Ham Radio
Experiments & Fun With Simon M0YKS
Yorkshire UK
Monday, June 03, 2024
Still here and Active as always.
It's been a interesting year so far With the ever changing band conditions. The solar cycle 25 continues and certainly is far from over. I would expect a couple of years at least yet before I need to get out the amplifier again. I have a bit of a fault to fix so maybe it's about time I get on with it, I might have it done for cycle 26. 😜
The last week has been quite a mixed bag on the radio as I have heard DX and into G, both short and long skip signals on quite a few of the HF bands including 10m. As for the 6 meter band the recent opening I caught on video was a one off and I have not seen any more activity around the SSB phone band since.
I have been off work on half term spending time out with the family getting out and about so not quite as active as usual but still catching some decent QSO where I can from some nice locations here in Yorkshire.
The Satellite chasing has taken a back seat recently as my neighbors are carrying out roof work and currently have scaffolding up which is fairly close to the SAT array. I can still turn and elevate but the passes can wait for the clear unobstructed days which hopefully won't be too far away.
Me above still waiting for the neighbors to complete the work on their roof top.
I should be back with you soon once I have revitalized and recharged the enthusiasm for plenty of QSO. I am playing on 40m again and also 80m on a evening later on once everyone is settled, so if you hear my signal with Yorkshire lingo coming in, give me a shout I would love to have a QSO.
In the meantime enjoy your week and thanks for watching my videos, following this blog or hopefully even better making a QSO. Catch up with you soon 73
Btw I finally got around to updating the firmware to the latest version on my FTDX101mp. I used an old scandisc 16gig phone memory card with a card adapter into my PC. The download and upgrade is simple enough to do and went as planned. I haven't noticed anything new as such but all is well with the radio which is totally up to date and still very cool indeed. I still love it!
The amateur Radio hobby has so much to offer and can take you to places you cannot ever go to in person. Yes I am referring to space and in particular the International Space Station.
The past couple of weeks have provided some great late evening passes from ISS and I have been making the most of the opportunities. My log is full of ISS, Teval SATs, RS-44 SAT, JO-97 SAT and SO-50 SAT contacts. It's been good and my Earth Station is still working well for me.
A quick run down of the equipment that I am using:
TX RX - YAESU FT-847
Rotator - YAESU G-5500
Interface - RS-232 COM-232B
USB CAT cable x2
Antenna V: 144-146Mhz Innovantenna 5 element X LFA YAGI
Antenna U: 435-437Mhz
15 elememt Oscar 437 SAT X YAGI
Software - SATpc32
PC Windows 10
I also use Look4Sat on my Tablet
the satellite band is great fun and the Radio amateurs that you make contact with are really nice people. You get to know a very friendly community of fellow SAT enthusiasts. I hope you can join us for some out of this world Radio.
For more on Satellite 🛰️ and ISS, have a watch through my satellite playlist that features all my past and current base and portable satellite set ups.
Good Result On The 80m Half Wave End Fed Inverted V Antenna
This morning before work I was listening out for DX on 3.795Mhz at around 7:30 utc and heard two nice signals from North America. I managed to work both stations - W2VP and W9LF. The signal exchange from W2VP was (My sig) 55 out and John was coming in to my station with 56 signal.
W9LF was slightly further away and I was 5/6 at his end and Carl W9LF was 5/7. A great start to the day as headed off to work.
This evening was even better as I made more 80m DX with Russ VE9FI with a signal exchange of 5/5 both ways. After that I was on a roll and worked a Net with K2RR Rich who gave me a 5/7 report, Rich was loud and coming in very well with a 5/8 signal. Next up was VE1CHW Rob, Rob was also strong with a 5/8 signal I received a 5/7 signal report back. I also worked Vlad UG5A 5/9 both ways and finished off with W2FFE Dave, again another good copy and a 5/7 exchange both ways.
The new EFHW Inverted V is certainly surprising me and seems better than the centre fed dipole which I did not expect. I seem to have got lucky, my QTH and surroundings seem well suited to the configuration of the EFHW Inverted V. A nice bit of DX on 80 meters and conditions are good but I have experienced better so its positive vibes this side. Good DX thanks for following.
I hope you're new year has begun well. I have been feeling much more like myself after being ill before and over the Christmas break.
My FTDX101mp has been getting plenty of use and I have been enjoying operating on 29Mhz AM.
I have been doing quite well with my MA5B and 50 watts out working across the Atlantic into North America. I must say it is a very nice sounding signal on AM and it has great DX potential for an original old school mode that most have forgotten or never tried. How about giving 29.00 to 29.100 AM a listen and give it a go yourself. The best time to try is Saturday and Sunday from 13:00 - 16:00 UTC.
Other fun stuff that has been keeping me busy is the new 1/2 wave 80m inverted V with a 49:1 Transformer. I have been enjoying exploring it's potential and I am very surprised just how good it works at my QTH. I'm working North and South America easily on 40m as well as far East so far. On 80 it's strong across Europe and I have had a couple of DX into North America and Canada, it's great into G. I still haven't used the Amplifier and 200watts from the FTDX101 is doing a fine job.
I am still playing around with the antenna and running comparison tests alongside the Hustler 6btv with radials. It is all very interesting so far and I really enjoy this part of our fantastic hobby. 73 Have a great Year ahead!
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
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.
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!
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.
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..
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.
