Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Most weekends I try to catch the Sunday morning local GB2RS News broadcast read by G4KQJ or G4IOD (The 2 Bills). Both stations do a fantastic job and can be heard from 8.30am utc on 145.525MHz, reading the National and Regional News compiled by the RSGB (Radio Society of Great Britain) live to Hams and SWLs within range. The News broadcast covers various category's from general radio news, to propagation, contests, dxpeditions and local club/rally information, lasting around 30 minutes. Afterwards the News reader QSYs to a clear frequency avoiding interference to the next scheduled neighbouring regional broadcast, where reports and any questions are invited. I call in often and did this week to the after news net, to say a quick hello, good morning and thank you, to the news reader who usually has a friendly little pile up of regulars. If you hear a Ham operator reading the news somewhere on the bands and have not yet called in to say hello and that he can be heard at your QTH,

Since the shuffle around with my radio equipment I have been listening around the bands whilst in my usual test mode of the equipment. There's been lots to listen to lately with the many recent contests and special event stations. As usual I have managed to work some interesting as well as a few DX stations as I came across them. I am still running my motor cycle for the daily work run and unfortunately have missed opportunities to use the mobile set up. Despite the lack of mobiling I did get lucky with two QSO on 20m last week into Japan when I was out in the Toyota. The FT-100 and Maldol HF-C antenna once again gave the result I like best with good signal exchanges taking place. Earlier this evening whilst mobile, I experienced some interesting conditions where I could hear long and short skip at the same time. Signals were plentiful and at one point I heard a VK and GM 5/9, in the middle of an EU pile up that was going on at the same time(typical of course). Back in the shack al

I decided to have a change around in the shack and get some use out of some of the equipment that I had forgot about for a while. I started by installing the robust little YAESU FT-2600M – 2M FM transceiver that I have owned for just over 5 years, I set the FT-2600M up with a separate PSU and a X200 Collinear (vertical) antenna. I remembered that I had a modular to 8pin din adaptor some where in my junk draw and once I located it I connected the Adonis AMDX1 desk microphone replacing the standard fist mic. The YAESU FT-2600M rig can be seen in the image below. The next “shack adjustment” was to involve both the base and mobile setup, I have been missing the good old YAESU FT-100 out in the mobile since I supposedly upgraded to the newer FT-857. The FT-857 has been working adequately over the last 12 months but it has still failed to convince me that it is the better radio out of the two multi mode, multi band mobile rigs. The FT-857 has a much smaller display than the older FT-100 whic

Its been exactly three years since I began blogging about all things Ham Radio here at Blogger and during the three years I have had lots of interest from fellow Hams, SWL's and Internet surfers. In fact I have made many new friends and adversaries since this humble radio blogger began ranting and raving about his radio obsession. Today's Site Meter reading was up to, Forty thousand, One hundred and twenty one visits and all I can say is Wow! Thank you, it has been and will be a pleasure for many more posts to come from Ham Radio Operator dot blog spot dot com. Monthly Visit Data I have been using site meter to monitor all Internet traffic to this site which has been a valuable resource. As well as the data above and the graph below, the site meter shows the visitors location, visit duration, referral, and in/out click. Monthly Visit Graph Last 100 Visitors World Map Once again thanks for visiting this site.

I decided to put together a "Safari" style roof rack for my Toyota RAV 4 mobile Ham Station using some mesh, square tube and a bit of M.I.G Welding. It turned out OK and as you can see I have loaded it up ready for our Scottish Camping holiday this coming week. I will be using the Yaesu FT-857 with Maldol HFC Mono Band Antenna's, listen out for me working as 2M0HTS/M from N.W Scotland on 20M, 40M, 80M and some 2M activity. You can keep up to date and find out when I am active by following twitter, frequency's used will be tweeted to my 2E0HTS Twitter account. (Mobile Phone Signal Permitting) Toyota RAV 4 - Home Made Safari Roof Rack

Tonight's NOAA - 15 Weather Image Screenshot of Satscape Satellite Tracking & Radio Com Decoding software The receiving is done with the Yaesu FT-847 Transceiver and IOIo Antenna. I managed to get a good image earlier this evening using the above setup. The received image shows the north Coast of Africa up to the Arctic Circle, as you can see there is a lot of cloud rolling in over the U.K. You can also see the "Grey Line" as the Sun is shining to West. I received the above WX image on FM, from my ground station at 16.45 utc on 137.500 MHz + or - Doppler, courtesy of NOAA - 15 Weather Satellite.

Since the last post I have been up to my usual antics and started the week by working Paulo CT1ETE in IN51UK – Portugal, via the SO-50 Satellite, Paulo first contacted me via email to arrange our first QSO. I continued working plenty of interesting Stations via the “Birds” with lots of success throughout the week. The FT-847 DSP filters have been doing a fine job dampening down the unwanted noise on the FM down links, as well as cleaning up the distant voices making them much more readable and easy to copy. HF has also had its moments this week, especially late on Thursday evening where I was fortunate to be on 20M during some nice DX openings. I worked LU5FF –Argentina, WD8CCC - U.S.A, FM1HN – Martinique, HI3TEJ - Dominican Republic & TI2AIM - Costa Rica. The 20M band was in good shape that night as all Stations were good signals and were worked on the FT-767, Delta Loop antenna and 50W of output PWR. I haven’t heard conditions quite as good on 20M since then, however I usually m

Here is the latest vehicle to house the amateur radio equipment I use whilst working mobile. It follows a long line of previously owned Toyota's as it is my 7th Toyota/ 2cnd RAV-4. We decided to change from the Estima whilst paying out a fortune in diesel during our recent visit to Cornwall, were loosing a bit of space but gaining more miles to the gallon and these days with things around the World been so tight it seems a good idea. The latest RAV is in very condition and has low mileage with only one previous keeper, it should be good for a couple of years of DXing and touring around. Some of you already know that my journey to work is often undertaken on one of my 4 motorcycles, which I enjoy very much (apart from not being able to play radio on the motor cycle). The vehicle will be used purely for Ham radio, dog transporting (Dudley likes to travel in style) and holidaying/touring around, not forgetting those freezing cold icy winter days that are a bit dangerous on two w

Tuesday evening I was once again active during the monthly VHF contest on 2m ssb. This months contest started off well and continued to be a good evening, I worked 29 stations in total over 2 and a half hours. I managed to make qso with Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Northern Ireland and England gaining 11 multipliers, 65461 points, with the furthest contact being G0XDI/P at a distance of 328KM in JO01KJ. As usual I was running the Yaesu FT-847 and 30 watts output power through the IOIo antenna fixed at 30 degrees elevation, 260m ASL. Since I made the latest antenna I have noticed significant improvements to signals making the normally unworkable weak signals sound much stronger. It is amazing what difference can also be achieved by installing good quality low loss coaxial cable as feeder. I did this the last time I fiddled with the antenna. This year has been the first year that I have taken the RSGB 144 activity contest serious and considering the majority of other ops are running mor

The past three weeks went very quickly, I spent my time holidaying away from work. I managed many things which included some serious mileage up and down the Country whilst on our tour. I started off the holiday by getting stuck in to the project that has kept me busy for over 12 months, which was of course to decide which of the many homebrew /adapted antenna (IOIo or Yagi) would work best for me on the satellites. I now have gained enough info during the various designs of the IOIo and now with a lot of testing and building I finally knew which one I was going to use based on my shack set up and Yorkshire wallet (often impossible to get a Yorkshire Man to spend his cash). The previous antenna I tried which was what I called the IOIIIIIII Yagi, gave some excellent results with big signals being put into the “birds” I received some nice signal reports. However without elevation control the now narrow beamwidth as G4ILO, kindly advised me and commented “the sharper beamwidth of the long

During our recent holiday trip to Cornwall we managed to visit Goonhilly and The Marconi Centre where I got to play some portable/mobile ham radio from the historic site. The video shows the Marconi Centre's antenna array and its beautiful location, as well as the massive Goonhilly Dish Arrays in and amongst some very nice QSOs on 20M, 40M and 2M. Hope you enjoy the video, More info to follow.

I was fortunate to be in the shack earlier this evening in order to catch the ARISS school contact where I got the chance to try out the latest IOIo Home brew antenna that I made earlier in the week. The antenna received the ISS very well as you can see in the video that I made during the pass. The Video shows the ISS side of the ARISS school contact with Frank De Winne -OR4ISS coming through loud and clear in Yorkshire England. I received a 5/9+60dB signal from OR4ISS on board the International Space Station during the pass over Europe at around 19.35 utc. Equipment used: RX/TX - Yaesu FT-847 Earth Station. Antenna - IOIo 145/435-437 MHz Home made Satellite beam (Fixed at 30 deg Elevation), Yaesu - G-250 Rotator.

At Day 4 of my 3 week holidays and some free time to spare, I spent the best part of yesterday playing radio as many ways as possible making some good QSOs throughout the day. I played on HF using phone and digi modes and I also got to test the IO-Yagi on the VHF band as well as the LEO Satellites. VO-52 Satellite, using the modified yagi. IK3VZS - Italy 5/9. IK5BNG – Italy 5/9. F6BYJ – France 5/6. PSK31, running 30w from the FT-767 and Nomic Rigblaster. TG9AHM – Guatemala, 599. EB7FBJ – Spain, 599. ON5QB – Belgium, 599. ON5PO – Belgium, 599. OZ5THY – Denmark, 599. HF/VHF – Bands, running 50w from the FT-767 using the delta loop, Doublet, Hustler 6BTV & IO beam EA7TL. Spain, on 144.335 usb. 5/9. Sporadic E. EA8CAC Canary Is, on 28.487 USB. 5/9. LU3MCJ - Argentina, on 14.173 USB. 5/9. HR2DMR – Honduras, on 14.180 USB 5/9. VK3MO - Australia, on 14.169 USB 5/7. There were some excellent conditions on all of the bands today as well as a burst of Sporadic - E. It was nice to hear some

It's been just over a week since I installed the 10-element yagi in the place of the 435 MHz IO loop and as you can imagine, I have been testing it out at every opportunity. Unfortunately like the previous experiments once again I was disappointed with this time 10-elements against the single IO-Loop's performance. The new yagi appeared to be poor in comparison. So, now that I have finished for the summer holidays I decided today would be the day that I got to grips once again and sort out my home brew dual band satellite yagi/beam antenna. I had been toying with scrapping the driven element and replacing it with another IO- type loop. I dropped the antenna and set about fitting the 435 MHz loop, I used the original element/boom plastic clamps and with a bit of measuring and a few adjustments I grafted in the new loop as the now replaced driven element (DE). I then used the original (now spare) driven element as a reflector and re-positioned it behind the loop at the required