Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Once again the Bands have become a mass of squawks and rumbles as Radio amateurs around the World battle it out across the HF bands trying to work as many SSB phone contacts amongst the racket of zones and signal reports. This is of course the very popular annual CQ WW Contest. The main objective of the CQ WW Contest is for radio amateurs around the world to contact other amateurs in as many zones and countries as possible within 48 hrs. The World is divided into a total of 40 Zones. The Bands used during the contest are all bands, from 1.8MHz through to 28MHz, except for WARC bands. I enjoy this Contest very much as it coincides with the anniversary of when Louise (M3TLL) and I first dated, Louise lets me play radio every year during our special weekend, as long as I pamper to her every need in between which is easily achievable hi hi. During this year’s CQ WW Contest, I don’t believe that radio conditions were as good as previous years. I did not hear the volume of regular DX station...

Image received at 12.30 utc Below is a screen shot of my computer screen as signals are received from the NOAA -19 Satellite on 137.100 MHz(fm) To do this I use my IO-10 Satellite beam coupled to the Yaesu FT-847. The signal is fed to my P.C via a soundblaster sound card to be decoded into the image seen above.

I recently received the provisional Results from the IOTA 2010 Contest which took place back in July. I took part in this years IOTA Contest for the very first time really enjoying the whole experience and to my recent surprise doing quite well considering my low output power. I entered the Fixed, Single Operator, Unassisted, Single Sideband, 24hr, Low Power Section of the contest (a bit of a tongue twister to say the least). The shortened abbreviated version can be seen below with my score and position. 11 - 2E0HTS - EU005 - Great Britain - IOTA FIX SOU SSB 24H LP - 143 - 57 - 68913 Follow this link to see the full IOTA 2010 Provisional Results . Other recent activity has been mainly on the HF bands especially 40M, 20M, 17M and 15M. Over the past week I have worked some nice DX using the FT1000mp MKV and recent CW160 antenna, the good propagation has provided some excellent openings on the higher end of the HF bands. On 15M, I have worked into Brazil - PY2DN & New Zealand - Z...