Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Chris on the Right of the picture with his pass certificate who is a fellow work colleague at Park Lane College Keighley. Chris is a lecturer in Electrical Installation and has been spending lunch times and the odd couple of spare hours with Louise and myself over the last two months. Louise is a registered Examination officer for the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB). I am RSGB registered as a Foundation Licence instructor. Chris has been undergoing Foundation Licence training comprising of practical and theory lessons as well as self study. On Friday the 15th of December Chris sat the Foundation Licence Exam successfully gaining a Pass result. Chris has now applied for his Licence and will be operating his Yaesu ft-847 in the next few days. I am looking forward to working him on some of the bands. Well Done Chris! (Non Amateurs) If you are thinking about becoming a Licenced radio ham, there should be a local club or School/College that might be able to help. More info on this at

Seasons Greetings to all from our Dog Dudley who is practicing his Reindeer pose, He is ready to help Santa sniff out some chimneys I might get him to try some Antenna Antlers next!. Have a Happy Christmas from Louise (M3TLL) and Simon (2E0HTS)

This week was my YL Louise's birthday, I had arranged a short break in Cumbria which we thoroughly enjoyed. We were based at Barrow-In-Furness in the South West of Cumbria and we found the town very interesting with all of its engineering history, Submarines and historic Port. The locals were very friendly and there were some interesting Islands that we visited where I got to make one or two nice QSOs. Here is a video of some of the radio contacts I managed to make during our stay in Cumbria and the Lake District. I decided to do this as some of you guys have been asking me to make some new Youtube videos, so thanks for all the emails and I hope this is OK! Regards and 73 Simon 2E0HTS

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