Merry Christmas 🎄2023 de M0YKS & Family

Thanks for following me through 2023 via the various online methods. It's been a strange year but radio propagation has been good. Thanks for all the many QSOs I made with some of you throughout the year via HF and satellite bands. 

Have a Merry Christmas or nice relaxing holiday. Which ever it is enjoy and best season greetings, good DX 73. Simon M0YKS

CQWW SSB - M0YKS DXCC's

Another fantastic CQWW SSB weekend with more stations active than ever, 

I was having so much fun operating alongside Elsie M7ELC and we were both making plenty of DX operating short shift patterns as we kept the hot seat hot with my FTDX101MP and Cushcraft MA5B antenna. I did reasonably well as you can see my QSO footprint for 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters. I made 500 QSOs, in total worked 21 zones and 87 Countries across the globe. Saturday was the best day for DX but day two was still quite good in some directions. M7ELC was very patent and waited, called, waited again called some more and persisted. In the end she racked up 20 zones in her log. A pretty good effort once again and a lot of fun seeing her get mad at times when she struggled to make the contact. Her high pitched tones certainly assisted her signal well as she punched through the ionospheric layers. Thanks to everyone that we managed to work during the contest. 

See You Next Year! CQWW SSB.

I listed the 87 Countries (87 DXCCs) below.there are a couple of good ones in there.

3V     Tunisia                          HZ     Saudi Arabia                    YL     Latvia                                                                   

4L     Georgia                          I      Italy                                    YO     Romania                                                                  

4U1U   UN New York             JA     Japan                                YU     Serbia                                                                   

4X     Israel                           KP4    Puerto Rico                      Z3     North Macedonia                                                          

5B     Cyprus                           LA     Norway                           ZF     Cayman Is                                                                

6Y     Jamaica                          LU     Argentina                                                                                                        

8P     Barbados                         LY     Lithuania                                                                                                        

9A     Croatia                          LZ     Bulgaria                                                                                                         

9H     Malta                            OE     Austria                                                                                                          

9K     Kuwait                           OH     Finland                                                                                                          

9N     Nepal                            OK     Czech Rep.                                                                                                       

A4     Oman                             OM     Slovakia                                                                                                         

A6     United Arab Emirates    ON     Belgium                                                                                                          

A7     Qatar                            OZ     Denmark                                                                                                          

BY     China                           P4     Aruba                                                                                                            

CE     Chile                            PA     Netherlands                                                                                                      

CN     Morocco                      PJ2    Curacao                                                                                                          

CO     Cuba                             PJ4    Bonaire                                                                                                          

CT     Portugal                         PY     Brazil                                                                                                           

CT3    Madeira                        PZ     Suriname                                                                                                         

CU     Azores                           S5     Slovenia                                                                                                         

CX     Uruguay                         SM     Sweden                                                                                                           

D4     Cape Verde                      SP     Poland                                                                                                           

DL     Deutschland                     SV     Greece                                                                                                           

E7     Bosnia and Herzegovina    TA     Turkey  AS                                                                                                       

EA     Spain                               TI     Costa Rica                                                                                                       

EA8    Canary Islands              UA     Russia  EU                                                                                                       

ES     Estonia                          UA0    Russia  AS                                                                                                       

EU     Belarus                          UA2    Kaliningrad                                                                                                      

F      France                              UK     Uzbekistan                                                                                                       

FM     Martinique                     UN     Kazakhstan                                                                                                       

G      England                           UR     Ukraine                                                                                                          

GD     Isle of Man                      V2     Antigua and Barbuda                                                                                              

GI     Northern Ireland               V3     Belize                                                                                                           

GM     Scotland                         V4     Saint Kitts and Nevis                                                                                            

GW     Wales                            VE     Canada                                                                                                           

HA     Hungary                        VK     Australia                                                                                                        

HB9    Switzerland                  VP5    Turks and Caicos Islands                                                                                         

HI     Dominican Republic        VR     Hong Kong                                                                                                        

HK     Colombia                         W      USA                                                                                                              

HR     Honduras                         XE     Mexico   

                                                                                           

DX On 10M FM To Mayotte DXpedition Team.

 The latest solar cycle 25 is proving to be far better than we could of hoped. We all seem to be experiencing regular unusually good long distance openings on 29 MHz. Earlier this afternoon I got back from College and managed to get the radio on earlier than usual. Straight away I could hear that 10 meters was wide open as the 28 MHz SSB portion was full of signals. I had a nice QSO on 10 metes SSB into North America and then proceeded further up the band to 29 MHz using FM. Again activity was up and I could hear a number of North American stations calling CQ on straight FM. There were so many signals coming in on FM that I ended up tuning around too much further down the band than usual, it was there that I stumbled across TO8FH on the Island of Mayotte operated by a french DXpedition team. To my amazement I heard them coming through really well, there was fading at times but during the peaks their signal was up to S9 on the YAESU FTDX101MP that I was using. My antenna this time around was my Yagi which you may remember is the original Cushcraft MA5B which once again got me the QSO without too much difficulty with a 5/9 good copy both ways.

 73 All,    keep a watch out on 29 MHz FM straight forward simplex operation, as you might just get lucky and catch some real rare DX on FM of all modes! Try your hardest to have plenty of fun  and as always thanks for the visit. I will catch you back again next time. 

Until then the video below is the actual FM QSO with TO8FH - Mayotte Island. Hope You Enjoy It!

Testing YAESU FTDX101MP on AM 10 Meter Band 29MHz

 

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.

Great Week Of DX and Satellite on Ham Radio

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

FM DX on 10m Simplex - Working into Maryland USA

 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.

Today's Space View Weather from Weather Satellites NOAA 18 and 19

 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.. 

NOAA 19 Weather Satellite Image - Received/Decoded

 

 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.

Operating YAESU FT-2980 during 145 Alive Activity

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.

HF MegaStream Pt2 - Great Fun On The Bands

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. 

https://www.youtube.com/@m0mcx

https://www.youtube.com/@G5STU

https://www.youtube.com/@digitalanalogueham

https://www.youtube.com/@MM0OPXAmateurRadio

https://www.youtube.com/@LB0FI

International Space Station - ISS - Good Signal with a X YAGI Circular P...

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.

FTDX101MP One Year of Ownership

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. 

Beaming Long Path - Tasmania - VI7ALARA

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

 

Russian Satellite RS-44 Contacts With AM1SAT, UR5HXR, GB1AA & F1FPL

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!

Stealth Cushcraft MA5B 5 band Yagi "mini beam"

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.

So here are the specs:

Antenna type:  5 band 3 element YAGI

Coverage HF Bands: 20, 17, 15, 12, 10 Meters. No ATU required. 

Max power: 1200w

Turning Radius: 8.80ft