Earthquake in Hokkaido

A huge earthquake hit a north island of Japan yesterday.  Many people were killed and injured in the neighboring area of Sapporo. Most of the areas are suffring from the shortage of electricity and water.

ICF-EX5MK2

I didn't noticed that SONY ICF-EX5MK2 had been discontinued.  This model is famous for its high sensitivity as a portable radio and had been produced over 30 years following the previous model ICF-EX5.
SONY has already discontinued the shoortwave radio ICF-7600GR, which was one of a few choices for enthusiastic listeners.

Break

In the morning, I dropped by a coffee shop for a short break every Monday.

Autumn

September has come. The end of the summer and the eiginning of the autumn. The condition of the amateur radio bands are getting better and some signals from Europe can be heard on several bands.

New GP antenna

I set up a new antenna for VHF and UHF. This is Diamond's V2000. This antenna is 2.5m long featuring the coverage of 50MHz as well as 144 and 430MHz. One of the three radials covers 50MHz, which can be moved for changing the lowest frequency of SWR. The season of Espo has ended. I hope this will be of much help in the next season.

Break time

It is sunny day here around my place. I came to the coffee shop and have a relaxing time in listening to the radio via Internet. This cafe is equipped with free-wifi, and it helps us a lot to get information.

Break at Starbucks

As usual, I go out for a break to the nearby Starbucks. I carry a notebook and a ipod touch and spend some time there. This is a nice place to stay to check some news and information on the internet.

Panasonic DR29

I'v purchased some old radios which date back to 70s in the last several months. In those days, some radio manufacturing companies produced a series of radios for shortwave listening. Sony, Panasonic Toshiba are among them. Most of them were Japan's companies because young Japanese generation of those years were keen to listen to radios as a hobby.
Panasonic made a couple series of portable radios such as Cougar and Proceed. I got one of them. It's DR29. This model is similar to RF-2800 for Japanese market but slightly different in some features. DR29 was produced for Europe and equipped with some functions which were omitted in the Japanese model.

Hot days

It's been a while since I last posted a note on this blog. During the winter time, I prefer to relax rather watching TV or listening to the radio than concentrating on something enthusiastically. In the last month, the Olimpic Games were held in Canada and I spent some time for watching them day and night.

New Years Days

As usual, I've spent New Years Days at home with my family. I drank a lot of Sake and ate Japanese traditional food. At night I watched a Korean history drama "Tears of Dragons which focuses on the beginning of Joseon Dynasty.

GRAND SEIKO SBGT033

The 40th anniversary model of Grand Seiko has been released today. And I bought one as my second Grand Seiko. SBGT033 is featuring in an unique dial design symbolizing the mark of quartz.

SEIKO TYPE2

I had been used a Seiko Type2, which was produced more than 30 years ago, in my school days. It's a old-fashioned quartz watch featuring a simple face and colors. I kept it in my desk for a long time without exchanging batteries. A couple of months ago, I encountered a watch shop which provides maintenance services of old watches. I sent my watch last week and received it today.

It's a real surprise to see my cleanly repaired watch indicating the correct time. I asked the shop to attach a new stainless belt to it and I found that the belt fits perfectly to the appearance of the watch.

Rainy day

It's been raining all the day today. I dared to go out to enjoy my day off. As usual, I dropped by at the Indian curry shop and had a special menu which offers a special taste with a variety kind of spices.

I often go to these kind of curry shops run by Indian people in the area of my home town. There a dozen of shops and I've visited most of them. The tastes are a bit different each other but overall I like them.

SEIKO SARB031

I purchased a new watch, SEIKO SARB031.

A present from Korea

I received a nice present from Radio Korea International. It's a small 'SENSU', which is a folding fan. I regurarly applied to the quiz of this station and almost everytime they sent me some gifts as prizes. Each of them I've recieved was related to the Korean culture or this station itself. I always appreciate their kindness.

NHK Foreign language programs

New programs for foreign languages have just begun on NHK TV and radio. I picked up some of the course. NHK offers us a variety kind of course rainging from a basic English to advanced Korean and Arabic. But despite the diversity of the programs, some courses are repeated, repeated and repeated again. For example, TV Russian course seems to have been going in regular cycles as well as the radio Arabic one.  I presume that education programs like langage learning are made on a tight budget in this recession. I hope more programs are produced for such languages as Russia and Arabic. 

Kenwood R-300

I got an old receiver again. It's Kenwood R-300. This antique receiver had been one of the receiver that youngsters those days were willing to have  for shotwave listening in the 70s. My R-300 came from the States through ebay. The condition is more than what I've expected. 

R-300 offers us an analog readout using a spread dial. It is not so accurate as the new ones equipped with digital readouts. But I'm sarisfied with the performance becase it give me a pleasure of operating the radio with dials instead of pushing buttoms. The audio quality is not so good as the other receivers of mine such as IC-R8500 and R8B. I connected an audio speaker to it and it made the sound a little better. 

An electric typewriter

I got an old typewriter frim the Web auction laterly. It's an electric one produced by Brother more than 20 years ago. I'm a fan of old typewriters that are not categorized in antique ones and prefer manual ones. The sound of typing is something that remided me a feeling I had when watching old American movies.  

FM transmitter for ipod touch

I got a new gadget, a FM transmitter for ipod touch. I always carry my ipod touch when going out everyday. It is equipped with a small speaker on the back surface, which allows us to listen without a earphone. But due to the poor audio quality of this speaker, I always use a FM transmitter which send  sound to a radio.