How I am getting along recently...

Lately, my work as well as the good condition on the higher bands have been keeping me busy.  In morning and evening, I am getting on 20 or 15m. The bands are always good for the east coasts as well as Europe. I feel relaxed to hear my friends' signals from there with a bit of flutter. The photo above shows my anntena, a tribander for 40 through 20m with a 4 element monobander for 10m above it. 4 element is exactly 3.5 element only. When Bruce K6ZB visited here with his wife last fall, he took some photos. He has submitted some to FOCUS, FOC magazine, with some sentences. The editor at that time, Chris G4BUE, has noticed the 4 element Yagi had lost the half element of the 1st director!! and let me know that through Bruce. I seldom got on 10m. That may be the reason why I haven't noticed this defect. I used to find a piece of aluminum tube in the garden sometime ago. I should have looked up the tower then and figured the number of the elements of the beams there!

The photo below shows the entrance road from the street to our home. The gate stone was half destroyed by the big earth quake in March. On the left of the entrance, we have a bit of lawn garden, which has kept me busy careing for throughout summer. Now that duty is almost over. I should cut the trees along the entrance and some branches of the tress around before it gets cold.  It is the time of harvest. Crisp and cool breeze is coming through over the harvested rice paddies now. One of the best seasons here.

I have a small concert scheduled on Oct 8. Music lovers are gathering at a local hall, where we play pieces together or in solo. Some will sing while the others will play instruments. I will play the 1st and, probably, the 2nd movement of piano trio by Faure. I have yearned playing this piece by myself since my young days. We have finished playing the 2nd piano trio by Brahms this winter after practising for a year. It was an achivement for me, even if we won't question about the result. It was a lot of fun to play in ensemble. The violinist makes a signal, in German, Einsatz, to start music inspiring deeply as if she were telling us "let's start it now". It is always touching me a lot. It sounds we are living and singing music together. It means more than a signal in performance but a sign of having fun of life together.