Maybe not such a good idea

Since the Club has started enforcing the use of the new membership cards,  many of us, myself included, have begun tucking our cards into our phone cases  so that we always have them handy...

while this is really convenient,  I've come to realize that it might not be such a good idea for phone usage..

Here's the way most of use talk on the phone when we have these kinds of 'phone wallet' cases:

Notice that the case is folded so that the body of the membership card is fully pressed against the back of the phone body.

For some time, I and my wife have been having some puzzling problems getting reception on our phones, despite having lots of bars (strong signal strength) ..Yesterday, we were trying to make some rather critical phone calls before year end , and I was having persistent transmission problems,  where I could hear the other party, but they could not hear me...     my wife was shouting into the phone to try to make herself heard to the technician on the other end, but it simply wasn't working....

Suddenly, I had a brain flash and plucked the card out of her case while she was in mid-call.... and the problem vanished...

There's a very good reason why this may have indeed been the solution...    What sparked my brain flash was that i suddenly remembered that these membership cards are  proximity cards and they actually have a big antenna coil inside them.  Notice that there is no battery anywhere inside this card.

These cards can work without a battery, because the antenna coil is designed to ABSORB power from surrounding radio waves to power the IC chip inside.  Depending on the radio frequencies involved, this coil has the potential to suck some or a lot of the power from our OUTGOING transmissions... thus, its very possible that this is why the folks on the other end of my calls could not hear me.

Whether its actually the coil sucking all the life out of your call or not...holding a big loop of copper wire against your cell phone is definitely not helping its radio transmitter's signal.

PSC vs Trang

On 12 March 2011 our team travelled to Trang Thailand for a match against Trang Tennis Club Thailand.

The team stopped for a nite beforehand in Hat Yai..and this may have had some impact on our team's performance... In this photo, Peggy appears to be recruiting for a mixed doubles partner

We lost 2 - 5 ... The two hero pairs to win were Jim and Jimmy (Jim Arthur and Jimmy Boon) who won a men's doubles

...and David Lee and Ah Yen won a mixed doubles.

But everyone enjoyed the tennis and the dinner afterwards....

As usual the hospitality in Trang was wonderful.

We look forward to hosting the Trang Tennis Club in Penang next time...

33rd Sakura Cup 27 March 2011

One of the most anticipated events of the year is the Sakura Cup, which is the Penang Sports Club vs the Japanese Community. We've seen an increase in active japanese tennis players at the club as a result of the Malaysia My Second Home and now we have some former members from japan scheduling their holidays in Penang to coincide with the Sakura Cup so they can come back and play.

This year, the returnees from Japan brought some extra firepower with them in the form of some very skilled ladies players. The PSC found itself struggling to find some pairs that could give them a fight.

The japanese brought a total of 7 pairs of ladies and 8 pairs of men...then they combined the pairs to field 15 pairs of mixed doubles.

As the Japanese consul general described it...most people believe that among Japanese, the men always lead in front and the ladies follow behind... but in this Sakura Cup the Japanese ladies were the ones in front. They whacked our ladies 6 -1 .

Fortunately our PSC men were up to the task and swept the Japanese men 8 - 0, although Albert Cheah and Bryant Thor had to go all the way to a tie break to beat Peter McDade and Sasaki-San.

The Japanese men didn't fare much better in the mixed, dragging their ladies down 2 - 13

so at the end of the day, the PSC retained the cup 22-8

As usual, the highlight of the day was a nice lunch with the Japanese providing Bento boxes for all participants and lots of beer and sake for everyone to enjoy.

Hayati Meah Memorial Intersection Tennis

At the last AGM, the members resolved that the Tennis Intersection event should be designated as the Hayati Meah Memorial Intersection Tennis , in honor of the late Hayati Meah. I knew Hayati quite well as he welcomed me to play tennis with him when I first started out playing at the club a few years before he passed away. As any newcomer knows, its often difficult to find someone to play with when no one knows you... I always remember that Hayati would go out of his way to ensure that newcomers didn't go without a game, and would invite newcomers such as myself to join his foursome and play. I now try to do the same because of him.

He was also a great sportsman who liked to see all the sections of the club interacting , so its very appropriate that we held the intersection tennis on 26 feb 2011 in his honor. To foster even more interaction, we developed a format of play that emphasized cooperation and sportsman ship. We were delighted to have representatives of 7 of 10 sections in the club participating in the event.

The tennis section took part by supplying players to the other sections to balance out the numbers so that we had 4 teams of 7 players participating. The Soccer and Squash sections came with nearly full teams, The Badminton and Hockey sections were joined together to form one team, and the Snooker and Cricket Sections were joined to create the final team.

Each player on each team was given a score card. The cards were divided into two buckets and a draw was conducted to determine who would partner who and who would play against who...

Then the players went down and played 1 set of tennis, before coming back to the terrace and reporting their score. After the 1st round scores were reported, the cards went back into the bins for another draw and another round of tennis.

After playing 3 rounds in the hot sun like this. We reassembled the cards back into their teams and calculated the total games won and lost. Most were predicting that the soccer team would win with the strength of their players...but surprisingly Badminton/Hockey team and the Squash team won the most games , tying at 99 games won each. Squash emerged as the champion losing 84 games vs 90 for Badminton/Hockey.

Again in the spirit of sportsmanship, all the participants received prizes and enjoyed an excellent lunch at the club restaurant. Hayati would have loved it, because at the end of the day, we all had fun and enjoyed our tennis and enjoyed mixing with our fellow club members.

psc vs taiping crc

Francis Loh brought a strong group from Taiping to play in the annual series vs PSC. They gave us a good fight... their first pair whacked Koay and Nordin 8 -1 ... and Albert and Teng Jin (first time they ever play together) were down 5 - 1 and I started to get worried... but our ladies, Pauline and Keiko made short work of their opponents and luckily Albert and Teng Jin got things sorted out and went on to win 8 - 5... and we went on to win all the other matches and finished the day up 6-1 ... Congrats to all the players and supporters... The club also won the series overall ....

Hard Court Resurfacing Update

The PSC has awarded a contract to resurface our 2 hard courts (courts 18 and 19). For the past 15 or 20 years at least, the hard courts have been a simple coating of acrylic over a bitumen (asphalt) base. After 5 or 6 years, cracks will always start to appear as old cracks in the asphalt base (which have been filled and coated over) propagate upwards thru the new acrylic due to water penetration and thermal expansion/contraction.

Also, the members seldom like to play on the hard courts because of the aches and pains the hard surface inflicts on their knee and ankle joints.

This time we are trying several things that are different.

1. After filling the cracks in the old surface, the contractor has laid down a new fabric mat called a geo-textile. This synthetic non-woven fiber material will serve as a boundry surface to separate teh old base from the new. This will help prevent the old cracks from propagating thru to the new surface. You can see it as the white fabric layer in the photo above.

2. The club decided to purchase a cushioning layer , also referred to as a rubberized 'shock pad' which is laid just after the geo-textile and is about 5 mm thick.

This will provide a considerably more comfortable playing experience for our member's knees and ankles. You can see this as the black granular material being laid in the top photo.

The contractor will put down several more layers over these before finally putting down a top coat of 100% acrylic. The resulting surface will be essentially the same as that of the courts at Melbourne Park, where they play the Australian Open.

The project is expected to complete by the end of Sept. When its done, come out and have a hit.

Heah Swee Lee Cup 26-27 Mar 2010

This post from Arthur Chin's website http://www.imtnews.com/

Photo: PSC Dream Team, L-R: Byrant Thor, Luke Leighton, Sasaki Masami, Loo Choo Teng, Tah Nian Yang, Ooi Soon Hong, Jos Fraajie, Koay Theam Hock and Andrew Tijo

Penang Sports Club captured the Heah Swee Lee Cup 2010 by beating Penang Chinese Recreation Club again today at the PSC Tennis Complex to maintain their unbeaten run against CRC. PSC have never lost to them since 1995. (Editor's Note: CRC won the cup last year, but i'm not sure what the head to head is with PSC vs CRC- TedT.)

The HSL Cup which is the oldest inter club tennis tournament in Malaysia, first played in 1948 was a keenly fought tournament in the yesteryears where up to 15 clubs via for honors.

However over the years the numbers of participating clubs have shrunk. There were 4 clubs this year compare to 7 last year.

Something needs to be done by the state tennis governing body to ensure that the tournament does not die a natural death in years to come.

One way is by opening up the tournament to all tennis clubs within the IMT Growth Triangle states instead of confining it to clubs in Penang only.

( by Arthur Chin... original article available by clicking here )