Greetings from Ham Radio Operator. Blogspot

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The old saying springs to mind ''time flies when you're having fun" that's true for sure 😀. Hoping you are all onto a good start to the year so far. Just a quick thanks to you all for following and keeping up with things, from one of the first Ham radio blogs coming out from the UK. We've been posting 20 years and have had plenty of fun times since beginning back in 2006. 
During the 20 years of Ham radio blog posts the actual number of posts totals 733. We've made lots of fantastic friends over the year's and we have had a total of 890 comments relating to Ham radio. Last month I had a total of 13015 visits to the various posts across Ham radio operator.blogspot.com The crazy bit, our all time total of world wide 🌍 visits hitting a massive 808129 visits to this blog. Thank you, that is amazing 😍 
I know that some of you have been there from the beginning, many have been there a long long time but if it's your first time viewing this blog Welcome and 73. For the longtime friends and followers Happy New Year, Thanks as always, hope to hear some of you on the band's this year. 73! 

I have been enjoying both Satellite and HF over the holidays. The station has been performing flawless on both FT101mp and the older FT-847. I was considering upgrading the FT-847 but in all honesty I still love using it for my Satellite communications. I was tempted to get myself an Icom IC 9700 but the reviews have a few negatives regarding frequency drifting so for now I will not be changing the FT847 Satellite machine 🛰️. The RS-44 sat passed by just now and it was heading NNE across Europe, it was inactive so I was able to call CQ throughout the pass. I was impressed with the signal I was putting up on VHF and getting back in UHF, at one point I backed my power completely off which is less than 1 watt. My signal was slightly quieter but still booming 🍻🛰️🔥. In the end I followed the bird up to the LOS and at 14° azimuth and 6° elevation I could still hear myself strong. The satellite was at a distance away from me of 3600miles. That is pretty incredible to be hitting it right at the edge of it's footprint.

HF has been good across all of the band's depending on the time of day. Through the day it's been good from 40m through to 10m. In the evening I have had a couple of DX into USA and Canada on both 80m and 40m. The best for last... My first QSO of 2026 was on the 1st day of the new year, it was a good start up on the 10m band with my first call straight into Southern India. I made a 2026 premier with VU2DKI. Since then I've been working DX, interG and anything else I fancy. 

Happy new year all and keep an eye on Ham Radio. blogspot.com for more Ham radio content as we celebrate 20 years of blogging throughout this year.

73 de Simon M0YKS 

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