Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

I decided to put together a "Safari" style roof rack for my Toyota RAV 4 mobile Ham Station using some mesh, square tube and a bit of M.I.G Welding. It turned out OK and as you can see I have loaded it up ready for our Scottish Camping holiday this coming week. I will be using the Yaesu FT-857 with Maldol HFC Mono Band Antenna's, listen out for me working as 2M0HTS/M from N.W Scotland on 20M, 40M, 80M and some 2M activity. You can keep up to date and find out when I am active by following twitter, frequency's used will be tweeted to my 2E0HTS Twitter account. (Mobile Phone Signal Permitting) Toyota RAV 4 - Home Made Safari Roof Rack

Tonight's NOAA - 15 Weather Image Screenshot of Satscape Satellite Tracking & Radio Com Decoding software The receiving is done with the Yaesu FT-847 Transceiver and IOIo Antenna. I managed to get a good image earlier this evening using the above setup. The received image shows the north Coast of Africa up to the Arctic Circle, as you can see there is a lot of cloud rolling in over the U.K. You can also see the "Grey Line" as the Sun is shining to West. I received the above WX image on FM, from my ground station at 16.45 utc on 137.500 MHz + or - Doppler, courtesy of NOAA - 15 Weather Satellite.

Since the last post I have been up to my usual antics and started the week by working Paulo CT1ETE in IN51UK – Portugal, via the SO-50 Satellite, Paulo first contacted me via email to arrange our first QSO. I continued working plenty of interesting Stations via the “Birds” with lots of success throughout the week. The FT-847 DSP filters have been doing a fine job dampening down the unwanted noise on the FM down links, as well as cleaning up the distant voices making them much more readable and easy to copy. HF has also had its moments this week, especially late on Thursday evening where I was fortunate to be on 20M during some nice DX openings. I worked LU5FF –Argentina, WD8CCC - U.S.A, FM1HN – Martinique, HI3TEJ - Dominican Republic & TI2AIM - Costa Rica. The 20M band was in good shape that night as all Stations were good signals and were worked on the FT-767, Delta Loop antenna and 50W of output PWR. I haven’t heard conditions quite as good on 20M since then, however I usually m...

Here is the latest vehicle to house the amateur radio equipment I use whilst working mobile. It follows a long line of previously owned Toyota's as it is my 7th Toyota/ 2cnd RAV-4. We decided to change from the Estima whilst paying out a fortune in diesel during our recent visit to Cornwall, were loosing a bit of space but gaining more miles to the gallon and these days with things around the World been so tight it seems a good idea. The latest RAV is in very condition and has low mileage with only one previous keeper, it should be good for a couple of years of DXing and touring around. Some of you already know that my journey to work is often undertaken on one of my 4 motorcycles, which I enjoy very much (apart from not being able to play radio on the motor cycle). The vehicle will be used purely for Ham radio, dog transporting (Dudley likes to travel in style) and holidaying/touring around, not forgetting those freezing cold icy winter days that are a bit dangerous on two w...

Tuesday evening I was once again active during the monthly VHF contest on 2m ssb. This months contest started off well and continued to be a good evening, I worked 29 stations in total over 2 and a half hours. I managed to make qso with Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Northern Ireland and England gaining 11 multipliers, 65461 points, with the furthest contact being G0XDI/P at a distance of 328KM in JO01KJ. As usual I was running the Yaesu FT-847 and 30 watts output power through the IOIo antenna fixed at 30 degrees elevation, 260m ASL. Since I made the latest antenna I have noticed significant improvements to signals making the normally unworkable weak signals sound much stronger. It is amazing what difference can also be achieved by installing good quality low loss coaxial cable as feeder. I did this the last time I fiddled with the antenna. This year has been the first year that I have taken the RSGB 144 activity contest serious and considering the majority of other ops are running mor...

The past three weeks went very quickly, I spent my time holidaying away from work. I managed many things which included some serious mileage up and down the Country whilst on our tour. I started off the holiday by getting stuck in to the project that has kept me busy for over 12 months, which was of course to decide which of the many homebrew /adapted antenna (IOIo or Yagi) would work best for me on the satellites. I now have gained enough info during the various designs of the IOIo and now with a lot of testing and building I finally knew which one I was going to use based on my shack set up and Yorkshire wallet (often impossible to get a Yorkshire Man to spend his cash). The previous antenna I tried which was what I called the IOIIIIIII Yagi, gave some excellent results with big signals being put into the “birds” I received some nice signal reports. However without elevation control the now narrow beamwidth as G4ILO, kindly advised me and commented “the sharper beamwidth of the long ...

During my mobile operation whilst on holiday in Cornwall I managed to work a number of stations operating mainly on 20 and 40m. I was using the good old Yaesu FT-857 and the Maldol monoband antennas. Many thanks to all stations worked. The mobile log is listed below: Callsign Time Date Band Report sent Report received Name other details IK3CB 3 .31 25/7/09 20 59 59 YL7X 3.32 25/7/09 20 59 59 YU1YV 3.37 25/7/09 20 59 59 OL10Z 3.40 25/7/09 20 59 59 IK2YCW 3.43 25/7/09 20 59 59 RZ3EC 3.45 ...