Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

CQ100 is a program for use exclusively by licenced radio amateurs and is a simple and effective way to keep in touch with hams all over the globe 24 hours a day without any propagation. If you are interested you can download a 3 month free trial if you follow this link http://qsonet.com/programs.html I have already heard many CQ calls through the CQ100 virtual radio and I will be listening out for you all, and monitoring all the other bands at the same time on my real rigs! 73 C u agn Simon

This Antenna design was one that I used about 4 years ago, it worked exceptionally well on 80m and 40m. The size of the antenna makes a Half wave length on 80 meters, and with the traps a half wave on 40m with a SWR (standing wave ratio) of 1:1-1.5 across both bands. It worked well also on 20m with the use of an A.T.U (antenna tuning unit). I made my version of this antenna using 3mm multi strand copper cable which I left covered by the PVC insulation. The traps can either be home brewed using some 40mm diameter plastic drain pipe and winding wire around the pipe approximately 10 turns, then connected in line after the 10 metre lengths. Or the alternative is to purchase some commercially made 7.1 MHz traps, and fit them in line the same way. The antenna can be fed with 50 ohm coax with a home brew balan or again a commercially purchased balan. The wire lengths of the dipole are 2x 10 metres and 2x 6.7 metres as shown on the diagram above. This antenna can be mounted quite low to the gr

Greetings to all, I recently acquired the Heil mic and had planned to use it in the mobile with the ft-100, but after trying it out I decided to stick with the original fist mic from Yaesu. The Goldline from Heil had struggled to pick up my voice from the dashboard mounting bracket, and with the whole idea of making mobile operations more inconspicuous by not drawing attention to myself, fitting a hands free mic seemed to be out of the window. I was having to shout that loud to hit the alc level, most peoples heads were turning and wondering what I was shouting at. So back to basics and the fist mic wins! I then decided to try the Heil microphone in the shack on the ft-767. This was the beginning of a potentially beautiful relationship as the rig and mic compatibility seemed good with some good reports from experienced G-Stations on 80 meters. I have been using the microphone for the last couple of days and I am finding it OK with the wired PTT switch in my hand and ready to engage. T

I have recently had the pleasure of assisting a fellow member of Staff at work by helping him train to become a radio amateur. Chris is an electrical lecturer at the college where we both work, I was extremely happy when Chris asked me to help him get into the hobby and with his electrical/electronic knowledge it will be fairly simple to pass the foundation examination and obtain the licence which will allow him to operate his recently purchased yaesu ft-847. Good luck with the exam Chris and welcome to the world of Ham radio. Chris asked me about Q-codes so I decided to post the list of Q-codes which are used by radio amateurs around the world. The Q-codes were originally invented for use with telegraphy and then Morse code allowing messages to be transmitted quickly without having to rattle out long and difficult sentences. These days they are still used as a way of sending voice messages as well as Morse, whilst communicating with another station. The Q-codes can be very useful espe

Greetings once again, I've been playing radio quite a lot since I repaired the ft-100 /mobile rig, making many successful DX and local QSOs on 40m, 20m and 2m. The next stage of improvement for my mobile station is to fit the heil base mic that I recently acquired from Ron 2E0DOG. This should be an easier way to operate hands free as well as maintaining top quality audio. I tried a hands free kit from Watson last year but the quality of audio was poor, so I've been using the standard fist mic from Yaesu ever since. I shall fabricate a bracket to mount the mic in the Toyota at the side of the steering wheel close to the dash. The mic has a separate PTT switch that will fit at the side of the hand break. I am awaiting a mic lead which will convert the round pin plug to the ft-100 mod type plug this should hopefully be arriving soon allowing me to begin operating the new set up. The other equipment has also been working well, especially the old ft-767gx which I have been running o

Today has been a good day for Bradford North scouts, Bradford South scouts, Windhill Shipley scouts and Keighley Scouts who have all been active on the bands with the club station call sign MX0KSC. During the event the scouts got a chance to learn about Morse code, Q-codes, phonetics, International pre-fixes and call signs, as well as speaking world wide on amateur radio, also logging and e-qsl/qsling. All of the scouts sucessfully completed a range of tasks enabling them to obtain a scouting radio communicator badge. They were all extremely happy with thier achievements. The JOTA event is running all weekend and as it is celebrating 50 years of activity on Ham radio you can imagine all of the bands are extremely active with this celebration for jota. We spoke with 20 different Stations and all scouts spoke with each operator so if you multiply 40 scouts with 20 QSOs we had a total of 800 exchanges of voice contacts and greetings messages, not bad for 7 hrs of operation. Thanks to all

I came across a simple delta loop design courtesy of dxzone found on the net some time ago and have been planning to give it a go for a while. This weekend I had a couple of hours spare, so I decided to give it a go using some 2mm multi strand wire cable, a dipole centre and a mixture of 75 ohm and 50 ohm coaxial cable. The delta loop is supposed to be resonant on 20 meters but I found it to be a little high so at present I am tuning the Loop with my mfj-969 which copes extremely well. The resonant frequency is 13.2 MHz at the moment so the next chance I get, I shall shorten the overall length making sure that each of the three sides are still equal in length, and hopefully adjusting the antenna for maximum performance ATU free for 14.2 MHz. I believe the miscalculation in the resonant length is probably down to the fact that my wire is covered in the plastic sleeving from the manufacturer which always effects the swr as I have noticed in past experiments with dipoles you always get sl