This afternoon I was listening for signals on 29MHz AM when I heard a great signal coming acroaa the Atlantic from Milford, Massachusetts. The signal was coming from the amateur radio station of K1ETP Rich and his signal was peaking at 5/9+10db with slight QSB..
I was trying out the AM Mode to see how well it performed with my FTDX101MP.
I have already had success on this mode as I previously made AM contacts with this radio on 20M into Europe when I made a QSO into Sweden. More recently I have been trying to catch some more AM on 10 Meters. I am interested in seeing how the FTDX101MP performance is on AM. This contact was absolutely fantastic and possibly one of the clearest sounding DX signals that I have heard on any mode.
my verdict is: Maybe the radio should have been given 100W rather than 50W on AM.
The findings are: It is brilliant on receiving. this video shows the reception quality without noise reduction or any DSP filtration, just simple straight AM. After the report I received this time on 10m and last time on 20M it is producing an excellent transmission with great audio from the FTDX101MP hooked up with the M-70 desk mic.
So it seems when conditions are good and you use a half decent antenna, 50W is plentiful.
Great result very good contact indeed. thanks to Rich K1ETP.
This week has been extremely good on 10 Meters FM. I have been working lots North and Central America on FM as well as a nice one into The Western Sahara. The clarity on FM has been superb as I experienced great conditions whilst playing around with my YAESU FTDX101MP. I even got a QSO into Mexico working XE2ARP on 29 MHz FM, Awesome!
The SSB operating has also been great on all of the bands, I heard a station from North America on 80m early morning and 40-10 has been great with signals coming in from Japan, Australia as well as North and South America.
My Satellite operations this week have been a mixture of FM, SSB and Weather Sat reception. I managed two contacts into Russia via the birds on VHF/UHF. one via RS-44 on SSB and one earlier today on AO-91 on FM. I also worked Satellite operators from Poland, Germany, Spain, France and Italy. The Dual X Yagi Sat array and my HF antennas which are the original Cushcraft MA5B, Hustler 6 band Vertical and Nest dipole have been performing well for me as have the actual radio transceivers Happy days here in the shack and hoping to work a few of you over the weekend. Enjoy the good propagation as well as your weekend and once again thanks for the visit. 73
I arrived home after work and decided to check out 10m before the sun went down and we hit the grey-line. The New York repeater was up at 5/9+20 as was VE3MMX -R, both were easy to access with 100w.
Tonight I was looking for AM signals so I swept the band carefully listening out for signals from the USA hoping to find someone using AM. I came across one very weak signal but decided to try again at another time, as I tuned back up the band I heard WA3JR Joe calling CQ on FM simplex. Joe was 5/7 at times with QSB, we had a pretty good qso that was crystal clear Q5 at times. The straight FM carrier waves were propagating well as we had some fun chatting for a while. It was a lot of fun for sure and a nice opportunity to work across the Atlantic DX FM on 10m. It reminded me of my youth when we used do this kind of stuff regularly on the CB Bands. It happens every now and then on 29 MHz, usually around 29.400 -29.500 FM for straight/simplex FM, over the years I have had some pleasant surprises with interesting DX operating around there, its been a long time coming back, but yes it is back!. Have fun and enjoy the openings.
My ground station was working well at my location here in Yorkshire earlier today, the NOAA weather Satellites were coming in well on 137 MHz as NA-18 and NA-19 passed by
NOAA 18 Pass
NOAA 19 second Pass
The full reception and decode can be seen here below in the video I made. I use WXtoIMG as previously mentioned . This software will auto track weather satellites and decode weather images from a simple 137 MHz FM receiver set up using a laptop/PC with the receiver audio fed into the line or mic in.
Here in my ham radio shack I use additional tracking software to control my antenna and radio which is not necessary if you wish to receive weather images. In the past I have tried many setups which were very basic and they all worked. These days I am lucky as my station is well established and performs automatically without requiring any manual assistance. More time for me to drink a coffee and enjoy the image of the day! 73 have fun..
When I get the chance I still get a lot of pleasure receiving live satellite images transmitted from NOAA SATs which I decode using WXtoIMG. This one was pretty clear as it passed over Europe heading South.
I had a good bit of fun this afternoon messing with my humble YAESU FT-2980. It was the 145 Alive event that fellow YouTuber Tim G5TM has been organising. Its a great idea and certainly does exactly as intended and indeed 145 Megahertz is definitely alive today with lots of signals coming through on the 2 meter FM part of the band.
I was on for just over an hour and enjoyed making QSOs with both portable and fixed stations that were coming in quite nicely with my mono band Diamond F23 vertical antenna.
The WX is wet, so I was quite happy to be in doors today enjoying playing radio. Thanks to all that went out and set up portable, it was good to hear plenty of operators making waves on a usually quiet band. Despite my long absences I do enjoy 2 meters FM simplex and it's good to get on my FT-2980 for a change. It is my most simple but effective radio in the shack and is definitely still going strong. It was spot on for the job with a very good output power of 85 watts into the high gain mono band triple stacked co linear antenna. My signal reports were good but although I am high up here in the Pennines there are so many big hills and mountains I don't hear everything as good as HF and Satellite bands but still did reasonably well with some great contacts in the log. Thanks all. 73.
Last night was another fun filled event as the MegaStream crew once again hit the live stream button on YouTube. We all managed plenty of QSOs and the pileups were fantastic fun, in the end I logged 89 stations. The best DX was Prince Edward Island, Brazil and Lithuania. I managed quite a few EU stations and lots of Inter G. The results will be available more than likely by next weekend, I wonder who was the first to work all of the MegaStream Stations which were - LB0FI, MM0OPX, 2E0UKH, M0GQC, G5STU and M0XXT
I just wanted to thank everyone that called in and helped to make the event another successful one. I also want to thank everyone that watched live on YouTube and kept me company on my live chat. Sorry I did not get much live chat talk time as you could see I was nonstop working stations through the pileup. It was great to see and hear so many fellow Hams, I was very happy to have my YouTube friends supporting my station from around the World Thanks All! We even had No 1 YL Radio Amateur R1BIG Raisa on the channel chat live and direct with us, from St Petersburg in Russia. 😍. Catch you all again soon and enjoy your day!
Here are the YouTube Channel links for the rest of last nights Megastream Crew.
The ISS is back passing by at a time where I am more likely to catch it. Tonight the signal was good both from ISS and from my Ground station. The Video above was the earlier pass, followed by a next late night pass around about 2310 local time you can see it below. Thanks for visiting check out my YouTube channel for more satellite and ISS videos.
Its just over a year since I parted with my savings 😁 and treated myself to the YAESU FTDX101MP. Since owning this fabulous transceiver I have had hours of pleasure getting used to it which was quick enough and reasonably painless. The radio has been fantastic to operate and the reception quality is the best I have ever experienced. I have been using the YAESU M-70 desk mic which if you remember I got free as part of the deal along with £85 cash back from YAESU. The microphone is nice to use with a good ergonomic design and with the radios onboard equaliser set for my preference the audio reports have been coming in with compliments especially from the more weaker DX contacts.
So my friends, you can guess I will be holding on to the FTDX101MP and my FT-1000mp will be there as a portable or back up transceiver. I am really happy I got this radio and since installing it at my QTH I have been using it barefoot with the standard 200 watts rather than running my amplifiers. I have been working up and down the bands with no messing about tuning. This is very enjoyable and less tedious. Maybe I will use my amplifiers again when propagation is poor but currently I prefer the lower risk of any fireworks occurring which tends to happen with HF amplifier use.
I still haven't fully accustomed myself with everything that this fine transceiver has to offer and I have not been bothered to carry out any firmware updates as yet. I checked my FTDX101MP out against some of the display read out issues that I have read in various groups but didn't have any faults showing on my model, so unless you get something really special in the update I will be hanging fire for now.
Overall verdict is:
Awesome radio, way easier to operate than expected, lovely looking and performance is faultless. I love the large display, the layout is clear and the waterfall or 3DSS spectrum display makes finding stations a simple task as well as easily seeing and selecting a clear frequency to operate on. Both waterfall and 3DSS displays can be set up easily to your user preference using the touch screen. The screen on the transceiver itself is large, so I personally do not use a separate monitor but obviously for those that have more space its another feature to explore. The DSP filters really make it happen when the low signals are struggling to be heard but in all fairness the receive quality alone is amazing and more or less all bands have 0 or very low noise levels which I have being enjoying and I found it most noticeable on 40 and 80m. These bands previously whilst on my older transceiver were quite noisy and sometimes quite difficult to work, but with the 101MP SDR receiver not a worry anymore. The feeling of satisfaction is with me every time I power on this beauty. If you are considering spending money on one I can honestly say if you like YAESU radios this one is better than anything you have used already. Hope you find this short post helpful for you with your decision. 73 tnx for passing by.
Early morning DX was in great shape today as I beamed west I could hear plenty of US stations coming in well working stations active in the worked all Europe contest. I haven't been in the contest so I qsy'd to 17M (18 megahertz) and was hearing some big signals coming in loud and clear from down under. Australia and in particular Tasmania where I worked the Australian Ladies Amateur Radio Association VI7ALARA. I got through the pile up easy only one call and was using my Cushcraft MA5B Yagi antenna and Yaesu FTDX101mp transceiver, running the full 200w. Good DX and thanks for passing by Ham Radio Operator .Blogspot .Com. 73 good DX. de Simon M0YKS
This pass was directly overhead which meant my antenna array had to turn a full revolution as it hit the stop point N 0 degrees. This happens sometimes but still good to see the antenna on video live as i tracks. The image is a bit dark but that is because it is actually my bedtime and its late here in Yorkshire England. 73 thank you as ever for following this old blog.Good DX!
Well it's been up for 8 years and is still working really well for me. Yes I am talking about the HF mini beam which has a small footprint and a big signal. The largest element is aprox 17.10 ft wide and the boom is only 7.30 ft long. Despite its relatively compact size it works absolutely Fabulously and I would not change it as it's a perfect fit for my garden.
As you can see in the picture my MA5B is not a sight for sore eyes but is instead very difficult to find. It's mounted via a heavy home brew tripod base which houses a mast taking the antenna to just 20ft above the ground. The trees are old and well established towering above the beam.
After years of operation with previous poor conditions and now with much better band conditions I can honestly say what a great antenna the Cushcraft MA5B really is. I can usually work who I can hear unless they are running extra high power QRO and have a high noise level at their end.
The recieve is something special about this multi band mini beam as many that watch my YouTube live streams have said how well I receive and how clear the signal strength is as well as no noise. Obviously my location has something to do with this but when I compare signals with my other antennas - delta loop, dipole and 6BTV (multi band vertical) it stands out a mile how superior to them all the MA5B is. It's great having a few antennas to switch around and to be able to compare.
The construction quality.
As some of you know I am half way up the Pennines. This obviously is great for DX but lousy for calm gentle weather patterns. The past few years have provided plenty of storms with wind, damp, ice and other antenna nasties. The Cushcraft MA5B is really well constructed with thick walled tube and good quality fibre glass central connection tubes. My antenna was up at my work place for a number years before I bought our house so it's actually almost a 20 year old antenna.
Why am I writing this review now? Well I wanted to let you know that although it costs more than other antenna it lasts a long time with no trouble in between and the performance is virtually the same as a full sized Yagi. So if you are considering spending your hard earned cash I can give you the thumbs up with confidence that you will be happy with the Cushcraft MA5B antenna.
Last night I Just switched my radio on heard Japan with a big pile up calling. Gave one call and bingo straight in to Tokyo with Mac (Mitsuya) JG1OUT on 20m first call. CQ Dog X-ray! Cushcraft MA5B power! With 200w.
This morning I caught the almost perfectly overhead pass of one of my current favorite satellites RS-44. I have made some awesome contacts via this bird and with my satellite antenna array I can work into it up to 3000 miles away which is more or less a full footprint.Here is the action caught on video as usual of course. Hope to hear you on the birds soon.
I finally got around to adjusting the UP-link on the SatPC32 software. It now matches the Doppler correction required to operate the SSB Transponder much easier with less adjustments whilst in QSO..
RS-44 Russian Sputnik Satellite.
A couple more contacts made and a final Doppler adjustment made towards the end of the pass. Now I am bang on frequency. Every radio differs slightly when setting up SatPC32 pre configured settings for the up link and down link. Careful adjustments using the CAT tab can be made when the pass is nice and clear. This helps to save time next time I use this bird as I will not require further fine tuning and will have a better copy. 73 thanks for following! I hope you have fun on the Satellite bands!
Well it has been a busy few weeks as we enjoy our summer holiday, we have been to many places from beautiful riverside walks, moor tops, coastal beach walking and beyond. Some of the places I was at included ham radio and I have been busy with my mobile and portable operation's.
The mobile HAM Radio station is still the same old original YAESU FT-857 and Maldol mobile mono band antenna's. This still works awesome as ever despite been 20 years in service. I have been making quite a few FM 2M mobile contacts recently as well and that has been pretty cool as well as providing impressive performance with my second antenna that is permanently mounted on the van roof. It is a Diamond dual band VHF UHF antenna. I have also had that one years as well 😀.
Whilst in Scotland (last week) I had plenty of time to work portable and we also had electric hook up on the beach side camp at Port William. This allowed me to set up my 50amp PSU which I used to power the fridge as well as my very old first HF radio that I bought.
Yes it is my YAESU FT-890 which is still a great radio to operate.
I had it nice in our Van Awning right at the side of the Irish Sea on the West coast in S.W Scotland. My van was used as the ground plane and antenna base which I connected a second length of coaxial feed line to the van mount straight into the radio in the awning. I also got out my big Hustler antenna and tried out both the RM-20 and RM-40 resonators (20m and 40m band).
The FT-890 and Hustlers worked fabulous /p as I operated as MM0YKS/P. I made some great DX into Indonesia, USA, South America and The West Indies whilst /P and /M. It was lots of fun and also confused as few lol as my call changed to MM0 from my usual M0.
The week before that we were over at the East Yorkshire Coast
we stayed at a converted farm house near to the sea which again was great for radio in between the family fun and sand castles.
My latest enjoyment mission was yesterday when we visited Yorkshire Air Museum and spent the afternoon admiring the amazing aircraft on display. A good place to visit if you are up in Yorkshire.
The weeks off have been busy but we have done a lot of good things and made every day count no matter what the weather has had to offer. I have walked miles lol 😅.
A few more things to enjoy before a brand new year of teaching begins again. One of those is my YAESU FTDX-101MP which I am getting in with very well indeed. This morning I was into the South Cook Islands for the second time this year. I also have had some amazing contacts worldwide as we enjoy the solar activity of cycle 25. Some recent favourite DX include China, Japan, Peru and even Pakistan and Iran. There are too many to mention but it is very good to hear so much DX and to be able to work them.
thanks for reading this blog and following my ham Radio adventures. I will be listening out on HF and the Satellite bands and hopefully back with you live from the the shack on another livestream this Sunday around about 21.00 UTC 22.00 local.
Here is something to keep you busy until then. Best 73 to all.
