Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

As mentioned in my previous post, here is the video of my FT-847 Satellite set up receiving images from Russian Cosmonauts on board the International Space Station

I managed to catch a 3rd ISS pass and again collected another RS0ISS SSTV Image. The ISS will continue sending SSTV images until tomorrow if you fancy having a go yourself. I will be QRT for the next pass as I watch Scooby D with my Daughters. BTW I caught the last ISS pass on video which I shall be uploading later. Best 73!

Another pass from the International Space Station allowed me to catch a second SSTV image as seen below.

A successfully received image from space using my FT-847 and satellite array  Using MMSSTV software I received images directly from the International Space Station as it passed over my region a few minutes ago.

Today was a good day! I decided to take the family to the sea side for a little adventure. We left Yorkshire and headed west into the neighbouring county of Lancashire ending up on the west coast at Cleveleys which is very close by to the world famous Blackpool. As we arrived it was the peak of high tide and the waves were splashing nicely over the sea wall. I fired up my Coleman petrol stove and made a warming brew to compliment the stash of sandwiches Louise had knocked up before we set off. Even Dudley our trusty hound had his lunch by the sea side and a fun time was had by all. DX MACHINE M0YKS Mobile As well as having a superb view ahead the view behind wasn't bad either, in fact it was perfect I could see a playground/park directly behind the van which the kids would enjoy for 30 minutes. I decided I would take a look at 20m whilst the family were playing where I heard a lot of contest stations coming in strong to my mobile station. I have recently reinstalled my ...

Reception of todays weather image directly from NOAA 19 Satellite.  I am running some different software to decode the image called WXtoImg . Satellite tracking software is gpredict . Radio is YAESU FT- 847. Antenna 5 Element Yagi YAESU G-5500 elevation and rotation controller.    Late Night Activity It was another late night back in the shack of M0YKS. The family are all tucked up cosy in bed fast asleep as I take a listen up and down the HF & LF bands in the hope of hearing some rare and distant stations.

Just a quick Thank You to all of you for passing by and supporting this Blog as well as my Ham Radio Main Site  and a special thanks pictured above as a tribute to the first 20 entries to my main site visitors guest book. Its half term at my local college which has allowed me to enjoy time with the family as well as play some day time radio. I have been enjoying calling CQ and will try my best to continue airing the new call whenever its possible especially throughout the next few days.  This week you will be able to catch me on HF as M0YKS throughout the day as well as most evenings operating from the shack from around about 22.00 utc. Also some daytime activity is planned as M0YKS/M from my HF mobile " DX Machine" as seen below now running a couple of extra watts... 73!

I am still experimenting with WXtoImage and caught some earlier satellite passes to try out.  NOAA 15 Today at 17.23 utc NOAA 18 Today at 16.36 utc  NOAA 18 Today at  14.56 utc NOAA 19 Today at 13.26 utc

Beamsley Beacon North Yorkshire Today was our first trip up the to the top of Beacon hill near Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire. It was a bit chilly at the top so I couldn't hang about for to long, but we did hear a few stations on my handheld Kenwood THF-7e transceiver. Well done to my girls on their first ever trig point summit.

Weather Image Received From NOAA-19 I recently changed my computer and replaced it with the acer Aspire XC-115 mini tower. The PC is very fast and has all the required bells and whistles with the latest windows 8.1 operating system. The program that I normally use for decoding (radiocom 5.2) was designed for XP and is a bit old for the latest operating system so I decided to try another well known satellite decoder known as WXtoImg .  I downloaded the latest window 8 version which seems to be working quite well as I caught a pass earlier this afternoon from NOAA 19. The decoded image above was received via my FT-847 and satellite antenna, the frequency used was 137.100 MHz.

I am enjoying my new call sign and have been using it mainly on the HF bands which has been very enjoyable and surprisingly I have not made any mistakes so far. Yankee Kilo Sierra rolls of my tongue quite easily and seems to be heard on my first call by most of the stations that I have worked using my new call. I decided to tweak my new M0YKS logo as seen above, I changed the layout slightly and added a different Yorkshire rose as well as some colour to represent the spectacular Yorkshire Countryside. I hope to catch some of you soon somewhere on the amateur bands. best 73 _ . _

I thought I would try out google draw to create a handy reminder in my shack of  my new Call sign.

Greetings to All! Its been a long time since I blogged, this is because I have been very busy studying for the advanced amateur radio licence examination. I am extremely pleased to be able to share with you the fantastic news which I received earlier today which is....... I passed! My new Call sign is M0YKS.