Once Upon in Nanjing-Chapter 3 - 2 Bai Yang

66 Muxuyuan Street, Meihua Villa in Zhongqin Garden, Qinhuai District.

It's a one-hour walk to Zijin Mountain and a ten-minute walk to Crescent Lake. With hills, water, and ancient walls, this place is a geomantic treasure with housing prices over 30,000 yuan per square meter.

Bai Yang was cycling so fast on Muxuyuan Street, darting from one street light to the next, then he turned left into the community gate, floated over the speed bump, and came to a sudden halt, disappearing into the night with a glance from the astonished security guard.

"Slow down—!"

The security guard popped his head out and shouted.

"I know, Uncle Cai!"

He was in a hurry.

Evening self-study ended at 10:30 PM, and by the time he biked home, it was nearly 11 PM. Life as a high school senior was always busy, and Mom required Bai Yang to sleep by midnight. If he wanted to squeeze in some activities before bedtime, he needed to get home as quickly as possible.

Home was at Building 11, Unit 2, a left turn 20 meters into the community.

Eighth floor, 804.

Bai Yang parked his bike downstairs, locked it up, then backpack on shoulder, he stomped his way up the stairs. The sound-activated lights in the hallway lit up from bottom to top the second he stepped into the unit door.

Out of breath at the eighth floor, Bai Yang pulled out his keys to open the door, placed his backpack in the entryway, and changed shoes. The lights were still on in the living room, but by this time, both Mom and Dad were already asleep, their bedroom door firmly shut.

Mom's prepared supper usually kept warm in the rice cooker on the dining table, plugged in.

If Bai Yang was hungry after evening self-study, there would be something to eat.

Supper was usually noodles or rice. Bai Yang didn't come home for dinner, so Mom would save his portion in the rice cooker to keep it warm.

He lifted the lid, steamy fried noodles.

Bai Yang touched the bowl—it wasn't too hot—so he took it back to his room.

"Xiao Yang?"

Passing his parents' bedroom, he heard Mom's drowsy voice through the door.

"Mhm, I'm home."

Bai Yang responded.

"Oh, you're back. Sleep early."

Mom drifted back to sleep, Dad's snoring as loud as usual.

Bai Yang took his late-night snack back to his room. It was small, with just enough space for a single bed and walkway pressed against the wall, while a desk was pushed against the bay window, and to its right stood a tall bookshelf piled with study aids.

He made quick work of the snack, wiped his mouth, took a deep breath, and then pulled out his phone from under the table to check the time.

11:30 PM.

Bai Yang straightened up in his chair, drew the curtains, turned on the desk lamp, and with due ceremony, placed a roll of toilet paper on the table, because no matter what was about to happen, having a roll of tissue at hand was never a mistake. In the still of the night, all was quiet, a single young man alone with some crafty business that was inconvenient to carry out during the day.

From this moment on, his identity switched.

Besides being a high school senior, he had another role—

A dirty old man.

Of course not.

·

·

·

He was a Ham.

What's a Ham?

Ham stands for HAM, short for: Amateur Radio Enthusiast.

Bai Yang reached out to pull down the plastic cloth on the bookshelf; with a "swish," a black radio revealed beneath.

The ICOM725 shortwave radio, which looked a bit like an old CD player from the 1980s.

Dad's heirloom.

An antique worthy of a museum.

He leaned over to turn on the external power source at the other end of the bookshelf, pressed the POWER button on the radio panel, and the radio started up. The pale yellow old-style LCD screen and the small power meter lit up, the channel stopped at 7.2750 MHZ. Bai Yang plugged headphones and a handheld microphone into their respective jacks, pressed the SSB key to enter single-sideband mode, then pressed the TUNER key to start the antenna tuner. After a few seconds of tuning, the green light came on, and he slowly turned the dial to tune the frequency.

His movements were quick and skilled; in this moment, he resembled Yu Zecheng, the underground Communist agent in the series "Hidden."

Of course, he was also like an old man who listened to the radio before bed.

Tonight, Bai Yang would attempt his first long-distance contact in his ham radio career.

So-called radio communication essentially meant finding someone to talk to, but the biggest difference from phone calls is that you don't know who you will get in touch with, nor do you know where the ionosphere, tens of kilometers above, will reflect the radio waves. There are no phone numbers for radio sets, no carriers, no transoceanic cables, and no one-to-one dialing—in layman's terms, it's basically "shouting out" through modulated radio waves that are then reflected by the ionosphere to someone tens of thousands of miles away. If someone that far away can hear your "shout," they might "shout" back.

Given limited equipment conditions, making long-distance contacts via shortwave is quite challenging—in the jargon, this is called a DX QSO. Even for experienced hams, DX failures are common.

For tonight's endeavor, Bai Yang climbed up to the rooftop during the afternoon to ensure the antennas were fine—Dad, in his reckless youth, had set up two antennas on the rooftop: a six-meter whip and a DP antenna, which had caused plenty of complaints from the neighbors.

If all went well, after 8:30 PM on the 14.195 MHZ band, he could connect with stations from Russia or Europe.

Then he'd greet these foreign friends, telling them he's from CHINA.

Bai Yang turned the knob, and the numbers on the LCD skipped.

14.195 megahertz.

Bai Yang listened with his headphones for half a minute—no one was speaking—so he pressed the TRANSMIT button on the handheld microphone, and a green light lit up on the panel.

He was in sending mode.

Bai Yang took a deep breath; as an illegal little HAM yet to pass the Class B exam and without a license, he made the first call of his ham radio career:

"CQ! CQ! CQ! This is BG4MXH, Bravo-Golf-Four-Mike-Xray-Hotel, calling cq and waiting for a call!"

His voice would be modulated into regular radio waves within the radio set, then emitted into the air by the antenna's internal vibrator, like throwing a pebble into the brightly-lit, bustling streets of Qinhuai District in Nanjing City, causing imperceptible tiny ripples that would spread out in all directions at the speed of light, reflecting off the ionosphere some fifty kilometers high beyond the horizon, crossing large rivers and lush primeval forests, to be heard by everyone tuned to this frequency.

"CQ" is a universal phrase in all radio communications, meaning SEEK YOU, similar to asking "Is anyone there? Is anyone there? Is anyone there?" on a phone call.

New novel chapters are published on freewёbn૦νeɭ.com.

And BG4MXH is his call sign.

The call above translates to, "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 regulated hobby, and one must have complete documentation to use radio sets for communication, and operators must pass tests to obtain a license, while every legal radio set will have a unique call sign, much like a person's ID number. Bai Yang's IC725 radio set, with the call sign BG4MXH, has a 'B' at the beginning representing China, 'G' indicating the class level of an amateur station—Bai Yang's is a third-class station, hence 'G', and the number 4 designates the area, with 4 being for Jiangsu region.

Of course, there are also illegal radio sets without call signs, known as black stations.

Much like a person without a registered household.

Bai Yang's radio set was left to him by his dad, a seasoned ham of twenty years, who once served in the communications unit at the North Sea Fleet's observation post, a professional communications soldier, and later drove a cab in the city. Back in the day, his dad was a formidable tech giant in Nanjing's ham radio circles but eventually retired from the scene.

As his dad would say, who still plays with this nowadays? Isn't chatting on WeChat more enticing?

"CQ! CQ! CQ! This is BG4MXH, Bravo-Golf-Four-Mike-Xray-Hotel, calling cq and waiting for a call!"

Bai Yang called again, then waited with slight nervousness for a response.

He hoped that another person's voice would emerge in the channel within a few seconds, maybe a call sign starting with J or R, from Japan or Russia.

But the channel remained unanswered, only the endless white noise.

Bai Yang was a bit disappointed. Was there something wrong?

But this was an expected outcome; shortwave communication problems are more than common—any number of factors could lead to failure. Radio waves are innately unstable, and so is the ionosphere. Coupling two unstable factors to get a certain result would be bizarre, especially since the external electromagnetic environment is increasingly complex, with countless interferences in the city; an electric car alone is like an anti-radiation weapon to a radio set.

Or maybe there was simply no one on this channel, so no matter how he called, there was no response.

Bai Yang pulled out his mobile phone; others had said that 14195 was like a marketplace.

He found that post again.

One look at the date.

Damn, 2012.

Dad was right; fewer and fewer people play with ham radios, and even fewer with shortwave. Those still alive are on the UV band, where local vehicle enthusiasts use it to discuss where to go for skewers on weekends. Using shortwave radios for time-consuming long-distance communication is a thing of the past.

So dad used the radio set as a receiver.

In today's 2019, few can feel the romance of radio set communication, no one is willing to erect an antenna tens of meters high to send their voice around the world anymore, this thing is too complex, too cumbersome, and too slow—even as a hobby it's not interesting or exciting enough.

More and more old HAMs leave the scene, and his dad was among them.

Bai Yang increased the power from 2W to 5W and tried calling again.

There really was no one.

The channel was eerily empty.

In dad's younger days, some channels were as busy as marketplaces, with radio waves from all over the country meeting in the night sky, then flying across the world.

Now even the people in the marketplaces are gone.

Bai Yang slowly turned the tuning knob, the digits on the LCD screen changing bit by bit, from 14.195MHZ to 14.120MHZ, then to 14.125MHZ, hoping to get lucky and maybe find someone talking on another channel.

14.126MHZ.

14.128MHZ.

14.130MHZ.

Bai Yang rested his head on his hands, giving each channel a listen for a dozen seconds or so before turning the knob.

14.131MHZ.

14.132MHZ.

14.133MHZ.

He was a traveler wandering alone in a desert, looking all around and unable to find a second of his kind.

Bai Yang sighed. Tonight's communication attempt had failed. He stared at the radio for a long time, fiddling with the tuning knob, turning it back and forth like playing with a radio. The red TX light stayed lit, the numbers on the LCD screen rapidly toggling.

Suddenly, he froze, his fingers stopped.

Wait!

Bai Yang carefully turned the knob back, frowning, listening intently amid the noisy static. There were indistinct voices, unclear whether someone was singing or chanting.

There was someone!

He looked at the channel instinctively.

14.255MHZ.

After toiling all evening, Bai Yang finally encountered a second person.

And it was a girl.

Bai Yang waited for her voice to stop, then he started calling: "CQ! CQ! CQ! This is BG4MXH, Bravo-Golf-Four-Mike-Xray-Hotel! calling cq and waiting for a call!"

The channel was silent for a few seconds.

Then an astonished cry burst through the headphones:

"A living person?"