Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Today brought some long awaited activity to the usually quiet portion of the HF spectrum. From early morning the bands were at times busy with the sound of lots of stations from Europe working other stations and big signals were flying around, at last 6 meters SSB, 10 meters 12 meters and even 15 meters were alive. I worked Spain, Italy, Belgium, France and Portugal on the lively opened up bands with good signals both ways. I did not hear any real DX but still I was more than happy to make plenty of European QSOs and I also got the chance to try out my other radio equipment at the same time. I made the QSOs using the Yaesu FT847, Yaesu MD1 desk mic and around 50 watts into the Maldol 6 Band vertical antenna which is mounted outside with an excellent ground plane system. The antenna has been in my collection for almost three years and covers 40m, 15m, 10m, 6m, 2m and 70cms. The contacts that I made on 12 Meters were worked on the home brew 20m delta loop which was tuned with my MFJ 969 ...

Greetings Ham Radio People, thank you Nash and Tomas for the recent Comments they are always appreciated. The past couple of months have been busy for Me at my workplace which as some of you know already it is a College . This time of year is when we have to make sure everything has been covered and our students will achieve their qualifications. So you can imagine theirs lots to do, I've also just about completed my first year on a part time University course. Which once completed next summer I will have a full Teaching licence and be able to continue practicing teaching in FE. So I have found myself getting in front of my HF Rig a bit later in the evening when usually 20M has closed. Over the last couple of weeks I have been fortunate to find some good openings on 20M in the evening into the early hours of the following day. Using the Hustler 6BTV and the Delta Loop I made some great QSOs with big signals exchanged both ways. On the Hustler 6BTV I worked 5N8NDP (NIGERIA), W1AW (U...

THE EQUIPMENT, A FEW ADJUSTMENTS LATER... UP AND RUNNING... RADIO The radio installation in the vehicle mentioned in the last post which comprises of the Yaesu FT-100 Field Commando radio, it is fed by 12V and wired directly to the vehicle battery (In line Fuse Protection close to the battery). ANTENNAS Maldol HFC mobile mono band antennas, and a nice big ground plane (Toyota Estima vehicle body). IMPORTANT INFORMATION Good ground connections are essential to provide maximum performance and good SWR. The method I use is, by using clamped on antenna mounts, that are grub screwed to something conductive, like a gutter or rear door which provides an excellent ground. During the installation I had problem tuning the Maldo HFC antennas on all of the bands as well as creating RFI within the vehicle engine management system and music player. I sourced the problem and found that the HF antenna mount had not pierced the Toyota paintwork on the inside door seam. I tightened the two grub screws u...

I have been considering a different vehicle for a while and I have been more than happy with the Toyota Rav 4, so the decision was difficult to make especially considering the performance of my mobile Ham Station with its three antenna mounts. Eventually after careful consideration and Our love of travelling to nice remote scenic places that are great for radio, I decided to try another reliable Toyota. This Time I chose the Toyota Luicida, a 2.2 turbo diesel 4X4, fresh Japanese import. The vehicle is low mileage for the year and A1 condition, and with the price of fuel these days I am slightly better off by changing from a petrol 2.0 4x4 to a 2.2 turbo diesel 4X4. The MPV is also useful, spacious and very comfortable especially whilst CQing and catching a few Zs. I managed to mount the FT-100 (Yaesu) into the dash by removing the Japanese banded radio tuner and cassette player, which then also allowed me to fit my Panasonic CD MP3 Player below the Rig. The Antenna mounts were clamped ...