Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

This morning was excellent propagation whilst driving to work in my Toyota 4X4. There were many VK's coming through very strong with 5/9+ signals all over the 20m band. At around 7.15utc I heard Ian VK3MO calling CQ around 14.178MHz, Ian was 5/9+30db in signal strength. I managed to get back to Melbourne and work Ian for 10 minutes as I drove to work giving him a 5/9 signal back from my FT-100 and Maldol HFC-20 mono band antenna. I love the early morning openings and I am always amazed how well the mobile set up always seems to perform.

With Iceland's Volcano Eyjafjallajökull causing so much controversy, I decided to track NOOA -19's latest pass with the help from Satscape . I wanted to see if I could spot the Volcanic ash that everyone is hearing about for myself. The equipment I used today was my good old Yaesu FT-2600M and a 137MHz vertical whip. NOAA-19 transmits APT on FM at 137.100 MHz. There are more NOOA Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite(POES) which transmit images of the Earth and are simple enough to receive and decode. I am still using Radiocom 5.2 to decode the WX images as seen below. Image of UK captured by NOAA-19, Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite(POES) received at my Amateur Station at 12.38 utc today.

Dudley says "Sorry I have been absent, I've been playing" The past couple of weeks I have been enjoying Easter break from the College where I work, it has been a fantastic holiday but unfortunately all good things must come to an end, as I will be working again next week. Despite my lack of posts here, I have been fairly active on the bands making lots of impressive DX both from the mobile and QTH. Conditions at times have been very interesting as well as totally flat because of the solar activity. One of the days when the propagation peaked, I was fortunate to be driving back from the East Coast when I made QSO with 9M6TMT - Tom, and HS0ZIN - Paul, both booming in 5/9+ signals. I shall be back to my usual blogging over the next few days as I adjust back to normality but in the meantime have a great weekend and hope to hear you on the bands.