I operated from club station KA2DX in the Tokyo area.  We had to fight hard for every Caribbean or Central America contact!   We pushed our little Yaesu FL-xxxx amp hard and caused a lot of arcs and sizzles on the higher HF bands.

i really enjoyed my time in Japan.    We made regular trips to Akihabara, visited the Yaesu factory a couple of times, and talked to the Icom folks a lot.    When I left, plans were underway to help review manuals for transceivers and maybe write a monthly column in English for CQ Ham Radio.    Local JA hams came  on base to visit the club station and come to meetings.  We went to some of their meetings and participated in an event much like Field Day.

There were no repeaters that I remember, but 2 meters was absolutely full of signals.  Early versions of handie talkies seemed to be everywhere.  I climbed Mt. Fuji and ran across a bunch of young hams using the little Trio rigs from the high altitudes.  I think they were  TR-22’s   Good times!

Dennis/RZ

On Sun, Nov 19, 2023 at 11:01 AM Trent Fleming <trent.fleming@gmail.com> wrote:
Agree about their courtesy.  Also
Fascinated by the unique propagation from JA to the Caribbean region. 

Trent
N4DTF



On Nov 19, 2023, at 9:41 AM, Steven Rutledge <crownhaven@bellsouth.net> wrote:



When I worked the ten meter contest from C6 circa 1987, the cycle was coming up.  I was told there were thousands of JA's who needed C6 and other Caribbean countries.  I had 100 watts and a 10 meter Ringo.  Well, they were right.  I was swamped with JA stations, swamped.  However, I noticed and remembered one thing about them.  They were the most disciplined ops on the air.  I would have a pile-up that sounded like Bouvet on FT8, usually in the evening.  I would say "stand by" and it was like I unplugged my antenna.  I don't know if its still like that but that is the only time I have ever heard anything like that.

Thanks Joel/Trent/Dennis

Steve, N4JQQ/C6AFP

On 11/19/2023 8:22 AM, w5znjoel@gmail.com wrote:

Trent – THAT’S IT !!!!!!  😊

 

From: Trent Fleming <trent.fleming@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2023 8:18 AM
To: w5znjoel@gmail.com
Cc: ADXA <adxa@mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [ADXA] How many JA's?

 

It’s a trick! Theys two of them!!!

 

 



On Nov 19, 2023, at 5:22 AM, w5znjoel@gmail.com wrote:



That’s a funny story, Dennis! Sort of reminds me of a Lewis Grizzard story about the union solders leaving Atlanta and a lone confederate solder atop Stone Mountain mooning the troops as they went by! I won’t relate it here, folks can google it.

 

Yes if the prop is to JA you might as well QRX cause there’s gonna be a herd of them in there for a while.

 

ZN

 

From: adxa-bounces@mailman.qth.net <adxa-bounces@mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Dennis Schaefer
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2023 10:06 PM
To: ADXA <ADXA@mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [ADXA] How many JA's?

 

First, I want to make it clear that I have tremendous respect for Japanese people and Japanese hams.   We spent 2 years there and our son still has Japanese citizenship because he was born there.   I got to know many JA hams and was impressed at how active and enthusiastic they were back in the 1970's.

 

Having said that, when trying to work a DXPedition in the Asia/Pacific area, one begins to wonder just how many JA's there really are????  It reminded me of a joke....

 

General Chesty Puller was a famous Marine general in WWII.  He was interested in taking an island and had two Japanese prisoners.  He asked the first one "how many Japanese soldiers are on that island?".   The soldier said "oh, many, many, many.  As many as the grains of sand on the beach".  Puller sent him away and brought in the second prisoner.  "how many Japanese soldiers are on that island?"   This time, the answer was "as many as the stars in the sky".   A Marine scout came running in with a report.  "How many Japanese" asked Puller.   The scout said "A whole damn potful of  'em, sir".  Puller then said "Well, I'm glad we finally found someone WHO CAN COUNT!"

 

So, ham radio is alive and well in Japan and I welcome them to the pileups, no matter what their numbers are!

 

I've worked a bunch - 8 new band counters today so far,  so no real complaints about the competition.  I worked on the 160M antenna some and fixed a bad connector on the 80M antenna.

 

73,

Dennis/RZ

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