Surviving Storm Ciara and Dennis

Pictured above, I received Storm Dennis as it approached early saturday morning via NOAA-19 weather sat using my Satellite array, FT-847 and WXtoIMG decoding software.
Below is the kind of image we are getting used to seeing around this part of the World.

Its been hard going over the past couple of weeks here in Stormy Yorkshire UK. Just about two weeks ago the storms started to batter our neighbourhood and they have been relentless ever since. We suffered some roof damage to our house during the first big storm - Ciara which resulted in urgent work needing to be carried out in the form of some replacement ridge tiles. This was sorted out quickly and the roof is sound again, my next repair was to my Diamond F23 VHF vertical up on the gable end of the house. The antenna had worked loose due to it whipping around in the gale force winds, I decided it would make sense to take it down and tighten up the u bolts and other fixings before storm Dennis arrived. I carried out the antenna maintenance and all is well after the peak of the storm.

Band Conditions

With one eye constantly on the house and antennas I have not had as many opportunities to actually make some QSOs but I have made a few! Most activity has been across the Atlantic into the States and Canada with a few other good QSOs into Russia.  Its been reasonably good on both 80m and 20m with one or two nice DX openings along the way. Hopefully the WX will calm down and I wil be back to full operation. 73 catch you soon!

80m DX W2RE - M0YKS Busting Through The QRM

80 Meters was in great shape early this evening as I heard Ray - W2RE booming in and working a huge pile up. Ray W2RE operates his Ham radio station remotely and often has a live stream on facebook. I worked W2RE during the QRM that some joker was making which I am happy to see the QRM was not strong enough to block my home brew 80m dipole and 400 watts of RF from my humble hill top. Best 73 catch you again soon!

DX BY DAY AND DX BY NIGHT

Another weekend flies by with plenty of fun with the family. I visited the science and media museum, hiked over the Moor and also got some DX in and there is still a bit more time this evening to check the bands.

Learning about solar flares at the Science and media museum

Out on our local Moor earlier, can you spot the heron flying off.

In my radio shack in Baildon near Bradford City, Yorkshire UK IO93CU.

I also got to try my new feedline on my 80 meter dipole over the weekend and made some stateside qso on 80m with a couple of nice DX openings in the evening with K3ZM, WU2X and also into the Azores with CU2CE. 80 Meters hasn't been very busy but one or two DX stations are being recieved at my end on an evening. The Dipole is working pretty good as is the HUSTLER 6btv (vertical antenna). I also made a video of a qso on 40 meters with R3XE and caught a strong US station working a pile up which I tried to no avail. The video shows a high noise level at my end which started some interesting discussion on video comments with Gary who follows me on my YouTube channel. Thanks to all you guys that follow my video antics and I know some of you have been there for years. Its appreciated and keeps me motivated. Here are a couple of ham radio contacts on video for you to check out at your leisure. Best 73 I will catch up again with you shortly.

40m Dx Night Shift

Beaming State Side - K2TRD - M0YKS

DX Mobile Working Into Russia and USA

Another lunch time operation from the MK7 transit mobile Ham station.

I decided to head a couple of miles up the hill during my lunch break to a place called Rombalds Moor which is 1200 ft asl and great for DXing. It was very windy so I didn't bother to change over antenna as planned, the Maldol works well and the time available was short. 20 meters was very active with plenty of big signals coming in. I heard Indonesia again and tried to get the qso but decided to try some easier contacts. I got into Russia and the USA and ended up working RA6AA and KE5EE before heading back to work. More mobiling and base Ham radio to come, thanks for the visit  73.

DX Mobile - lunch break - Indonesia YB0AR

My Ham mobile - YAESU FT-857, 80 - 100 watts into a Maldol HFC 20 mono band base loaded antenna fixed on the rear of the van roof. 

Location Keighley College car park Keighley West Yorkshire UK.  Loc: IO93CD

My lunch time at work was spent wisely in my Ford Transit MK7 DX Machine, as I ate my home made sandwiches I heard Indonesia 5/9 in the clear. I didn't have much time to try get in through the pileup as well as much power from the van, but the signal was good to hear from YB0AR and it was plenty fun enough trying. I will see what conditions are like tomorrow and maybe I will get out my full size Hustler mono band antennas for a bit more punch. Best 73, see you again soon.

New feedline for 80m dipole

I have decided to stick with my home brewed dipole for 80m but fancied an upgrade for the feedline.

With weight being an issue I went for light weight military spec RG58. The coax I purchased has a stainless flex core inner and the outer braid ia also stainless steel. The PVC insulation is also top grade.

I re installed the dipole back in position and managed to gain an extra meter in height at the lowest end. The SWR remained the same all that is left to do is to get on the band and play. 73  have a good week.

80m Open For DX

Conditions are continuing to offer decent DX opportunities on the 80meter band. I caught some activity last night just as the band opens up in the evening.

W2RE shack feed in Qso with M0YKS

Live feed via Facebook at W2RE Ray's shack. I managed to break through the pile up and heard my signal coming back over the net. Pretty cool, I mixed a video of my Ham radio station to go with the audio recording.

Best 73.

2020 from the Shack

Hope you are all enjoying the beginning of 2020. It's been a very enjoyable festive break spent with my family and I have also heard quite a few interesting stations coming through on the 20m and 80m band over the last 2-weeks. At around about midnight I managed to work across the Atlantic into the States down on 80m a couple of times using my vertical and dipole antenna systems, as for 20m I've heard decent signals from stations out of Indonesia, Australia and also Afghanistan, which is a very good indication that radio conditions are beginning to improve.

Let's all hope that the Bands will continue to get better as lighter nights start to creep back in and we will have some great openings throughout 2020 as we all make DX on the ham radio bands. Best 73 from my family and myself and happy new year to everybody passing through hamradiooperator.blogspot.com

Have a Merry Christmas from M0YKS

Cleaning out the cobwebs from my Yaesu FT-100

 A couple of weeks ago I had a go at cleaning the dust off of the dual fans located at the rear of my Yaesu FT-100. The fans had become very loud and the clean up worked out and I ended up with a quieter sound from the fans. Today I went the whole hog and opened up the case to properly dust out the cobwebs. I was shocked to see just how much fluff had been sucked inside the radio, almost had myself a new pillow there was so much. I used a small brush and hand pump to blow away the dust and fluff making sure I kept my fingers well away from anything. The result is satisfying and the FT-100 is back in service.

New Award from QRZ.com - Master of Communications Europe

I recieved notification on a new award from QRZ.com. "Master of Communications" Sounds awsome! LoL. Anyway I am happy to receive this cool sounding award. Best 73 catch you again soon.

Visit from M0OGY- Dave

Great to finally meet up with M0OGY Dave. After 10 years..... Looking good in my shack Dave!

CQ WW DX SSB Raw Scores

The Raw scores are in, I ended up with a reasonable score of 105,536. My rank has moved up a few places compared to last year's result. Who knows what next time will bring. Im happy with the score, it was very enjoyable, 73 catch you again soon.

80m Dipole - SWR Adjustments

The home made wire dipole that I recently installed was showing an SWR reading of 1:1 at 3.600 MHz. Higher up the band at around 3.795 MHz I was getting a reading of 2:5 which meant I needed my ATU.

After the third time of lowering each end and cutting off 6inch lengths from both sides I got a much more useful range of SWR readings.

The last Adjustments now read 1:1 at 3.700 MHz and 1:3 SWR on 3.799 MHz which is pretty much spot on.

The original dipole legs were cut on the generous side in the first place which meant cutting/shortening each side equally. I did it this way to gain optimal performance on the frequencies I most want to operate on without the requirement of an ATU. It can be tricky measuring the exact length of wire needed as lots of factors can alter the SWR such as antenna height, angle, length of feedline. Location and objects near by etc. By making your dipole oversize it's easy to adjust each end to get the perfect SWR and also a good excuse to mess about outside h.i

If you want to make one for yourself, I used 2.5mm copper multi strand wire. covered in pvc insulation (brown) obtainable from any electrical fittings store. A dipole centre, two end insulators and a short length of light weight 50ohm coax. Each wire leg was cut at total length of 66 feet. After Adjustments the antenna was near to 130 ft total
 Each leg ended up approximately 65ft in length.