Franks First ham-radio was converted from a bacon smoking kiln, (ham) with valves and knobs donated by Phillips Australia.
Ohayō
When I was an active radio amateur, I accumulated a Japanese vocabulary of around 50 words. This prompted an Australian ham who heard me valiantly struggle when speaking to someone in Japan to mail me a little book “Japanese in a Nutshell” Well let me assure you, there is no language on earth which fits into a nutshell, but all the same the booklet was quite interesting and useful. For one, it made me aware of some similarities of Japanese to Warlpiri. I found with the exercises at the end of each chapter that translation into Warlpiri was easier than into English. Two easy to remember words stood out, the Japanese word for ‘shirt’- wayishiritsu for instance which derives from English ‘white shirt’ and then there was takushi which I’m awarding no prizes for to guess what it means.
The long room. short-hand view
When visiting Ireland apart from the Long Room at Trinity College, what impressed me the most were the Dublin taxi drivers. I suspect that Ireland is the only country in the world where taxi drivers are both comedians and philosophers.
His second radio was a more compact portable device, capable of adaptation as a surveillance transmitter, colloquially referred to as the ‘Boxed Brown-eye’
Which brings me to one of my favourite songs of all time- Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFB-d-8_bvY
And finally, a segue to Yuendumu:
The super portable ‘little ripper junior’ took out the 1957 innovation prize for agricultural implements as it could be converted to a three-stand shearing rig in under an hour.
When a decade ago a family dispute got ample rather negative publicity and friends and relatives rang us enquiring if we were OK, we had to reassure them that the disturbances were targeted and did not affect people who weren’t directly involved.
I also recall that an Adelaide based journalist rang me to ask if I had anything to tell her about the riots. I told her that it wasn’t a riot, but a confrontation. She wouldn’t have it; the police had charged a number of people with rioting. Thus, we had one of those Monty Pythonesque arguments: it is a riot, it is a confrontation, it is a riot…. ad nauseum.
In the end I told her that I’d lived here decades, the police only weeks, so in future don’t call me, call the police, and yes it is a riot, OK? It must be because the police reckon so.
When I launched the previous Dispatch into cyberspace, I received many responses saying that my more nuanced reportage on the coronial inquest was appreciated. I herewith undertake to keep it up.
Franks final adaption, the ‘walkie squawky’ became a ‘ must have ‘ for servicemen in the field.
The response from one of the Dispatchees included the following:
“Also, the media hyping up the last family dispute to the point that the public (including my taxi driver) thought that Yuendumu was a riot, so the police feel justified in letting loose on it.”
Melbourne taxi drivers indeed, not exactly intellectual giants, neither comedians nor philosophers.
Japanese ham radio listeners listen eagerly to the happy hour, as Frank plays his favourite disc; ‘Two Little Boys’ to a worldwide audience.
Sayonara,
Frank
Harry Chapin- Taxi:
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