Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Here is another opportunity to see the new Arrow antenna with the the two Hand Held Rigs in action working Amateur SAT SO-50. TNX To all Stations worked during the pass 73.

After making many successful QSO on AO-51, SO-50 and AO-27 with the Arrow antenna using the two handheld Rigs, I have made a few new Ham friends who gave me some good tips regarding home brew SAT antenna's. One Station Steve DL1YAL, gave me the link to EA4CYQ Juan's website showing his impressive SAT antenna the IOIo. The site contains detailed home brew construction information, which I followed using some 3mm TIG welding wire and PVC Tubing of Three different Diameters . I made Three IOIo antenna's in total, the first one (MK I) worked well into VO-52 using SSB on the FT847 in the Shack. I was very impressed and wanted to experiment further, so I decided to try a slight change by changing the polarisation on 435MHz, making the antenna X shape. I gave the completed MK II to Phil M1PAC and as you see in the picture Phil has mounted it to a Tripod. Good luck with your set up Phil, and I hope to work you via one of the 'Birds' soon. I then knocked up the MK III where...

Watch the video to see how M1PAC-Phil and 2E0HTS-Simon Work Multiple Contacts on AO-51 with the new QRP set up. We used 4watts and two handheld radios(FT-470 + TH-7) and the Arrow antenna. 73 thanks for watching.

I have recently received the US Imported Arrow LEO 145/435 hand held Satellite antenna which I purchased from The Antenna Warehouse in The US. I decided I would like to try work a few Satellites with my hand held radios after watching fellow Ham and Youtuber K7AGE Randy, in one of his many excellent Youtube videos. I particularly enjoyed Randy's video which showed him making a QSO via AO51 with the Arrow Antenna mounted on a tripod using a simple hand held radio. I also found other Hams on youtube with similar videos, one video with EA1GHW using two hand held radios which made the job of listening to your own transmission via the down link much easier. So with the inspiration and ideas both taken on board as well as some ideas of my own, I began to set up my own Portable QRP Satellite Station. The first job was constructing the extension boom which would incorporate two radio mounts as well as providing somewhere to site a compass and my HP Ipaq which runs windows mobile softwar...

The past few weeks I have been exploring the world of VHF by listening and playing around on 2M SSB as well as VO-52. I have had some success on 144.300 with my vertical and home brew Loop with DX opportunities such as GM4PPT (Richard) located in Scotland near to Ayr and one or two other interesting QSOs. The rest of the time apart from HF operations, I have been tracking VO-52 and trying my best to put a signal into its Transponder and making some QSOs. I successfully had a QSO with DL6HP via VO-52 and tonight's pass brought signals to my Earth Station once again but this time I received them with my new home brew 2M Yagi. Tonight's contact was with G7BTA (Dave) who was approximately 200 miles south of my QTH down in Hereford. The Home brew Yagi received well but my TX was still going through my vertical so you guessed it, the next job is a 433/70CM Yagi. Here is the story so far, I used a broom handle, some 3mm thick aluminium sheet, and some 3mm Brass sheet. I cut the sheet ...

The best way to work Amateur Satellites is to program your radios memory with the up links, down links and any necessary PL tones required to activate the Transponders. Here is the result, which if you are new or are just getting in to Satellite Communications, you may find the frequencies shown helpful. The rig seen in the pictures is an FT-847. SO-50 AMATEUR SATELLITE TX Up Link 145.850 FM 67HZ Tone. RX Down Link 436.795 FM +/- AO-51 AMATEUR SATELLITE TX Up Link 145.920 FM 67HZ Tone. RX Down Link 435.300 FM +/- VO-52 AMATEUR SATELLITE TX Up Link 435.250 LSB RX Down Link 145.900 USB+/- Hello to All at Planet Ham and Tnx for linking to Ham Radio Blogspot 73

For those of you that like working satellite or possibly the ISS, have you come across the latest version of SATSCAPE? SATSCAPE has been around for years and is now written in Java which allows a better graphic display to be used whilst tracking your favourite NOAA Satellites and the ISS as well as other Space Comms such as AO-51 and VO-52. I use SATSCAPE to assist me when trying to call CQ on the Earth Orbiting Voice repeaters which are FM and SSB, so far success on SSB but still trying to make it on FM. The new version can be downloaded via the link with support and updates also found at the SATSCAPE Website AS you can see it looks very nice Satscape screen shot click to enlarge Here you can see the ISS's Orbit and course click to enlarge ISS Zoomed closer and over Europe in Range of 2E0HTS Earth station click to enlarge FT-847 Yaesu Radio is listening on 145.800 the ISS downlink but no signals are being transmitted by the crew during the overhead pass which is plotted and tra...