Lots of ISS and Satellite activities as HF is quiet

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 Hi everyone I hope all is well? It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted so thought I'd drop by and update you of some of the activities I have been getting on with.

First I will start with the card I received this morning confirming a great qso with ON3ONX who was worked via SSB Satellite XW-2A. 

Over the past fortnight I spent a number of evenings trying my hardest to get into the new ISS repeater, I have probably tried around about 50 passes which I would say out that I made a qso 5 times giving me a 10% success rate. At first I thought I had an issue at my end but soon realised that the majority of stations in the UK and N.W Europe that were getting in each time (the same stations) are in fact running higher power than myself. This of course is quite unnecessary as well as out of order lol. I guess some people are so desperate to make it their own personal repeater hi hi that 300w is acceptable. I cranked it up to 50w and still struggled and at one point went the whole hog of 85w to try prove a point - still did not get in lol. 
2M0SQL- Peter who has a great satellite station dropped me a message informing me that the squelch level onboard ISS has been turned up high. This would explain why the up-link signals are struggling to open the repeater up and when they do work, cut out a lot.  Thanks for the info Peter. 

The other earth orbiting satellites such as AO-91, SO-50, XW-2A and RS-44 have been absolutely solid at my end. I have really been enjoying myself working lots of amateur stations on these satellites and I did manage a DX contact via RS-44 into Canada where I worked VE1VOX - Dana. That was cool!


My 145MHz Yagi has been vandalised by our feathery friends and I have lost half of my reflector when a big Owl decided to adjust their perch. I haven't noticed any detrimental changes to performance other than it looks and is annoying lol,  maintenance and repair/replacement is planned for the end of the month when I get the half term holiday. 

Everything else apart from HF propagation seems to be going well, I am flat out at work teaching the latest generation of welder fabricators which is great despite wearing a face mask all day for protection against the dreaded C19. 


I also did a bit more work on the tower I started a while back and finally brought it home to complete the bits and pieces at home in my spare time (if I get some lol). The plan is to fit a tilt over bracket and tube clamp to allow a telescope type height adjustment.


So that is about it for now, Oh i almost forgot.... I have been banging out lots and lots of videos on my Ham radio YouTube channel so if you haven't seen them all yet lol why not take a look! My channel is growing in popularity lately and I want to thank everyone for their support with this. I know some of you have been there from the beginning and I value your loyalty a lot! Thanks guys and girls. 

Hope to catch some of you soon! have a lovely weekend all 73 de M0YKS Simon


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