2019

Tomohiro's college classmates came to visit his grave on Dec.31st. It's one of the busiest days in a year in Japan but they organized the visit as it was the only possible day among days during one of them's temporary home coming from Germany. There was another man we met for the first time. He lives in Tokyo and had missed chances before.
We had a good time in front of the the family altar.

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I renovated the antenna again in order to improve its gain. The gain resulted in 59db improving by 2db. Incidentally, a dipole gain for comparison is 46db.
This improvement was suggested again by Mr. Hahashi, the developer of the tuner, who surmised that considering the distance to the transmitting tower and the natural features in between, the gain by an hb9cv should be at least 65db.
Unfortunately, the work ended with 59db gain, 6db less the target gain. However, I have been enjoying listening to NHK-FM music more than ever without boosting the signal sice then.

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I have done anual three biggest autumnal events(1.Dredging 2.Pruning of the graveyard hedges 3.Pruning of trees in our yard). I overcame busy and exhausting five days in total.

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I improved HB9CV-II in two points.
1. I neatly adjusted elements' length so that the antenna is resonant with 82.5MHz accurately.
2. I built the new one on the veranda. The former one is built on the third-story housetop. The place is high but closer to a utility pole, a big suspect of noise, especially as it starts raining. The new place is lower but away from the utility pole and power lines.
The devices worked. Now my FM receiving is free of the rain caused noise and signals are strongre by some 5dbs. Click here for manufacture details.

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I reformed the HB9CV FM antenna making the two elements identical in length which is resonant with 82.5MHz. Unfortunately, the performance hasn't improved. I found one mistake in calculation which resulted a little shorter feeder to the reflector, another assignment to be solved. Luckily, I haven't found no mal influence on the sound. Details are here.

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A few months ago I built an HB9CV antenna for receiving the NHK-FM Nagoya but I finshed building it without gauging the frequency of the elements. I could shoot what was wrong with my dip meter and I have completed a dedicated coil (the glasses like device in the picture) with which I can now gauge the resonant frequency of a pipe element. Now I'm ready to improve the antenna and am waiting the daytime temperatures to cool down. Visit here for details.

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On August 13 when we visited the grave to offer floweres we found new flowers were already offered with a can of beer. They were offered by two of the old intimate friends of Tomohiro as they came back home during the Bon. I could meet one of them the next evening accidentally and knew the offerings were done by them. Thank you for the offerings.

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The LCD monitor which is built in the new fpga FM tuner told me the receiving condition of FM radio wave is very bad. In order to clean the receiving wave I made a dedicated filter for 82.5MHz. Please visit here for details.

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I built a new antenna in order to improve gain and directivity. It has replaced the old dipole mounted at the lowest posidion on the mast shown in the photo. The antenna added stabilty to the superb sound of the FPGA tuner. The LCD monitor which is built in the new fpga FM tuner told me the receiving condition of FM radio wave from NHK-FM Nagoya is very bad. In order to clean the receiving wave I made a dedicated filter for 82.5MHz. Please visit here for details.

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My new full digital fm-tuner has a monitor of the receiving radio wave and it has been suggesting me that I should improve the antenna for the better sound.
So, I started building a new HB9CV type antenna (photo above:half made). It's a two-element antenna which is more compact and efficient compared to a three-element yagi. However, it's more complicated and has been taking me more time and devices (photo above:short bar components). How will it turn out?

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The cooperative annual summer cleaning of the graveyard is scheduled on 28th of July for about an hour from 7 to 8 a.m. It's too short for me. So I finished trimming the hedges around our tomb today beforehand. That is, my job left on that day is weeding only. The trimming took about three hours in the fierce heat as it was last year.

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About a month ago my Trio KT-8300 FM tuner broke. It really wasn't but I judged so at that time. While surfing for a new tuner I came upon a fpga FM tuner developed by Teruhiko Hayashi. I bought one from him and encased it in an old broken dvd player as shown in the photo above. Encasing wasn't smooth. Only with his kind advices, for which I'm greatly thankful, could I make it working. For details please visit here.

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The cast iron hatch of our septic tank had dangerously corroded. I restored it as shown in the photo. The price of a new hatch, which was too expensive, decided me to restore it with the leftover FRP materials I had kept since the last speaker making. The hatch above looks wet but it's not. It only looks so with its polyester coating. For details click here.

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The 2019 artichoke we harvested.
We started growing artichoke while Tomohiro was in hospital with the seed he bought. The best harvest we have had.

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An old co-worker of my ex-son rode his Harley-Davidson to pay a visit to our son's grave from Shizuoka. It took him about two hours. It was a best day for riding, which I hope he enjoyed.
I showed him my old BMW R100RS which I have only been keeping, not riding for over 20 years. We enjoyed a while talking about bikes. Thanks Mr. SK for visiting.

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June 16 was my ex-son's 33rd birthday. His college classmates and an old friend visited his grave and offered beautiful flowers.
After visiting the grave the classmates spent a few hours before the altar remembering with us the days they shared with him.
We missed the old friend who separately visited the grave.
We thank them all for visiting the grave and offering the beautiful flowers.

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I installed a screen door to the door of the shed of which I restored the termite damage before. We had used an old screen door which was wider than the shed door only to keep out homeless cats as well as to keep in our cats which we had kept in the shed.
I reformed this old screen door to fit to the shed door. However the screen door I reformed was for a sliding door. I hadn't realized that a hinged door had a nob and a screen door for a sliding door couldn't be used as it was. In order to solve the problem I installed a nob pocket as shown in the photo. It took three days to finish the work! For details please visit here.

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I painted the northern wall of the garage/storage. The upper area was in better condition and so I painted the lower area only this time.
As I thought the wall was easier to paint I painted it lastly. However the rust damage was serious and the mending took longer.
The first photo shows the wall after I painted an anticorrosive. The second shows how the wall was finished with a polycarbonate backing. I hope the painting with the mending lasts longer.

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I've been still painting (getting close to the end). I had the photo taken while I was painting the southern wall of the garage/storage. The solar water heater which I painted last week is showing on the roof.
It had been left unattended too long time that I found some parts of which seriously rusted out. I removed the rust and painted neatly for the time being. Working on the roof tires me a lot for the sake of oxygen shortage(..never!).

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I've been still painting. I had the photo taken while I was painting the largest eaves above veranda. I have one more place planned to paint this time. Rainy days help me recover strength for continuing the work.

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Flowers are in full bloom at our entrance. I took the photo in spare moments from my painting work. Coldness still returns sometimes but we are enjoying warmer days and without bugs, especially mosquitoes.

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I've been engaged in painting. Restoring termite damage awakened me to such maintenance work. Our house has several eaves and walls of galvanized iron and I found some parts of them are rusting. I have to check the cover of the heat exchanger of the solar heater installed on top of the garage roof, too.
I have been troubled a lot because some eaves are at the difficult places to paint but I have been conscientious in doing this maintenance work because it is very probable that this is the last opportunity.

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As malcontact had become more often and worse I replaced connectors of the speaker networks on the Nautilus D.I.Y. The photo shows the network boards with the new connectors mounted. They were the networks originally used on a Technics SB-7 System.
The boards are different in color betraying, I suppose, a situation of the subcontracted workshop in those days. I had once found very different sized condensers of the same capacity. For details please visit the page on my website.

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Cherry blossoms are in full bloom in our place. I happened to enjoy them at a shrine next to the city library. A kind of spring festival was being held with big lanterns and banners raised. Warm and bright day it was.

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In finishing the work I painted the galvanized iron sheet around the door anew and gave preservatives to the foot of pillars. I had been poor in measuring, and so I paid a very careful attention this time that I could fit the pillars and the beam just into their places. I engraved in mind never to let termite haunt and the shed become a dump.
For details, please visit here.

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I happened to find termite damage in the shed attached to the house. A shocking discovery it was!
The shed had been our kittens' place too. They died one after another recently. My wife had taken care of them and I seldom went there. For many years it had been used unattended.
The shed was full of things. I could take the photo only after we cleared the place! As the damage was invisible I broke the surfaces of pillars and a peam in order to expose it.
We are still sorting and disposing things. It seems to take some more days before I can start fixing.

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In the eveing, though it was raining, I went for a walk as usual. Dropping in routinely at the graveyard I was surprised to find a lot of beautiful flowers being offered to the tomb.
I deeply appreciate the warm friendship of the person who visited the grave and offered flowers in secret on this day.

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Feb.19th is the third anniversary of my son's death. One old colleague at work paid a visit to his grave in spare moments from his work in the chilly rain.
We deeply thank him for his warm friendship.

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In the evening of Jan.16 my ex-son's college classmates paid visits to his grave. As usual, the married ones came with their families.
The visit was carried out because one of the classmates is expected to be transferred to Germany this spring and they'd find it difficult to get together for some time.
It was a chilly windy day. After visiting the grave we enjoyed sukiyaki together sharing a warm time talking about the days they spent with my ex-son.

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I paid a visit to another big cedar. We drove far deep into mountains in Gifu. However, the place was within the city precincts of Seki. There were a few houses around the tree but we witnessed only one person while we stayed at the place.
Giant the tree was but it appealed its existence far larger than life. According to the information on the board it was 50 meters high and 3 meters across the trunk.
There was a warning to keep off the roped area to avoid the risk of beeing hit by a falling branch but it was a calm day and we ventured to get close to the trunk to touch and feel it.

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Jan.30th was a warm, or rather hot windless day with the sun shining in the clear blue sky. It invited us to take for a drive with my wife to pay a visit to a big cedar.
The cedar was in the precincts of a shrine in Shiga Prefecture. It was about an hour drive. The tree was one at the base growing into three big trunks. We were alone there and we could enjoy watching and softly touching the tree without beeing bothered by other people.

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I completed (so I thought) this selector five years ago but presently some malfunction started. I have fixed it (so I thought) but recently a stressful mulfunction started again.
The cause was my poor soldering. It happened because I had not been used to the new type of print board with a large copper-foil area. It dissipates a lot of heat and thus results in poor solderings.
Such mulfunctions turn up sometime later. Last time about two years ago I took off boards and did a big fix which was not perfect though.
The mulfunction this time was on a left channel and I could shoot the exact point of the trouble as shown in the photo.


Incidentally the function of the selector is shown as in the bock chart below. You can select one set of equipment as you please out of five sources, three amps and two speaker systems. You can't find such a selector on the market.


Now that this fix is the last one I'm sure, the equipment sounds different to my ears.

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Monet's pond
(Installed on 2019/01/15, No.182)
Intrigued by unusual warmth I went for a drive with my wife to pay a visit to a pond which has become so popular as to be nicknamed "Monet's Pond." It was about an hour drive to go into mountains.
Though very warm it was, the pond was, naturally, putting on winter clothes but people like us were continuosly visiting in twos and threes. The place would be much beautiful and worth visiting again in a warmer season we thought.

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