Mobile Holiday Log

During my mobile operation whilst on holiday in Cornwall I managed to work a number of stations operating mainly on 20 and 40m. I was using the good old Yaesu FT-857 and the Maldol monoband antennas.

Many thanks to all stations worked. The mobile log is listed below:

Callsign	Time	Date	Band	Report sent	Report received	Name	other details
IK3CB	3 .31	25/7/09	20	59	59
YL7X	3.32	25/7/09	20	59	59
YU1YV	3.37	25/7/09	20	59	59
OL10Z	3.40	25/7/09	20	59	59
IK2YCW	3.43	25/7/09	20	59	59
RZ3EC	3.45	25/7/09	20	59	59
RN3ZC	3.46	25/7/09	20	59	59
RK4FAD	3.47	25/7/09	20	59	59
OK1NP	3.49	25/7/09	20	59	59
OM3TWM	3.52	25/7/09	20	59	59
CR2EW	3.55	25/7/09	20	59	59		EU135
I2FOS	4.02	25/7/09	20	59	59
LY9A	4.13	25/7/09	20	59	59
DL/KJ5T	4.19	25/7/09	20	59	59
G7N	8.21	26/7/09	40	59	59		EU120
G0NSL	2.26	26/7/09	40	59	59	Brian	Runcorn
M0TKD	2.43	26/7/09	40	59 +10	59	Keith	Halifax
2E0EMF	2.53	26/7/09	40	59	59	Wayne	Nottingham
MC0TTR	2.57	26/7/09	40	59	59	Dean	Club call near Cardiff
G3OBZ	3.01	26/7/09	40	52	52
G4HFX	3.16	26/7/09	40	57	55	John	Shrewsbury, Shropshire (93)
M3UHQ	3.30	26/7/09	2	59+	59	Lawrie	Penzance FT-897
IV3SUS	8.36	26/7/09	40	58	59	Savino	NE Italy
LZ2VU	9.03	26/7/09	40	55	59	Peter
M3CTW	11.46	27/7/09	40	57	56	Fred
G3OKA	11.53	27/7/09	40	59	59	John	Wirral
M0XJP/P	11.56	27/7/09	40	58	58	Martin	Isle of Wight
2E0LXA	12.02	27/7/09	40	53	53
PA3CEV	12.10	27/7/09	40	59	59	Eric
MW0OPS/MM		27/7/09	40			Hilton	Jurar
G4UWR/P		27/7/09	40			Terry
I3FOM		27/7/09	20	59		Dom
I3ZSX		27/7/09	20			Sil	near Venice
G3RUO		27/7/09	40			Bill
G4FRD		27/7/09	40	57
G3IMG		27/7/09	40	59		Rob	Dudley
G4YUM	3.15	27/7/09	40	59	59	Linda	Norfolk
EI5JN	3.15	27/7/09	40	59	59	John	South coast of Ireland
VE3YJ		27/7/09	20
MM0BNN/P	2.29	28/7/09	20	59	59	Bill	SCO310 & 329
LA0HK	2.38	28/7/09	20	59	59	Jerry
F5BBD	2.47	28/7/09	20	57		Daniel
OE5JZM	3.00	28/7/09	20	57	59	Hans
2E0XGA	5.43	28/7/09	20	57	57	Graham	Liverpool area FT-840
M3UHQ	7.23	28/7/09	2	59	59	Lawrie
PD5SS	11.40	29/7/09	40	59	59	Rudy	S/W Netherlands
G3JVF	11.49	29/7/09	40	59	59	Jonny	Hastings (80)
M0XLT	12.05	29/7/09	40	59	59	Kevin
MD0PWI	12.10	29/7/09	40	59 +10	59	Colin	Douglas - modified G5RV
EI4FX	12.20	29/7/09	40	59	59	Liam	Nr Cork
GX0HCA	12.25	29/7/09	40	57	58	Richard	Harrogate ladies college club testing icom 746
G4KDX/P	12.46	29/7/09	40	57	55	Chris	Morecambe 5 watts
2E0VRG	12.53	29/7/09	40	56	57	Jackie	Halstead
DK2EZ/M	12.58	29/7/09	40	55	55
M0WMO	1.00	29/7/09	40	59 +10	59	Doug	Scarborough
G0CTO	3.31	29/7/09	2	59++		Ian	Bolton
M3SXV/M	3.51	29/7/09	2	59	58	Sean	Stamford Bridge. Home QTH Cawood

Marconi Centre & Goonhilly, Cornwall

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.

International Space Station (ISS) - ARISS school contact - OR4ISS Captured On Video

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.

Multi - Mode Holiday

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 of the quieter bands open and being used.
Well its time to jump in the bed, cuddle up to the YL and get some shut eye, I wonder what tomorrow will bring? 73.

Dual Band Satellite Yagi

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 gap. I now had 6 elements (D) in front and 2 elements at the back of the loop (Ref). I ended up with a couple of spare elements which will be used in any future experiments that I am sure I will be trying.

Once I connected the feeders I set the 435-MHz IO-Yagi to vertical polarisation fixed above the horizontally polarised IO 145-MHz beam. I decided to set the 435-MHz antenna vertically to see how it performed receiving the FM Sat's such as AO-51, SO-50 and AO-27. I will be busy testing to see the results over the next few days.
I tried it out on a couple of local FM repeaters on 433 MHz and noticed that one repeater was S-5 on my Co-linear (Vertical) whilst up to S-9+30 on the IO-Yagi. The modified yagi seemed to be putting the RF in and out in the desired direction and giving a good front to back ratio. Before I can complete the evaluation, I will see how well I get up into VO-52 vertically polarised at 30 degrees elevation. Don't be too surprised to see the IO-Yagi part of the antenna set up back to horizontal in the next post!

144MHz UKAC 7th July Contest AR Section

Last night was the monthly 144 MHz UK Activity Contest which started at 19.00 utc until 21.30 utc. During the contest I made 27 QSO the furthest being 289 miles away and was G4JQN- Jerry, who is located at Westbury in Wiltshire. The band was a full of QSB and to the South East there was some QRN, despite this I still managed to enjoy myself on the band. As usual I used the homemade loop (IOIo) and 30 watts from the FT-847, a big thank you goes to all stations worked and good to get you all in the log.

QSOs :27
DXCCs :3
WWLs :10

TX: Yaesu FT-847
Power output: 30
RX: Yaesu FT-847
Antenna: Single Loop - IOIo Home Made
QTH ASL (m): 260
Antenna height agl (m): 5

Number of QSOs made: 27
Claimed points: 3926
Multiplier: 10
Overall score: 39260
Best DX station callsign: G4JQN, Distance: 289 Locator: IO81VG

GM4PPT-IO75SK-Scotland:
GW8ZRE/P-IO83JF-Wales:
G4DEZ-JO03AE-England:
M1MHZ-IO92WV-England:
MX0SRA/P-IO93AF-England:
GM4JR-IO85FB-Scotland:
G3SDC/A-IO92FM-England:
GM6JNJ-IO75SO-Scotland:
MM0GPZ-IO85AK-Scotland:
G4JQN-IO81VG-England:
G6VS/P-IO93AD-England:
M1EYP/P-IO83WE-England:
G3VCA-IO93RF-England:
G4CLA-IO92JL-England:
2E0RDU/P-IO83XP-England:
G8CUL-IO91JO-England:
2E0RFX-IO83WO-England:
G4GSB-IO82XM-England:
M0WBN-IO93RG-England:
M0PAI/P-IO93AK-England:
M0BRA-IO91PK-England:
G0BWC/P-IO84RA-England:
G7PZL-IO93GR-England:
G2BQY/P-IO81WG-England:
GW8ASD-IO83LB-Wales:
M0NUT/P-IO91IN-England:
2E0XLG/p-IO83WV-England:

After the Contest I joined Adam – 2E0LXA and Phil – M1PAC on 20m and then on to 40m before it was time to pull the plug. Next weeks contest is on 433 MHz, I am interested in finding out how well the new 10 Element Yagi will perform? I hope it is better than the 70 cms half of the IO loop that I have chopped off too mount the new Yagi, watch this space for either lots of cussing or a big smile.