Satellite DXing

After work I was out in the garden making the Neighbours look confused as I waved my tripod mounted Arrow into the skies in the search for AO-51. I shouted over to my Neighbour "Signals from space" He looked at me with one of those puzzled looks similar to the ones you get when someone spots your vehicle covered in antenna's, you know the look I mean. He didn’t wait to see what the fuss was all about which turned out to be 3 nice QSOs into Ireland, France and Estonia running just 5 watts QRP out of the TH-F7(uplink) and back into the Ft-470 (down link). I always get a real buzz when outside with the Arrow QRP Satellite set up, I got lucky tonight putting in some good signals from the Moor Top QTH.

I will be trying to get in to AO-51 on the next pass which has a possibility of getting across the pond to the U.S as AO-51 will be on a low pass on the horizon with a maximum elevation of only 5 degrees, it will be short quick and I will have a good chance for some QRP DX.

If you are new to Satellites or have recently just got interested in getting into the Satellite side of amateur radio, this site OBSERVATIONS run by GM1SXX - AL and LA2QAA - John has a lot of useful information regarding Amateur Satellite operations and is well worth a visit.

Latest NOAA-18 Weather Image

Today's weather image from NOAA-18 on 137.912.5 MHz, received this afternoon as it passed over Northern Europe. You can just make out the U.K in and amongst the cloud to the right of the image. Spain and the Balearic's are easily visible.

Gale Force DXing

Since last night we have been suffering from gale force winds which are still hitting us hard up here on the hill. Despite the antennas taking a pounding from the wind and rain, conditions have been excellent on HF with lots of DX stations coming through on 17M, 20M & 40M. Last night (Friday) I was hearing stations from Peru, New Zealand and Stateside coming in strong on 20M. At 21.44 utc I made QSO with Cuba when I worked CO6LC - 5/9 on 20M. Later on 40M, I heard lots of big signals coming in from the U.S, at 22.31, I came across Richard - VE2ZVZ/P, who was on a camping Dxpedition in the forest of MONTREAL. We managed the QSO with QRM making it difficult at times but still getting there in the end with a 5/5 report.

The wind was so bad this morning I had to move one of my Motor Cycles away from a scarily bendy old tree and park it up in a more sheltered space. The WX continued to get worse and during the morning the power lines were blown down somewhere near the local sub station, we had no power for a couple of hours until it was repaired. With the continuous gale force gusts, I am expecting one of the wire antennas to come loose or fall down. Fortunately, I must have done a good job the last time I changed the guy ropes as they are all holding up so far.

We decided that with all the excitement and lack of sleep from the howling wind noise all night, it was not such a good idea to do the unnecessary 170 mile round trip to the Ham Fest in such bad WX. We were going for the run out, so instead we went for a more localised drive around and at the same time a play on 20M from the mobile. The band was busy as I drove and it wasn't long before I worked a couple of European stations on 20M (Slovenia and Spain). My 50W signal was doing well getting through straight away with 5/9 reports on the trusty Yaesu Field Marshall - FT-100.

At 12.58 utc on 14.239 MHz, I worked VK4KW in Australia with a 5/9 report from my mobile from nearby to my QTH. Once again the Yaesu FT-100 HF/VHF Transceiver worked fantastic with the help of the chassis grounded Maldol HFC-20 mono band antenna, performing very well indeed with another good DX contact in the mobile log.

Snapshot of the FT-100 during the mobile contact with VK4KW

VK4KW - TOOGOOLAWAH, AUSTRALIA

Providing that there are no more damaged power lines, I will continue listening out for any DX or any other interesting sounding stations I might receive during the remainder of the weekend.

Metal Working

As well as Ham Radio I have always been interested in Motor Cycles and currently have four Bikes in my collection. I enjoy restoring old bikes and I am always tinkering around with something. I work in Engineering which has its advantages and comes in useful when building antennas, brackets, masts and most things that can be made of metal. This week, I needed to replace the exhaust on the Yamaha XT600e and had decided to go for a full stainless system which just needed the finishing touch with a matching stainless steel heat shield.

The Heat shield is now finished and can be seen in the picture.

I have also started to fabricate a light weight alloy radio and antenna mount to fix to the XT600 (Road legal) Enduro bike. I will be continuing with that project in and amongst my other ideas with pictures and info to follow.

I should be active on 20M & 2M tomorrow on our way to and from the National Ham Fest from the mobile during the daytime.
I hope to be active on the Satellites as well as HF sometime over the weekend from the QTH. I will be posting any activity on twitter as usual, thank you to all my new Twitter followers. 73 have a nice weekend.

"Via The Bureau"

I have heard a few Hams on the Air saying that they don't get any QSL cards "via the Bureau" very often. I always keep a stock of stamped addressed envelopes with my QSL Sub Manager awaiting any incoming cards. when enough cards are worth sending He posts them on to me. I have been active for over five years doing quite well with cards coming in every couple of months, as you can see I am going to be busy replying to the latest batch. The furthest DX was LU5ENM, on the 15-01-07, thanks for all QSLs received. More info at RSGB Bureau
The cards were sent in 2007, 2008 and a couple from earlier this year. I guess the system is still slow, but effective and as long as you are not in a rush the Bureau, works just fine.

A Creature of Habit

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, give it a go you will get a welcomed response. These guys are always there along with the rest of the net, my Sunday morning Ham radio habit is one I have learned to live with as has my YL - Louise(M3TLL). - Who now gets to sleep in all of the bed an extra hour.

Interesting Conditions

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 almost at the end of the so called Summer sporadic openings on 2m FM & SSB, I made some great QSO as far away as the Isle of Wight and the South coast of England using the FT-2600 - Collinear and FT-847 - IOIo beam.

On HF the FT-767 continues to work well with the 130 ft dipole and 20M delta loop. September has again provided good openings into S.America with DX like LU5FF, YV5ANF and PY6HD among the many other logged contacts I managed to make QSO with.

With the winter nights drawing in and the cold dark mornings looming in the background, I suspect I will be increasing my radio activity both in the shack and mobile. I should have more things to blog about which will hopefully be more interesting to you guys and with a bit of luck / propagation I might even get to talk to some of you.

73 Good DXing

Shack Adjustments

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 which has a nice large illuminated panel providing space for a more pleasing meter and frequency readout. The other difference which has been the main concern has been occasional intermittent poor audio reports from the FT-857 despite playing around with the various settings and menu options. The FT-100 audio reports have always been good and more often than not “excellent signal for a mobile,” which when running a QRP station it is advantageous to make the most of anything that can help make the output signal sound its best. This was instantly proved when the two radios had been swapped over as the first QSO from the newly installed mobile FT-100 was into Japan with a 5/5 report from JI1LET on 14.162 MHz, without any difficulty.

I have continued making good qso throughout the week with the FT-100 mobile station when I have been using the vehicle. The FT-857 is now back in the Shack connected with a 2m wide band and a 10M vertical antenna. I have interfaced the FT-857 along side the FT-847 with the pc and are using the rig with Radio Com DSP decoding software for RX-ing WX Fax transmissions as well as monitoring the Air bands & WX SATs.

The shack has had a dusting off and with the recent 22” monitor it is looking as good as ever ready to continue pulling in some interesting signals. At present the Worked All Europe Contest taking place on the HF Bands is providing me with plenty of stations to work as I give away a few points to some of the DX Contest Stations. I heard Indonesia earlier condx seem reasonable – Good Luck all participating.

Check out the re-configured Shack setup.

Ham Radio Blog

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 MapOnce again thanks for visiting this site.

RAV Rack

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 Weather from NOAA - 15

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.

MY Weekly RF Intake

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 monitor the band most evenings before I go to bed and I am often lucky at that time (23.00 -00.00 local) with frequent DX openings.

Saturday I decided to give the new vehicle a run out, so Louise M3TLL, Dudley and I set off in the East Coast Direction after a hearty breakfast. We arrived at Fraisthorpe beach (near Bridlington) and spent a couple of hours paddling around in the calm, sun warmed sea. It was very nice to catch the sun and be on a Yorkshire beach all at the same time (a rare opportunity for good WX) and afterwards we headed up the coast to Bridlington on the hunt for some food.

It was there that I heard fellow CRAG member Chris – 2E0XLG, calling from the Flamborough Light house, located further up the coast. He was as surprised as I was when I made the qso on 2M fm.
Chris was operating from Flamborough for Light Houses on the air with the North Wakefield Club using a special event Light house Call sign - GB2FL. Andy – M0GGR arranged the call sign for the club and kindly invited Louise and I to visit the site where they were operating from.
As you can see we got a warm welcome at Flamborough from the North Wakefield radio club as well as a tour of the equipment.This pictures shows Chris - 2E0XLG and Myself discussing some serious techy stuff! h.i
Robin G1MHU running his Icom and worked me earlier under GB2FLThe Flamborough Light House UK0006, East Yorkshire.One of the F.L Coast Gaurd Antenna Arrays.The GB2FL Station was operating on HF and VHF activating Flamborough Head Light House as part of the International Lighthouses On The Air weekend.
The Special Event Station was on the Air thanks to "Tyke" and the rest of the North Wakefield Club and is an annual activation with the GB2FL Call sign. N.W.R.C - Thanks for the invite and the friendly hospitality, We both enjoyed it very much.

Back on Baildon Moor later on Saturday evening, I noticed Mars was particularly bright due to the clear night sky. I was still hoping for the odd late meteor after only seeing six the other evening when the Perseid's were supposed to be peaking. I set up the little 70MM SKY Watcher Telescope and began peering at Mars. I could see some spectacular colours been reflected down the tube from the Red Planet. I decided to try some experiments with the old camera and came up with some interesting pictures.

Astronomy is one of those other hobbies I enjoy when conditions are once again dependant on the things we do not control. Good Dx-ing to all of you that are DXers and the rest of you, Happy Rag Chewing and Internet Surfing. Thanks for the visit. 73

Toyota RAV-4 Mobile HF - VHF HAM Radio Station

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 wheels.

So as you can imagine, I have had my tools out once again installing the radio equipment and antenna systems into the new Toyota.

I started of with the antenna mounts which would house the HF antennas(maldol mono banders)and also the dual band VHF antenna(Watson 2m/70cm). It is very important to get a good earthing to the vehicle especially for the HF antennas to work properly. To ensure this, I use mounts that grip the vehicle rear door which work by using small grub screws. The Vhf mount is also fixed in the same way, make sure any feeders are secured using plastic cable ties and are routed to avoid the coax from being crushed. See the picture below.The next job was to wire in the power direct from the Toyota's battery, through to the interior via the bulk head enabling a good supply to the Yaseu FT-857. I always double fuse fit the harness conveying the 12-13.8Volt supply as the load drawn from the battery is around 20 amps and could easily start a fire if a short circuit occurred. By placing in line fuse protection close to the battery poles and also close to the equipment/radio the risk of any damage is minimised. I also like to fit some small ferrite chokes on the Yaesu FT-857 power lead and also to the Toyota's engine management system(brain). This can cut down any unwanted noise as well as preventing any RFI entering into the vehicles electrical system.Once the antennas and power feeders were wired in place,the next job was to fit the little FT-857 into the dash board. The location for my personal preference is just below the CD player (which I also installed at the same time)the MIC can be fixed with various brackets which I have yet to do. This picture shows the Yaesu FT-857 fixed in place to the vehicle receiving well.Another view of the Mobile FT-857 installation.The set is working very well as usual, I have already made some nice QSO into Switzerland, Lithuania, Italy and I heard some Middle East stations coming through 5/9+. I am looking forward to many more miles of ham radio mobile operations with this new/second hand vehicle. 73 have a nice weekend.

This months 144 VHFCC

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 more power and have some nice big arrays, I've been very pleased with the results so far.

The new antenna has also been working well for me again with the Satellites, last night I managed a couple of nice QSO on AO-51 and once again I was very strong into VO-52. I am hoping to get some time in and receive some ISS SSTV images that are being transmitted from the space station over the weekend.

That's about it for now, oh yes I nearly forgot. I am now the proud owner of another Toyota RAV4 which is now fully kitted out with the FT-857 and mono band antennas. Pictures to follow on next post in the very near future! 73

Ham Tour

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 yagi means it's much more critical to point it exactly at the satellite? The broader IOio design lets you aim in the general direction and still get some RF where you want”
It did make accuracy into the birds much more critical and unfortunately until I part with some cash for a decent Elevation rotator I have found that the single loops radiated signal is much more usable for my set up at 1000ft asl. Thanks Julian ;-)

This was to be the antenna that is more usable on both the FM Satellites and the SSB Satellites, when set at a fixed elevation. In my case I have chosen a 30 degree inclination which has shown to provide good signals from 10 degrees up to a 50 degrees Pass on VO-52 (SSB Sat).
Passes at 20 – 40 degrees can be worked quite well for the FM Sats such as AO-51, SO-50 and AO-27. I have noticed a distinct benefit using the 435 part of the antenna Vertically Polarised.
I have had much better incoming signals from the “FM Birds” since I adopted this layout.

The signals are still fairly weak but readable, I don’t suppose I can complain considering the Sats are only putting out 620 MW. I certainly would love to get my hands on a decent 70cms preamp, it would aid the excellent Yaesu FT-847 and an elevation control would be very, very nice indeed. In the meantime here is the final Cross boom assembly IOIo.
The next stage of the holiday was spent burning lots of diesel as we set off down to Cornwall In the south of England.
On the way down I made some QSO on 20m during the journey operating the Yaesu FT-857 and Maldol mono band mobile antennas. Playing /mobile Ham radio is in my opinion the best way to keep alert on the road during long hauls and I enjoy the challenge making low power world wide contacts from the mobile very much. Once we arrived at our on route Campsite which was in Devon, we got some sleep and in the morning I changed the antenna to the 40M Maldol mono bander. I made a lot of QSO that day on 40M as we continued to Cornwall and once we arrived the band became open back to Yorkshire and at 400 miles distance, I had long time buddy Keith -M0TKD in the mobile Log close by to Lands End 5/9 +. I worked a number of stations that day and they can be seen in the earlier posted log.

The next Day we met fellow You tuber and Radio Ham Lawrie M3UHQ from Penzance. I made Lawrie a Cup of Coffee on the good old Coleman petrol stove and it was great to finally meet him.

Later that day we went to the Marconi Centre located on the Lizard PointI set up with the Yaesu FT-470 but the 2m/70cms band was very quiet.
Back in the mobile parked up on the Marconi Site I caused a nice little pile up on 40m and made it across the pond in true Marconi style on 20m. The recently posted video shows some of the activity from the Marconi centre in case you managed to miss it hi.

The next place of interest that we got the opportunity to checkout was Goonhilly, which as you can imagine was very exciting to a Satellite addicted Operator, like myself. The YL Louise – M3TLL also enjoyed both radio related visits very much as well.
The little FT-857 saw some action during our holiday and performed well. As far as the Vehicle,it is very expensive to run. We will be saying good bye to it and collecting our newly purchased second hand Toyota Rav 4 (much more fun and more economical). More about reverting back to the Rav 4 and the new installation in the very near future. Thanks for passing by 73.