Story of Post-War Japanese-National Hams
by Bill Ashley KF5BRB

My informational source can be found at two Japanese web sites: http://www.motobayashi.net/callsign/past/past1.html - and http://www.motobayashi.net/callsign/past/past2.html , particularly the second of these. The site's 'keeper' has also answered a couple of my questions by email.

Japanese nationals were not banned from radio under US occupation, but they were not allowed to transmit until July 29, 1952. So only SWL cards should exist from the end of the war until that date.

At the above date, thirty operators received pre-permit (test transmission) permission to transmit (see second site for names and callsigns (some of them pre-war).

On August 7, 1952, five of these operators were the first to receive full, official licenses. They were as follows:

JA1AB (Ichikawa),
JA1AF Nakayama),
JA1AH (Komiya),
JA1AJ (Taniguchi) and
JA3AA (Shima).

That's all very well, but I've stumbled across the attached. In answer to my enquiry, I was assured that the author of these, Yukio Komiya, was in fact one of the 30 and one of the 5, JA1AH himself. As you can see, the letter and note tell a lot about those times.

By the way - the term 'fist-law' (third paragraph of letter) caught my attention. When you put this term into Google, up comes ... Kenpo, a martial art!

Note also that JA1AA (whose QSL you show on the site) was also one of the first 30 but not one of the first 5.

Visit the JA3AA page for info on Isaji Shima's involvement in getting post war Amateur Radio back on the air and his help to get JA amateurs on 160 meters!

So - a fairly interesting story here, with attachments that certainly 'hit the spot'.

Letters written by JA1AH Yukio Komiya

Courtesy of KF5BRB