Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

This weekend brought freezing temperatures to the Yorkshire Moor where we live, I couldn't resist putting this spectacular view looking north west from my QTH up the Aire Valley on here for all to see. Normal visibility from this QTH is usually up to 30 miles, this weekends view was almost from a fairy tale. The QTH is at around 1000 ft above sea level and as you can see anywhere below a 1000 ft has been eaten up by freezing fog. click on image to enlarge Other news apart from the WX is I tried the Maldol HMC-6S on my mobile set up. The antenna is a bit on the big side for driving around with, but when stationary I was pleased to hear the multi banded beast pulling in some big signals on 20m. I checked the SWR on the 20m band and it was 1.1, the other bands were also working but propagation was not so lively. I will be fully testing the antenna in the near future on the other HF bands, more than likely when Spring arrives. click on image to enlarge That's all for now, just a q...

The WX-Weather has brought snow, wind and freezing temperatures to North Europe. At my QTH-Location Baildon Moor, N.England, at 1000ft above sea level the temperature dropped to 0 degrees Celsius last night and we had a threat of snow but it did not settle. The bands were in good shape late last night/early this morning, as I worked Russia, The Ukraine, The USA and lots of other Stations from Europe using PSK31 on 40 & 80M. All signals were loud on both bands with plenty of activity, I dragged my self away around 2am to get some sleep but it wasn't easy! h.i At present the sun is beaming with outside temperatures at 5.0 degrees Celsius and the wind is stirring making it feel even colder. The image I have just received is from Earth orbiting weather monitoring satellite NOOA 17, which just passed by heading South West. The image shows N.W and W Europe with N.England under heavy cloud cover. I believe this is probably the best image I have received for a while using the IOIo beam...

My journey to work on my Kawasaki Z750 was becoming unnecessary now that the dark nights and late sunrises have got under way and we are now into Winter. So for the last couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to use the FT-857 on 20m and 2M from in my Toyota Estima Lucida mobile Ham shack. Conditions have been quite remarkable most mornings at around 8.00utc as I embark on my work bound journey, I am listening up and down 20m ever hopeful of some distant signals. Recently without to much tuning around I have come across some big signals, real 5/9 from the Far East. Last week I heard a few VKs on the morning run as well as ZL1BD, who boomed through and as usual with a large following from G-land and Europe. I worked AL ZL1BD some time last year when conditions were good in my old mobile RAV-4 using the FT-100. It will be good to make the QSO on the FT-857 and latest Toyota, I will get lucky one of these fine mornings I am sure! h.i AL ZL1BD was loud again this morning at around 8.15...

I have had a passion for tracking and receiving NOOA weather Satellites for a few years and have tried a few different antenna's along the way with some reasonable images being received. I have had the home brew IOIo beam up for the last two months and have been pleasantly surprised with its performance. The best way to ensure a clear image is achieved by having an almost inaudible sound level from the output of your radio to the sound card. In other words make sure the sound-in to your computer is set very low from the radio. The software I have been running since 2004 is Radio Com 5.2 which has now been superseded by version 6.0. Radio Com 5.2 seems to work exceptionally well still, and I have had a lot of Radio Hams around the world getting in touch with me since they have watched the Weather Satellite videos I did for this site and Youtube. A lot of other Hams told me that they were using WXtoIMG decoding software which allowed the user to play around with the received imag...

I’ve been using the Multi band Maldol HMC-6 S antenna, for the last 3 years at my QTH as a stand by antenna and have been pleasantly surprised with its overall performance. The Vertical Mobile/Portable antenna covers 6 bands, 40M, 15M, 10M, 6M (HF) and (VHF) 2M & 70CMS. I’ve used it a lot for listening across the HF bands as well as some short wave frequencies, I’ve also put out some good signals and made some good DX contacts on 40M, 15M and 10M as well as 6M using a good ground plane system (20 foot Metal Container). It even Works well on 2M, I have not tried 70cms but the SWR appeared to be good across the band. I have also got a range of Maldol Mono band mobile HF antenna’s and have been planning to try the HMC-6 fitted to the Toyota’s rear fixing instead of the mono bander’s. This has proven to be difficult to stop running the mono band Maldols, down to the good results that I can honestly say I have had. The Mono band Maldol,s especially 40M, 20M and 15M will be a hard act to...

Over the weekend we managed to team up with Phil M1PAC and Craig M3CSD and headed off South in Convoy style to The Great Northern Hamfest located in Barnsley South Yorkshire. The drive took just short of an hour and passed by quickly as we enjoyed rag chewing on 2M FM. On arriving we were joined on the frequency by Mick a local G station who kindly refreshed our memory's of the rally's location and best parking positions, which proved to be very helpful. On entering the rally I began searching the different stalls with the aid of Louise M3TLL and it wasn't long before we both spotted some bargains. The first of three nice extension speakers I picked up was this heavy little maxon at the cost of £1.00. This had made the trip well worthwhile and is now connected to the FT-847. I picked up at CAT interface lead for the FT-847, some dipole centre's, Coaxial plugs and some wire type antenna insulators, all in mind for further projects. As well as grabbing some bargains I bum...