Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Here is my latest Ham Radio antics where you can see how I made a home brew mounting bracket that fixes to any Vehicle Tow Bar allowing large base station antenna systems to be used. You will see on the video that I sucessfully mounted a Base Station Vertical 80M-10M HF hustler 6BTV (6 band trapped vertical). You can also see how and why I decided to try this with the Big Signals that I got on 80M, 40M, 30M and 20M all booming through the Hustler 6btv into My little Yaesu FT-100. The mount proves to be secure and quick to install, all I have to do know is try it out again when the propagation is good or perhaps a contest? Keep an Eye open for any future activities regarding this monster mobile Vertical here or on My YouTube Channel. 73 thanks for the Visit

This Weekend brings International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend (ILLW) on the Air to the Ham bands, I have been on Air and have made QSO with many Stations that have set up portable Ham stations, some with special Callsigns at various Lighthouses around the world.There are over 15000 possible Lighthouses to contact around the world so you can imagine that's an awful lot of potential contacts to make and I doubt that all of the Worlds Lighthouses/Lightships have been activated by Radio Amateurs from all over the Globe. During the afternoon of Saturday i managed 22 contacts working 14 different Countries on 3 bands which were 80M, 40M and 20M. I was happily surprised to run into Ian GM3SEC under the Call GB2LS located at Southerness Lighthouse SCO223 with his fellow Hams from Wigtownshire Amateur Radio Club SCOTLAND - U.K. Ian GM3SEC was putting out a big signal on the ft100 He was running, this was received by my ft847 and G5RV antenna. If you have read the post on Radio and Astrono

The past couple of days have been a bit on the damp side here on Baildon Moor so I have been keeping my self amused with radio and the latest NASA activities regarding the docking of Endeavor to the ISS which Ive been keeping a close eye on since lift off last Wednesday the 8th. I have done this via the NASA web site Live TV Feed From ISS , you can get to via the link on the right of this page. I recommend view in media player. ISS SIGHTINGS As well as watching the live feed Ive been in and out looking into the Sky's at night, this was to be successful with three consecutive evenings of clear sky I was able to see the ISS and Endeavor Space Shuttle as an extremely bright Star travelling across the Horizon and night Sky. I am not so clever with the camera so practice makes perfect but I did get some shots of one of the pass byes, taken on long exposure. The top image is the best, if you click on it to enlarge and look closely you can see some resemblance of the ISS and Shuttle. This

Hi Folks, We have been playing Radio and looking at the Stars, Planets and Galaxies up in the very beautiful and historic Galloway area of Scotland. I would recommend this part of the World to you all if you get chance to visit! It offers beautiful scenery, lots of history, friendly people and for those of us who like operating HF, zero noise interference allowing many good QSOs . As far as Astronomy goes, Galloway boasts some of the darkest skies in the U.K making observations extremely interesting and easy to see other Galaxy's , Globular clusters, Meteors, orbiting Satellites and the International Space Station which I had the pleasure of viewing with the naked eye. Whilst operating I was 2M0HTS/m which is my call sign for Scotland. I find this a bit confusing?As intermediate licence holders we have to drop our County locator's prefix which in my case is 2E0 (England) replacing the E with M for Scotland becoming 2M0. This is kind of ridiculous as MM/2E0HTS would be

Ive been quite busy this week with a lot of driving it worked out well as I got the opportunity of playing radio /mobile, I have the choice of 4 bands with the antenna systems i have installed to my Toyota rav 4. The picture above shows a Diamond 2m/70cm ANT, a 40m Maldol HFC40, and a 20M Maldol HFC20. This weeks QSO from the mobile have been made on 20m and 40m, the most of the time I was operating on 40m with some excellent results on my ft100 running 50 watts. I made contacts with Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Poland all on 40M and from the Mobile. I am once again impressed with the performance of the little Maldol HFC40 like its partner gripped to the back of my tail gate the HFC20, both of these antennas have been in use daily for over 2 years and are still in top shape providing an experience of pure joy and surprise with some of the distant Counties worked. I have one of the 80m Maldol HFC80 but I haven't managed to make QSO with anyone so I wouldn't rec

Click on image to ENLARGE Once again NOOA 15 gives a good look at what is happening around 17.50 utc I have not been so active on the HF bands as I have been busy fabricating a tow hitch/bar for my Vehicle.This is not a problem as I am a fully qualified Welding and Fabrication Engineer, so I was what we say? Playing! I made two attachments one is a straight forward tow ball bracket and the other will allow the mounting of a 6BTV from Hustler.The new home brew Tow bracket will shortly be put to the test as I am picking up a new toy which is a Kawasaki 750 spectre US import this thursday on the motorcycle trailor I am borrowing. The Antenna mount will get tested when I set up Portable Station in about a month at the annual Keighley Show. There I will errect the Six Band Trapped Vertical( Hustler 6BTV) and fix it to my Vehicle using the homebrew Bracket/Mast so expect to here more about the Keighley Show nearer the time. As far as the new edition to my Motor Cycle Collection I am looki

Click on Image to ENLARGE Hi Folks :-) I am happy to be able to say that we have been able to enjoy a rain free weekend with nice sunny intervals here at the QTH. Thankfully this has changed our moods too Happy, after a Terribly wet couple of months and I am pleased to say that after the bad weather all is well up on the Moor Tops of West Yorkshire. Over the weekend Ive been listening on the bands, it hasn't been great but has had occasional DX openings especially on 20M with the odd strong Signals been heard from Indonesia and other DX countries. I have been quite busy listening out for Weather satellites around 137.300mhz, 137.400mhz, 137.500mhz, 137.620mhz, 137.850mhz, & 137.912.5mhz. I have had some good results as we had some clear Sky's allowing better images of the different Countries of Europe possible. As you can see from the above image of tonights pass over my QTH I managed to receive signals on 137.500 mhz that were coming from NOAA 15. NOAA 15 is just One of