Interviews

	Date：November 30^th 2011

	Destinations：Minsyong Broadcast Center

	Participants：Teacher,Lai Jian Zhang、Teacher, Li Jin Hang、Teacher, Liang Yi Rong、Teacher, Chen Jian Yu
	Jian Guo Sheng、Liu Heng Qian、Lai Bo En、Jian Yan Da、Hsu Yu Jie、Chen Guan Xuan、Huag Xiao Qi、Liu Jin Jing

	Radio staff：Jian You、Xiang Mei、An unidentified Lady

	【Xiang Mei】Ryoichi Suzuoki designed the building that has been under use for more than 70 years since 1941 to this day. The designer coined the term “air-defense color” for those colors that coat the building and turn it invisible to surveillance aircraft. It is actually out of such an air-defense concern that the colors were determined. The building was regarded as a modernized building at that time, characteristic of its foursquare figure. Ever since the Kantō earthquake, the Japanese started to highlight aseismic and fireproof features of a building. And the building is the best epitome of that. Built out of reinforced concrete, it will be the last construction on the surface to fall when a massive earthquake strikes. The lodging house aside is also designed by Ryoichi Suzuoki in addition to Minsyong Broadcast Center. 【Xiang Mei】 Minsyong Broadcast Center started running on September 28^th. The lodging house, which offered recreation and accommodation for the staff, was originally small in size, but gradually expanded to the scale that it is today. It’s open for people to visit at present. After completing the two buildings, Ryoichi Suzuoki was awarded a medal of honor in recognition of his performance by the Emperor of Japan. 【Xiang Mei】The Japanese Government had been allocating budget three years in a row for the two buildings. You can see the wash pebbles are of high quality. These are mosaic tiles from Europe, which are a bit similar to the thirteen-grooved-back bricks, but they have more than 13 grooves on their backs. The studio was not changed to an exhibition room until 1989 when Minsyong Broadcast Center was designated as the National Radio Museum. We held our first exhibition in the room. The largest room on second floor is the transmitter room. We used to place machines in big rooms and store other stuff in the smalls. Not until 1998 did the building come available for the public to visit.

【Xiang Mei】It is because of the proximity to the train station that the spot is determined for the building. Therefore, a lot of time and strength could be saved from transporting those building materials and heavy cables. Besides, around the site is a vast tract field of paddy, which is an excellent medium to help transmit radio waves further. All the branches of the radio are located at the west part of Taiwan, where an open sea lies aside and no obstruction would get in the way of radio waves. However, east Taiwan is surrounded by mountains and hills, which will terribly interfere with the transmission.

【Xiang Mei】Let’s compare the wash pebbles made by the Japanese 70 years ago with those by ourselves on the other side. You will feel the latter is rough and rugged on the surface, whereas the former is smooth and neat, which creates a huge gap in terms of delicacy, subtlety and quality. Some walls are covered with marbles, which are normally break into fragments, while wash pebbles always appear as a whole piece and cover a wide area, just like those on second floor.

【Jian You】Now, I am going to lead you to see how enormous the cable collectors are.

	【Teacher, Li Jin Hang】Those antenna towers out there look slightly different from each other. What is the difference among them?
	【Xiang Mei】The grey ones shaped in diamond in the front are directional antennas, which determine the direction in which the signals are transmitted, and the steel towers in red and white are omnidirectional antennas.

(Click the image to view larger version.)

【An unidentified Lady】The short wave is to be received with a specific type of radio. Short waves can be transmitted to distant places thanks to the property of the ionosphere that refracts short waves to ground. There are eight branches around here, all with omnidirectional antennas, yet transmitters of different frequencies