Using The YAESU FT-4X Portable - Beamsley Beacon Summit N.Yorkshire

When Elsie M7ELC obtained her foundation amateur radio licence my good friend Pat W0OKE, Norm and the whole Portland Oregon HRO team sent her a fantastic first radio to celebrate her achievement as at that time, 2021, Elsie was 10 yrs old . She was very happy to receive this lovely radio which is the YAESU FT-4X. She uses it every now and again but not as often as the mobile FT-857 or shack station. So I decided with her permission to give it a go myself. After all my FTDX-101MP gets her attention so its a fair deal.

  

 So today's adventure was to hike to the top of one of the local trig points about 15 miles to the North West of Baildon. The exact location is overlooking Bolton Abbey situated higher up above on Langbar Moor and is known as Beamsley Beacon which is 1300 FT ASL. 

A great walk and also spot on for VHF UHF QRP. 

 The YAESU FT-4X is really nice radio to operate and is nice and simple to use so with my eyesight not as good as it was I found it great. The most impressive bit was its clear receive quality and from the reports it gets out well. When I got back home I ordered a 1/4 wave (aprox 40cms long) antenna to try it with next time around. I definitely would recommend this radio after using it. If you had two of these dual band radios your well on your way for the satellites and ISS. All you would require further is an Arrow antenna or something similar. Anyway back to Beamsley Beacon with the video of the adventure below.

 

ISS FM Repeater - ARROW Portable Satellite Station

 

 Some of you will remember me getting the Arrow Mk2 antenna back in 2007 and as you can see it still does me a very fine job. I still enjoy the QRP satellite work which is always a surprise on how well it actually works. Tonight's efforts paid off as I cracked the pile up and worked two stations through the International Space Station. The ISS has its FM repeator active for radio amateurs to work each other on 145.990 FM up (Transmit with a CTSS tone 67hz) and 437.800 FM down (Receive frequency) Good luck if your going to have a go yourself. 73 thanks for following my madness.

For more on ISS, FM and SSB Satellites as well as weather satellites check out all my Satellite adventures in one place.

This image was received this morning at my shack in Baildon Yorkshire from the NOAA-18 Weather Satellite using WXtoIMG to decode. *Thanks to WRAASE Electronic for the stable free download version and Kepler update info and program. All working great for me!

Excellent HF Band Conditions - Big Signal From JH3NGD

Today has been a good day for ham radio here at the shack. The DX has been coming in really nicely throughout the 20, 17 and 15m bands. I made some great DX into China, Indonesia, South America and as seen in the video Japan. The QSO with Kazuhito JH3NGD was a really good example of having a decent QSO with fantastic stable band conditions, I really enjoyed the oppertunity and from the sounds of it Kazuhito san enjoyed looking at my old classic japanese motorcycles seen on my QRZ page. Kazuhito had some intresting pictures of his amazing set up which I also enjoyed looking through whist we made QSO. I hope to hear Kazuhito JH3NGD again soon a great operator from Japan, Thank You for the QSO!.

My next great QSO tonight was into Mildura, Victoria, Australia with a nice chat with Moz VK3CWB exchanging a 5/5 report. Moz is located spot on for the hobhby with plenty of space and has a very nice antenna. Thanks Moz!

It has also been a typical Yorkshire day regarding the WX but we all still ventured out over the hills and far away for a family walk across the moor tops with the hounds. I hopefully will get out and try some portable or mobile radio over the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for the DX Machine.

In the meantime I will try to keep up with the videos and blog updates. For all of you that check my blog I will try to add some extra info each time I pin a video so you get a little extra info to have a look at. I appreaciate you all, I realize we are talking International so once again a massive Thanks for following the story so far. Good DX and enjoy the currently good HF band conditions. 73.

SSB Satellite Tricky But Fun! - JO-97 and RS-44

My satellite activity has proven to be popular so I decided to hit the record button whilst trying my luck on the SSB satellites JO-97 and RS-44. I got into JO-97 easy enough but it was a quiet pass regarding working anyone. It was a bit noisy on the downlink but a good signal for sure. I used the BHI DSP filter on my external speaker to kill the noise, it works well on the SSB birds. RS-44 was awsome, I had a decent run and worked some great operators during the pass. SSB Satellites provide great DX oppertunities with a reasonable portion of bandwith to allow multiple stations to make a qso at the same time unlike the FM sats. A bit trickier but worth the effort. Good luck and thanks for the visit.

Tonight's Weather Satellite Over Atlantic & UK. Live Reception and Super...

I still have a go at recieving NOAA weather Satellite signals on 137 MHz. There are just three currently operational which still provide a decent image of the Earth.

The decoding is done with the same software as before which is WXtoImg. I use a program to update the satellite position called Kepler update which WXtoImg reads and keeps up to date for accurate decoding. The WXtoImg program used to update within the program but that stopped being supported so a add on method as mentioned must be used. Anyway hope you enjoyed the decode and image.

Space Station Passing Overhead Can I make a Radio Contact?

Summer Activities On The Air

Well I was surprised to see how long ago I last posted on my blog. It has been a busy few months with time passing quickly. 

As for the bands they have been on and off but overall I would have to go for more of the on with some pretty cool DX 

I have as usual been making the most of the great outdoors with the odd attempt of operating both mobile and whilst walking. My next plan is to take my FT-817 and have a go at some long wire QRP. I might get an opportunity over the next few weeks as it's the end of the college year and I am off for a month. 

Space communication has still been keeping me occupied as has ADSB aircraft tracking and of course I am active daily on the HF bands.

This coming weekend on Saturday 22 July at 20:00 UTC a few YouTube hams are getting together including myself and plan to break the 40m band by simultaneously live streaming on 40 meters. This has been organised by James M0GCQ and is a great opportunity to try out your station with the live feed from each channel being so easy to access. You can work up and down the British Isles and try catch everyone that is participating on this event.

This Saturday's Mega Stream YouTube Ham Radio Station list is:

@AmateurRadioUK M0GQC

@m0mcx M0XXT

@timg5tm941 G5TM

@G5STU G5STU

@M0JSX M0JSX

@M0YKSHamRadio M0YKS

@digitalanalogueham 2E0UKH

@IrishHamRadio EI5IMB

#MM0OPXAmateurRadio MM0OPX

There is word out that M0XXT Callum (DX Commander) is offering a prize to the first station that manages to work every live stream station on the Air. This is only available to you guys not the the stations streaming. So with that I hope to hear some of you coming in well  on Saturday night 21:00 local time, - 40m band.

Hope you make it, 73 for now.

ARISS School Contact

Today's ISS activity from OR4ISS on board making contact with a secondary school located in France via ground station ON4ISS.

Reasonable reception at my end with my FT-847 and Innovantenna - loop fed 6 element X YAGI on G-5500 Rotator.

Saint Anatoile secondary school is a French private catholic school located in a rural area in the department of Jura (258,000 population), Burgundy, France Comté region. In conjunction with hosting this ARISS contact, the school has developed a 2-year "ARISS contact" project to provide students a real opportunity to discover and understand an environment that is unknown to most of them. The objectives of the project are to deepen the scientific and linguistic knowledge of the students through workshops, and various STEM projects incorporated in their curriculum. All students participated in the project (about 100 pupils aged 11 to 14)..The workshops covered topics that included: an introduction to amateur radio, Morse code, Q code, radio directional-finding, rules of communicating on amateur satellites (using satellite QO-100), orbital mechanics, wave propagation, and much more.

To find out how your school could participate in a similar radio activity with the International Space Station follow the link - ariss.org

Today's Questions. 

1. Can the effects of global warming be seen from the Space Station?

2. Does weightlessness change the way you breathe?

3. Do you plant seeds in order to have vegetables and eat them?

4. Do you still have the notion of time inside the ISS?

5. What did you like the most when you first entered the ISS?

6. Why did you want to become an astronaut?

7. How is it possible to sleep in the space station with weightlessness?

8. Have you discovered anything unusual or strange during your last missions?

9. How can the Space Station supply itself with electricity?

10. How do you feel to be one of the few people to go into space?

11. What do you do with your waste?

12. What do you do if someone gets hurt?

13. What is the interest of weightlessness in your research?

14. What constraints do you encounter when you return to Earth in order to regain a normal life?

15. How long is the air reserve of the spacesuits?

16. How do you cook in space?

17. How did you feel during the take-off of the shuttle?

18. Is it hard to walk when you come back on Earth?

19. What is the best activity you have done in space so far?

20. How do you feel weightlessness now, as you are talking to us?

Working Into FO-118 CAS-5A

Greetings from the shack of M0YKS, I hope the New year has started well for you. I have been active on most bands from 80m through to 70cms. DX on 10m has been awesome so has 12, 15 and the other HF bands, my confirmed DXCC is now at 155 on QRZ using SSB phone mode. Hopefully this year I will improve the logged DXCC but either way I am enjoying the chase. 

I have also been active on the Satellite bands working mostly into Europe on both SSB and the FM birds. 

Today I thought I would have a go at working a reasonably new Satellite CAS 5A also known as FO-118. I haven't quite setup my radio steering software SATpc32 correctly with the Doppler correction known as a Doppler sqf file yet, so I had to manually change the downlink frequency but still managed a few nice QSOs. The new Satellite was built by CAMSAT and has a FM V/u repeater as well as V/u and interestingly a H/u linear transponder on board for amateur radio use. 

If you don't quite understand what it all means this is it: V = VHF, U = UHF and H = HF. So for example in the case of V/u it would mean VHF uplink TX and UHF down link RX. For this Satellite CAS 5A, V/u is 145.925 FM TX and 435.600 FM RX. 

Today's first trial of working the bird proved to be easy enough with a decent signal back down from the bird using the FM repeater. The next thing is to try the linear transponders and maybe operate the H/u mode with a 15m band uplink. That will be something new for me for sure. The V/u SSB transponder should be easy enough to hit and probably will be decent if it is anything like the earlier XW Chinese satellites. Hope to hear you soon from IO93CU. H N Y.

Seasons Greetings and Happy DX

 

Almost that time of year again and it sure feels like it too. Very cold here in Yorkshire England at the moment and I am looking forward to the holidays which are approaching fast. This year I get to enjoy two weeks away from the workplace which means there will be plenty of time to fire up the FTDX101MP and make some merry DX. 

Talking of DX..... This evening was decent on HF as I worked some nice DX up on 10m - KP4PR and LU5FC and then down on 20m I was able to work TO9W, K9NEM and ZF2OO with some lovely signal reports exchanged. All SSB voice, using 200w barefoot from the 101MP  hooked up to my trusty  Cushcraft MA5B multi band yagi antenna.

I will catch up with you again soon and hopefully catch you on the Air over the holiday period. I may try a couple of live streams in and among the festive fun. In the meantime SEASONS GREETINGS and Have fun!  

M7ELC and M0YKS CQ WW DX Contest

What a great contest it was! The bands opened up and the DX came through a treat. I worked plenty of stations and although I have done better in the past I did manage to work 18 Zones and 74 Countries over the weekend. My young apprentice M7ELC did an absolute fantastic job and bagged herself 14 Zones and got into China as well as many other exciting DX Countries World wide. The new radio in the shack performed flawlessly and the reception was second to none. My only problem was getting Elsie M7ELC to shift over and let me have a go lol.

This years highlights if you have not seen it already.

CQ WW SSB 2022

Thanks to all involved, our logs have been uploaded and we both had a blast. See everyone in the next DX Contest and also next years CQ WW. 73 Good DX M0YKS and M7ELC

Working DXCC

We all enjoy Ham radio for many reasons, after all there is so much to try out with our great hobby. One of my interests is working DX and I have always enjoyed the hunt for new places that I have never made contact with. When I say made contact I am referring to operating with a microphone, radio and antenna. I not particularly interested in digital modes which made me decide to class my successful DXCC entries as voice QSO only. I started off shouting on a President Grant back in the 80s and now manage to shout a little less on my Ham radio equipment. So why change 🤣, anyhow my DXCC total using my Yorkshire sounding phonetics has got me 150 confirmed DXCC since I started the log back in 2004. I'm almost half way there 🤣 and only 22 years so far, hopefully I'll be there sometime, but hey I like to talk. To celebrate the halfway mark I treated the shack to an official QRZ DX World Award. I don't usually bother but thought I might as well have a little reminder to help to motivate me catch some more new DXCC  

73 de M0YKS Simon 

FTDX101MP DX on 10m Band.

The past few weeks of superb band conditions has meant that I could see just how good this radio is. I have spent most evenings up on 10 and 15m working DX and it's been absolutely buzzing with activity. The FTDX101MP is totally awsome on all of the HF bands with an exceptional quality receive capability. I still love my FT-1000mp but the noise does not disappear the same as it does on the 101mp. Infact the 101mp is incredibly good at pretty much everything including putting out a very nice sounding audio. I still haven't tried the Heil GM5 microphone on it as the M70 YAESU desk mic seems to be very good  the reports coming in are pleasing. The M70 came free with the radio as an incentive to buy. It is a nice microphone and I'll be continuing with it for now. I set the eq up with it and thanks to Jay W4ZXT I seem to have configured it to suit my voice. I followed Jay's YouTube video audio/eq settings (thanks bro).

So with a few weeks of playing I have soon got to grips with the layout of the 101mp, it's very user friendly and well designed for chasing DX quickly up and down the bands. I've not used the amplifier recently and my signal has been solid into VK, JA, South Africa, South America and USA. Its definitely a good time to get into the higher HF bands with excellent DX openings daily. The higher bands have provided lots of new stations that I normally don't catch so you can imagine the amount of rag chew qso I have been making. That's another good thing about the higher HF bands you get interesting conversations thst last for as long as you want without too much QRM. Hope to hear you guys and girls on your radios operating 15, 12 and 10m soon. 

73 have a good weekend. GOOD DX. 

ISS Contact - NA1SS - Commander Kjell N Lindgren

 

A little after midnight just before I headed off to bed, I thought to myself "just one more go". Wow what perfect timing as I had a lengthy chat with NA1SS International Space Station Commander Kjell.

 

I was using my Yaesu FT-847 Earth station with the 30 element 435-437 Oscar Sat antenna and 10 Element LFA Cross Yagi for 145 MHz, driven by my Yaesu G-5500 Control/rotator.

The amazing part for me is that I called out CQ once and was answered by ISS Commander Kjell using the call NA1SS. Nobody else in Europe was about so after an initial QSO and signal exchange of a real 5/9+ we had a decent rag chew lasting 5-8 mins as the ISS soared by overhead. Commander Kjell told me he has never been as active and is really enjoying working stations back on Earth from the ISS Columbus Module. I went to bed like an excited child awaiting Christmas and I am still buzzing about it now the next morning. Keep a listen out during the late passes as you may get a pleasant surprise!

New radio in the shack

After serous consideration and a few sleepless nights I decided to part with some hard earned cash and upgrade my HF Transceiver. I am totally satisfied with the new purchase and have been playing all week on an evening after work. The YAESU FTDX101MP is a fabulous bit of kit words can not describe the buzz I have felt and experienced so far. I already worked plenty of DX - Brazil, Falkland Islands, and Indonesia as well plenty of short skip contacts. All made barefoot without the amplifier, the radio puts out 200w so I will be getting rid of both GI7BT amplifiers. The reception is absolutely incredible, I reallly can see the technology improvements which have superseeded my trusty FT-1000mp field. Its like chalk and cheese or day and night. 

Hope to catch you on the air soon using my new setup.  As you can see I have a much tidier setup with a few old school components now taking a well deserved rest. My FT-1000 is now on standby.