Chapter 3 Poplar
No. 66 Muxuyuan Street, Qinhuai District, Zhongqinyuan, Meihua Villa.
It takes an hour to walk to Zijin Mountain and ten minutes to walk to Crescent Lake. With mountains, water and city walls, it is a Feng Shui treasure land. The housing price in the community is more than 30,000 yuan per square meter.
Bai Yang rode his bicycle quickly across the road of Alfalfa Garden Street, jumped from under one street lamp to under another, then turned left and entered the community gate. When he rushed over the speed bump, the wheels were suspended in the air, and then he stopped heavily, and rode away into the night and disappeared in the surprised gaze of the security guard.
"Ride slower--!"
The security guard stuck his head out and shouted.
"I know, Uncle Cai!"
He is in a hurry.
It was already half past ten when the evening study session was over, and it was almost eleven o'clock when he rode his bike home. Life in the third year of high school was always so tight. His mother required Bai Yang to go to bed before twelve o'clock every night. If he wanted to find time to do something before going to bed, he had to go home as soon as possible.
My home is in Unit 2, Building 11. Turn left and walk 20 meters after entering the community.
8th floor, 804.
Bai Yang parked his bicycle downstairs and locked it, then rushed upstairs with his schoolbag on his back. The voice-controlled lights in the corridor lit up from the bottom to the top of the building the second he stepped into the unit door.
Bai Yang rushed to the eighth floor in one breath, took out the key to open the door, put down his schoolbag in the entrance hall and changed his shoes. The lights in the living room were still on, but his parents were already asleep at this time. Bai Yang leaned over to take a look at their bedroom, and sure enough, the door was closed.
The midnight snacks my mother prepares are usually kept warm in a rice cooker, which is placed on the dining table and plugged in.
If Baiyang comes back from evening study and feels hungry, then there is something to eat.
The midnight snack is usually noodles or rice. Bai Yang does not go home for dinner, so his mother will keep a separate portion of the dinner meal and keep it warm in the rice cooker.
He opened the pot and saw the hot fried noodles.
Bai Yang tried to touch the bowl and found it was not too hot, so he took the bowl and went back to his room.
"Xiao Yang?"
As I passed my parents' bedroom, I heard my mother's muffled voice through the door.
"Well, I'm back."
Bai Yang answered.
"Oh, I'm back. Go to bed early."
Mom fell asleep again, and Dad's snoring was as loud as ever.
Bai Yang returned to his room with the midnight snack. His room was not big. There was an aisle squeezed out by the single bed and the wall when he entered the room. There was a desk against the bay window, and to the right of the desk was a tall bookshelf filled with teaching aids.
Bai Yang quickly finished his midnight snack, wiped his mouth, took a deep breath, took out his cell phone from under the table and checked the time.
11:30 pm.
Bai Yang sat up straight in the chair, drew the curtains, turned on the desk lamp, and solemnly took out a roll of toilet paper and placed it on the table. No matter what was going to happen next, it was always a good idea to put a roll of toilet paper first. It was late at night, and everything was quiet. He was a single young man, all alone, and he had some handicrafts to do that were not convenient to do during the day.
From this moment on, he will change his identity.
In addition to being a senior high school student, he has another identity——
Old pervert.
Of course not.
·
·
·
It's ham.
What is ham?
Ham is HAM, the full name is: amateur radio enthusiast.
Bai Yang reached out and peeled off the plastic sheet on the bookshelf, and with a "swish", a black radio was revealed underneath.
The ICOM725 shortwave radio looks a bit like an old-fashioned CD player from the 1980s.
A family heirloom left by my dad.
Antiques that can be put into museums.
He leaned over and turned on the external power supply at the other end of the bookshelf. He pressed the POWER button on the radio panel. The radio started to power on. The old-fashioned pale yellow LCD screen and the small level meter lit up. The channel stopped at 7.2750MHZ. Bai Yang plugged headphones and a microphone into the jacks respectively, pressed the SSB button to enter the single-sideband communication mode, and pressed the TUNER button to turn on the antenna tuner. After a few seconds, the tuning was completed, and the green light came on. Then he slowly turned the knob to tune the frequency.
His movements were swift and at this moment he seemed like Yu Zecheng, the underground party member in "The Disguiser".
Of course, it is also like an old man listening to the radio before going to bed.
Tonight, Bai Yang will conduct the first long-distance communication in his ham career.
The so-called radio communication is actually finding someone to talk to, but the biggest difference between it and a mobile phone call is that you don’t know who you can contact, nor do you know where the radio waves will be reflected by the ionosphere dozens of kilometers above. The radio station has no telephone number, no operator, no optical cables crossing the ocean, and cannot dial one-on-one - in human terms, this is a serious "communication basically relies on shouting", but the shout is modulated and transmitted by radio waves, and then reflected by the ionosphere tens of thousands of miles away. If someone tens of thousands of miles away can hear your shout, then they will shout back.
Due to limited equipment conditions, using shortwave for long-distance communication is a very difficult task - in jargon, this is called an expedition, abbreviated as DX QSO. Even for experienced old hams, DX failures are common.
In preparation for tonight's attempt, Bai Yang climbed up to the rooftop in the afternoon and confirmed that there was no problem with the antenna - when his father was young and frivolous, he set up two antennas on the rooftop, a six-meter whip and a DP antenna, and was often complained by neighbors for this.
If nothing goes wrong, he can contact Russian or European radio stations on the 14.195MHZ frequency band after 8:30 p.m.
Then say hello to foreign friends and tell them that you are from CHINA.
Bai Yang turned the knob and the numbers on the LCD screen jumped.
14.195 MHz.
Bai Yang listened for half a minute with headphones on. No one spoke on the channel, so he pressed the TRANSMIT button on the microphone and the green light on the radio panel came on.
This is the sending status.
Bai Yang took a deep breath. As an illegal ham who had not yet passed the B-certificate and had no qualifications, he shouted out the first call in his ham career:
"CQ! CQ! CQ! This is BG4MXH, Bravo-Golf-Four-Mike-Xray-Hotel, calling cq and waiting for a call!"
His voice will be modulated into regular radio waves in the radio station, and then transmitted into the air by the vibrator inside the antenna. In the brightly lit and bustling Qinhuai District of Nanjing City, it is like someone throwing a small stone, causing tiny ripples invisible to the naked eye, which spread in all directions at the speed of light, and are reflected beyond the horizon in the ionosphere 50 kilometers high, crossing the rivers and lush primeval forests, and are heard by everyone who is guarding this channel.
"CQ" is a common phrase in all radio communications, meaning SEEK YOU.
It's like when you're on the phone, "Is anyone there? Is anyone there? Is anyone there?"
BG4MXH is his call sign.
The above call is translated as "Hello! Hello! Hello! This is BG4MXH! BG4MXH is looking for someone to chat! I'm waiting for your reply!"
In China, amateur radio is a strictly controlled hobby. Those who want to use a radio station for communication must have complete documents, and the operator needs to pass an exam to obtain a license. Each legal radio station will have a unique call sign, just like people's ID number. The call sign of the IC725 in Bai Yang's hand is BG4MXH, where the initial letter B stands for China, and the letter G stands for the level of the amateur radio station - Bai Yang's is a third-level station, so it is G, and the number 4 represents the region. The call sign in Jiangsu area is 4.
Of course, there are also illegal radio stations without call signs, which are called black stations.
It's like an unregistered person.
Bai Yang's radio was left to him by his father, who was a ham maker who had been pickling for twenty years. He once served in the Observation and Communication Station of the North Sea Fleet and was a professional communications technician. After his retirement, he started a Didi service in the city. At that time, his father was a big shot in the ham circle in Nanjing and a real technical boss, but he eventually retired from the arena.
In my dad’s words, who still plays this game these days? Isn’t it better to use WeChat for chatting?
"CQ! CQ! CQ! This is BG4MXH, Bravo-Golf-Four-Mike-Xray-Hotel, calling cq and waiting for a call!"
Bai Yang called again, and then waited a little nervously for a response.
He hoped that in a few seconds another voice would be heard on the channel, a call sign starting with J or R, perhaps from Japan or Russia.
But there was still no one answering in the channel, only endless white noise.
Bai Yang was a little disappointed. What went wrong?
But this is also an expected result. It is normal for shortwave communications to have problems. Any factors may lead to failure. Radio waves themselves are unstable, and the ionosphere is also unstable. It would be a miracle if two uncertain things can be put together to produce a definite result. What's more, the external electromagnetic environment is becoming more and more complex, and there is interference everywhere in the city. An electric car is an anti-radiation weapon for a radio station.
Or maybe there was no one on this channel, so there was no response no matter how he called.
Bai Yang took out his cell phone. Others had clearly said that 14195 was a vegetable market.
He rediscovered the post.
Look at the time.
Damn, 2012.
Dad is right. There are fewer and fewer people playing with radio, and even fewer playing with shortwave. Currently, the only band that still has people working on it is the UV band. Drivers in the city use it to discuss where to go for barbecue on the weekend. No one has done such a time-consuming and laborious task as using shortwave radio for long-distance communications any more.
So dad used this station as a radio.
Today in 2019, few people can feel the romance of radio communications. No one is willing to erect an antenna more than ten meters high to send their voices to all parts of the world. This thing is too complicated, too tedious, and too slow. Even as a hobby, it is not interesting or exciting enough.
More and more old HAMs are retiring from the scene, and Dad is one of them.
Bai Yang increased the power from 2W to 5W and tried to call again.
There really is no one there.
The channel is empty.
When my dad was young, some channels were as busy as a vegetable market, with radio waves from all over the country converging in the night sky and flying to all parts of the world.
Now even the people in the vegetable market have dispersed.
Bai Yang slowly turned the FM knob, and the numbers on the LCD screen changed little by little, from 14.195MHZ to 14.120MHZ, and then to 14.125MHZ. He wanted to try his luck, maybe there would be someone talking on other channels?
14.126MHZ.
14.128MHZ.
14.130MHZ.
Bai Yang supported his head, listened to each channel for a dozen seconds, and then turned the knob.
14.131MHZ.
14.132MHZ.
14.133MHZ.
He was a lone traveler in the desert, and he could not see any other person like him wherever he looked.
Bai Yang sighed, the communication tonight was declared a failure. He looked at the radio for a long time, casually turned the radio FM knob, turned the knob back and forth, like playing with a radio, the red TX indicator light was always on, and the numbers on the LCD screen jumped rapidly.
He was suddenly stunned and his fingers stopped.
etc!
Bai Yang carefully turned the knob back slowly, frowned, and listened attentively. In the noisy noise, someone was talking vaguely, and it was unclear whether he was singing or chanting.
Someone!
He subconsciously glanced at the channel.
14.255MHZ.
After a whole night of trouble, Bai Yang finally met the second person.
Still a girl.
Bai Yang waited for the other party's voice to stop and started calling: "CQ! CQ! CQ! This is BG4MXH, Bravo-Golf-Four-Mike-Xray-Hotel! Calling cq and waiting for a call!"
There was silence in the channel for a few seconds.
Then a surprised scream broke out from the headset:
"Alive?"
(End of this chapter)
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