Yaesu FT-101 HF Transceiver Web Page presented by Fox Tango International

Yaesu FT-101 HF Transceiver Web Page

Presented by Fox Tango International.

Yaesu Musen Co. FT-101

(Yaesu Wireless Co.)

Sako Hasegawa JA1MP 400 years!

Sako Hasegawa, JA1MP, the president and founder of Yaesu Musen company was more interested in talking about the future than the past, so this story received most of its content from old Yaesu (Swiss) importers of Sommerkamp, DJ2YJ/EA8YS and Joop Sterke, PA0UM.

Yaesu Musen Co., Ltd. started its activities as General Television Service in suburban Ota-ku. Tube-type TV sets needed a lot of maintenance. They were picked up from the clients by motorbike riders, fixed up in the service shop and quickly returned to the clients the same way. When the radio communications business took off in the mid-sixties, the site was moved to the Yaesu district between the Ginza shopping and nightlife area and Tokyo Station, the main railway station, and the name was changed to reflect the new activities and location.

Yaesu is indeed "just a name" but there is a Dutch connection to it. In 1600 the first Dutch ship to reach Japan was wrecked and a man called Jan Joosten van Lodenstein was washed ashore (some sources say that it reached harbor, but with only a few of its crew able to stand on their feet after a long-path route travel lasting two years.) After having been imprisoned for some time as a pirate, he became an advisor to the Shogun. His name was Japanized into Yanyosu, which later was shortened to Yaesu and that is now the name of the piece of land he was rewarded with for his services to the Shogun. Another survivor onboard the ship De Liefde was the Englishman Wil Adams on whom the main character Anjin-san in James Clawell's book Shogun is based. At the celebration of 400 years of Dutch-Japanese relations, The Netherlands placed a sundial in a park in Kawatchi-Nagano. It is an armillosphere topped with a weathervane in the shape of the sailing vessel "De Liefde" ("Love") which was the first to arrive in Japan in 1600 [Jan Joosten of Lodenstein, later called Yanyosu - still later Yaesu]. So Yaesu is 400 years old - not your FT-101 but the name, and it rightly deserves consideration!

Kjell Strom PB3SM - SM6CPI, & Carol Maher W4CLM

High Resolution Jan Joosten monument

The area was named after the 17th century Dutch adventurer Jan Joosten, who, for his services to Tokugawa Ieyasu, was granted a house in Edo (today's Tokyo). The area came to be called Yayosu Quay after him—his name was pronounced yan yōs'ten in Japanese—and is still called Yaesu-cho. Yaesu Avenue (Jp: 八重洲通り, Yaesu Dōri) has a monument dedicated to Jan Joosten and his life after his arrival in Japan on the Liefde with William Adams. Photo to your left is the front of Tokyo station, Yaesu side.

Fox Tango International History

What is Fox Tango? , Founded in 1972 by Amateur Radio operator Milton Lowens (N4ML) as a Yaesu users group for the purpose of interchanging information, ideas, experiences and problems of the FT-101 owner, "By and for owners of Yaesu amateur radio equipment." Milton was the editor of the Fox Tango New Letter which ran for nearly 14 years. Many modifications and contributions to the newsletter where sent in to the editor by the Fox Tango membership and printed 10 months out of the year. So valuable were these newsletters and suggestions that even the Yaesu factory engineers had them translated into Japanese and acted upon the suggestions from the club membership which resulted in significant improvements to the FT-101 during its production. Current Yaesu equipment owners still considered the newsletters to be of value even now in the 21st century. Much enthusiasm continues even to this day to keep Milton's efforts alive with a Yaesu users group he started over a quarter century ago. So it is our pleasure to bring to you this free sample of the first year (1972) Fox Tango Newsletter in PDF for your information. On behalf of International Radio (Inrad) and the Fox Tango Club you can now receive the entire 14 years of Fox Tango Newsletters and 7 years of International Radio Yaesu newsletters on a single CD ROM. This disk will bring you many hours of reading enjoyment covering a 20 year evolution in amateur radio from 1972 to 1985 and 1986 - 1992 of the International Radio Newsletters. You are invited to click on the Fox Tango Logo above to download the 1972 newsletters free or charge. Please join Fox Tango International to find out where you can obtain the entire set on CD. Or visit our link at FOX TANGO NEWSLETTERS ON CD ROM. The quality of the first year newsletter was not the best as it was originally printed on a Mimeo Machine, subsequent years newsletters were greatly improved. We also have a free down loadable cumulative index for the newsletter, see ordering page for more information about the index.