I am sometimes asked where or what place I am located by foreign hams in QSO. It is in the northern part of Kanto area, 50 miles north of Tokyo. It is the southern edge of the mountain area spreading in the north. It is just a ranges of very low hills here. Our place is on one of them, only a few meters above the troughs in the west and the east. Hardly recognized as a top of a hill range running south and north. If you climb on the tower, you may have a great command of view especially for the northern direction. No obstacles at all.
It has been a farming area for years though there have more numbers of factories for the past decades. Our place is surrounded with rice paddies. At this time of a year, they water them to plant rice. In the northern direction, there is such a watered paddy. They say it is making my signal take off more efficiently than in the seasons though the station owner scarcely appreciate it.
We have a lawn garden with a small farm in the western direction as this photo shows a part of it. Very few visitors come here. But I am still trying to pull the weeds and mowing lawn in a regular interval. It is a kind of self-satisfaction. My father, when he was alive, used to do the same way in his retirement. Concentrating on pulling the weeds in the garden, I often feel my blood was from the ancestor of native farmer here.
Between works in the garden, I am pounding the brass as you hear me on the radio. Even though very few answer to me. So that is the story where I am and how I am doing.
Hi Shin,
ReplyDeleteSaturday night my girls begged me to camp out in our backyard with them. In the morning I looked up at the sky just getting light and thought, now would be a good time to get on the radio and see if 40m is open to Japan. I tuned to 7020 and sure enough you were there having a QSO with a fellow from Dayton, OH. Then we had our QSO, this makes number three! Thanks for your QSL card as well. Best regards, Philip
Hi Phil,
DeleteI was again thrilled to hear your tiny signal! It is quite unusual that 40m could open to the east coast at this time in a year. Your signal was coming through here steadily though not very loud.
Your daughters might still be very young. Time flies away very soon. So have much fun with them every moment there.
See you for further chatting soon.
I was also surprised and happy that the path was open to you this season. As you said elsewhere in this blog, a QSO is a precious link between people because it depends on so many factors outside our control. Some may call it luck, others call it providence, but we always need to pay attention to who we are put in contact with and remember that there is a human being on the other side of the link. Like when we say HPE CUAGN at the end of a QSO, do we really mean it?
DeleteI appreciated the advice about my daughters, yes they are still young and growing up so fast. Its easy to get so caught up in the day to day problems and forget that its all temporary and we just need to enjoy them now. Thanks for that reminder.