanical engineer, born in 1956. I am not an engineer in electronics. I have been interested in electricity and radio from the age of ten. For the last ten years, I have been active on my ham radio station JF10ZL. I have also written articles about my some of my radio projects in Japanese for the Japanese CQ Magazine. Now I have decided to get onto the internet and will take the opportunity of showing you my equipment and ideas. Please have a look at my schematics. I will be very happy if this material helps you with your own radio projects. I am a member of the J.A.R.L. affiliated Tsuchiura Club, the local ham club in my home town.


Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Kintsugi -- A Japanese Philosophy for the Owners of Imperfect Rigs


 On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 4:05 PM Bob Scott wrote:

Hi Bill:

   After listening to the latest Soldersmoke I thought you might find the Japanese concept of "kintsugi" (literally "golden joinery") interesting.  
 

       As a philosophy, kintsugi is similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.[11][12] Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear from the use of an object. This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage, and can be seen as a variant of the adage "Waste not, want not".[13]

  Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of mushin (無心, "no mind"), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate as aspects of human life.[14]
 
  Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated... a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin....Mushin is often literally translated as "no mind," but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. ...The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or perhaps identification with, [things] outside oneself.

 — Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics


73,
  Bob KD4EBM

--------------------------------------------

I shared Bob's Kintsugi message with David, WA1LBP.  David was one of the few radio amateurs in the ranks of the Foreign Service.  He was in Okinawa during the early 1990s, when I was in Santo Domingo.  For a time we both wrote columns in the "73 International" section of Wayne Green's magazine -- this made us "Hambassadors."  David is a real scholar of difficult Asian languages.  During my last years in government service I would sometimes cross paths with David at lunch time on the National Mall in Washington -- he'd be out there with a colleague, studying ancient Chinese poetry. 

Here are David's thoughts on this: 

Thanks,  Hambassador Bill.

In Buddhism, muxin (in Chinese wuxin) is about freeing oneself from troubling thoughts, distractions, and selfishness and so attaining a calmness that is very aware of all that goes on at the same time.  I suppose once free from distractions one can be more alert.  So maybe not literally no mind but no-selfish-obsessed-mind

Amazing what one can find online. A distraction too I suppose!


Chan embraced this account of nonduality and Buddha-nature, but distinctively used it to qualify the meaning of Buddhist practice and the personal ideal of the bodhisattva. In the Platform Sutra attributed to Huineng, he insists that

meditation is the embodiment (ti) of wisdom, and wisdom is the functioning (yong) of meditation.

The point of Chan is to see one’s own “original nature” (benxing, 本性) and realize “authentic heartmind” (zhenxin, 眞心), and in doing so the dualities of thought and reality, of passion and enlightenment, and of the impure and pure all dissolve. Then,

true suchness (zhenru, 真如) is the embodied structure (ti) of thinking, while thinking is the functioning (yong) of true suchness. (Platform Sutra, 13–17)

To see our own original nature is to see that true suchness and thinking are as intimately related as the bodily structure of a horse and its customary activities. Just as the bodily structure of the horse establishes the conditions of possibility for grazing and galloping, it is only the proven evolutionary advantage of grazing and galloping in horse-like ways that have made this bodily structure possible. True suchness or ultimate reality is not a preexistent something “out there” that can be grasped intellectually or accessed through some mystical vision; it can only be enacted.

Huangbo Yixun (d. 850) describes this as demonstrating no-“mind” (wuxin, 無心) or freedom from conceptual impositions that would define or limit reality. But this is not a lapse into mental blankness or indiscriminate presence. Realizing no-“mind” restores our originally whole mind (yixin, 一心) that Huangbo qualifies as the “silent bond” (moqi, 默契) of “conducting oneself as all Buddhas have” (in Taishō shinshō daizūkyu, Vol.48, 2012.380b to 383c). Significantly, the term “qi” originally referred to notches or tally marks on a strip of bamboo that record the terms of a trade agreement and the bonding that Huangbo invokes is thus one of mutually entrusted obligation and responsibility. True suchness consists in the personification of the bodhisattva ideal of realizing liberating forms of relationality. Ultimate reality consists in enacting the morally-inflected nonduality of wisdom and compassion.

David 

-----------------------------------------------------

I remember that it was George Dobbs, G3RJV who introduced us to the concept of Wabi sabi:

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2010/04/homebrew-hero-george-dobbs-g3rjv.html


This philosophical embrace of imperfection and repair is very appealing to me.  I am surrounded by old radios that bear the marks of wear, tear and repair.  My homebrew radios are filled with imperfections (especially in the cabinetry).   But Kintsugi tells me this is all OK.  I accept it. 

Thanks Bob.  Thanks Hambassador David. And thanks to George Dobbs. 

Sunday, April 11, 2021

RIP Isamu Akasaki -- Shared Nobel Prize for LED -- Analog Guy


From the obituary in the Washington Post: 

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Dr. Akasaki’s honors included a 2009 Kyoto Prize — Japan’s highest honor — recognizing developments in advanced technology. He found that some technology, however, needed no advancing at all. He took great pleasure, for example, in long-playing classical music records.

On that point, he joked, “I am analog.”

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Shuji Nakamura -- The Inventor of Juliano Blue LEDs

He is the 2014 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics.   He is the person who figured out how to make blue light LEDs through the use of an Indium Gallium Nitride semiconductor.  I was reading about him this morning in "Conquering the Electron" by Derek Cheung and Eric Brach.  Thanks to Nakamura, the numerals on all my frequency displays glow in a pleasing Juliano blue.  Three cheers for Nakamura! 

More on him here: 

https://www.trumpf.com/en_US/presse/online-magazine/nobel-price-winner-nakamura-wants-more-light/

Monday, July 13, 2020

"The All Japanese 6" Receiver


One of the great things about having a "miscellaneous" box in an otherwise well-ordered junk collection is that rummaging through that box will often send you off on fun and interesting radio adventures.  I was rummaging yesterday and I came across the guts of the little AM radio that used to be mounted on my bicycle handle bars.  I last mentioned this in 2011 : 

I was just about to cannibalize this board.  The IF transformers were almost certainly at 455 kc and I could use a few of those.  But then I started thinking and Googling and trying to figure out the circuit.  That all led me this the site that provided the diagram below: 


Six transistors, four transformer cans, two audio transformers.  Yea, that's pretty close to what I was seeing on my board.  So of course I had to see if I could get it going.   I hooked up a 9V battery.  I connected the pot wiper connection directly to the connection at the top of where the pot had been (it had disintegrated).  It works!  It is inhaling nearby WFAX, Falls Church, Virginia. 

You will notice that the transistors in the circuit above are PNP.  I had assumed negative ground and had hooked the battery up accordingly.  No smoke was released and the thing worked, so I guessed that I had assumed NPN correctly.  Sure enough, perhaps aware of the PNP ancestry, the manufacturer had marked my board "BC123 NPN"! 

The author of the book I linked to above dubbed this circuit the "All Japanese 6"  -- an obvious allusion to the All American 5.  

I see real potential in these AJ6s.   A few mods to the front end and you could be shortwave listening, perhaps on 31 meters!   


BTW:  The space on my handlebars formerly occupied by that little AM radio is now taken up by a Bluetooth speaker that plays tunes streamed to my I-phone from Pandora as I make my way down the same old Washington and Old Dominion bike path.  Progress. 



Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Emilio's Mirror of JF1OZL's Site

JF1OZL's site was for many years a real treasure trove and source of inspiration for homebrewers around the world.  It recently disappeared from the internet.  And I find no listing for JF1OZL on QRZ.com.   I hope Kazuhiro is OK.  

Emilio in Mexico has put up a mirror site.  Thanks Emilio.  We need to protect and preserve JF1OZL's work. 

https://www.emilio.com.mx/jf10zl/

Here is a SolderSmoke blog post on Kazuhiro from 2011: 

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2011/12/homebrew-hero-kazuhiro-sunamura-jf1ozl.html

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Jonathan-san (Our Man in Japan) Now Melting Solder in Seattle


Got a nice note from Jonathan W0XO.  He and the family  have relocated to the Seattle area.  Here we see Jonathan at work in his new shed/shack.  It looks great. 

Long-time SolderSmoke fans will remember Jonathan from his previous life in Asia. See: 

Sunday, February 17, 2019

SSTV from SPAAAAACE! International Space Station Sends Images


The crew on the space station have been transmitting SSTV images.   This morning I threw together a receiving system:  I used my four element refrigerator tubing quad feeding the an RTL-SDR Dongle with HD-SDR software in the computer.  For the SSTV decoding I downloaded a program from Japan: MMSSTV (very nice).  To get the signal from HD-SDRto MMSSTV I just plugged a cheap little electret computer mic into the computer and taped it to the speaker.  

At 0838 local today ISS flew almost directly over me.   I aimed the quad south-west, and almost as soon as it was above the horizon very strong signals started pouring in.  They produced the first picture (above).  

ISS went silent as it passed over head. I swung the quad to the north-east hoping to catch another image as the station moved away.  That is the second image (below). You can see that I was losing the signal about halfway through.  

The distortion in the video image may be the result of me manually adjusting the receiver for Doppler shift. 


Here is a little video of the action in the shack during the first half of the pass. 


Here is the RTL-SDR Dongle Receiver in an Altoids Box: 

Here is that the programs looked like on the screen -- HDSDR on top, MMSS on the bottom:  


Here is what the orbital pass looked like. ISS was East of New Zealand when I took this picture.  ISS came up over the Eastern Pacific and Mexico before passing over N2CQR.  This display comes from the excellent Heavens Above web site:  




Sunday, April 8, 2018

AMAZING 1999 Video on the Invention of the Transistor at "Hell's Bells Laboratory"



Thanks to Armand WA1UQO for alerting me to this.  I really liked the book -- "Crystal Fire" -- that this 1999 video is loosely based on. I'm also a fan of the narrator,  Ira Flatow, whose melodious voice is heard each week on NPR's excellent "Science Friday" radio show. 

A few observations and thoughts on the video: 

-- I liked the irreverant Calypso song "Hell's Bells Laboratory."  It looks like those folks had a lot of fun.  And wow, Shockly's secretary was named Betty Sparks.  TRGHS. 

-- I have the same big Variac on my bench.  And I have one of those "third hand" devices.  

-- I'd like to build my own replica of the point contact device with the triangular piece of lucite and the gold foil. 

-- While Shockley seems to be the real bad guy in this story (he seems to have all the bad characteristics of David Sarnoff,  Lee DeForest, and Steve Jobs),  I liked the his use of "physical intuition" to understand devices and the problems they were meant to solve.  

-- The image of the two Japanese founders of Sony working in the late 1940's in a bombed out department store was very powerful.   

-- Although I came on the scence a bit later, I WAS one of those kids who used a transistor radio and an earphone to surreptitiously listen to rock-and-roll music. 

-- "More transistors are made each year than raindrops fall on California."  Hmmm.... 

More info here:  http://www.pbs.org/transistor/
Extra interviews:  http://www.pbs.org/transistor/tv/index.html
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