M0YKS Shack Updates - 2025

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Greetings and welcome back to one of the oldest Ham Radio blogs from the UK. Its been a few months since I last posted and I have been a little bit less active in regarding making YouTube videos. That doesn't mean I have been neglecting the actual heart of my interest which of course is HAM Radio. Yes I have continued to be working DX, Rag chewing SAT chasing and general radio fun. In fact I have been hitting some super DX lately from my Toyota RAV whilst travelling to and from work.


The Toyota has my FT-100 and the mono band 20m Mobile base loaded whip which I picked up 18 months ago from Knights Ham and CB Radio supplies, It works very well indeed! I have hit the DX into Iran, VK, USA, Canada, Barbados and St Lucia whilst on the move. Its impressed me how many stations have been surprised how big the signal is from a Mobile station. I made the mount up from some old fittings and replaced the coax with some high quality cored cable which was previously used on my Carolina windom feedline (White outer sheaf) it doesn't stand out as much as the vehicle is silver. The short length to the transceiver seems to do the job with minimum losses.


I have also enjoyed operating in the shack on an evening and of course on Sunday mornings which is still a religion at our QTH. My FTDX101MP is proving to be everything it should be, I am able to work more or less everything  that I can receive. I still haven't coupled up either of the amplifiers as the 200 watts has been more than sufficient during solar cycle 25. My Ancient Cushcraft MA5B is still awesome, it's been superb on all of the bands I put it up on its short homebrew mast many years ago and it's still standing well.

 My tests with the 40m end fed wire have proven to be very interesting, I can now confirm that at this particular location this antenna seems to be the best performer on 80 and 40m both on receive and transmit This is a comparison on the Windom, Dipole and  Fan Dipole. I will be keeping the 49/1 End Fed Halfwave 80m antenna in its current inverted vee configuration, its working great!

As for working the Satellites... I am still busy chasing and pointing my array to the stars. 
I just worked a couple of guys via ISS repeater and also I have been enjoying hitting some of the new SSB birds that are active. I have attached the link here for Satellite Status which is useful to see which satellites are currently operational. If you're new to satellites and the ISS you can track them here with the Amsat SAT tracking  which is online software and works on any device, this can be useful to gain the information regarding what each of the satellite operational frequencies are.

As its Easter I will be off work and hopefully active so listen out for me over the next 10 days. Enjoy youre Easter! 

Special bulletin***** STARTING THIS WEEKEND is ISS SSTV - Here is the latest info from ARISS

On Saturday 12 April is the International Day of Human Space Flight and ARISS is celebrating with an ham radio SSTV event, called “Humans in Space”.
Series 26 will consist in 12 different pictures; transmissions are planned to begin on Friday 11 April 2025 around 17:00 UTC and will run until Wednesday 16 April 2025 around 14:30 UTC.
On the ISS, will be used the Service Module radio and ISS callsign will be RS0ISS; images will be transmitted on 145.800 MHz FM, the SSTV mode will be PD120.

Public is invited to upload decoded images in the ARISS gallery, area "Series 26 - Humans in space" at: https://ariss-usa.org/ARISS_SSTV/; once you've submitted, just clicking on the dedicated button you can apply for the official ARISS SSTV award.

Also, you can request the ARISS QSL contacting the European QSL bureau: https://www.ariss-eu.org/index.php/ariss-station/european-qsl-bureau

Other news...  M7ELC pro radio op!

 As for M7ELC she has been very busy gaining her latest achievement which she earned whilst attending an RAF camp. She had the RAF/ATC basic Radio Operator award and now has upgraded to Bronze level. Hopefully she will be spreading the HAM radio spirit and a few more young operators will rise. More on that when it develops further. In the meantime well done M7ELC! I am super proud! 



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