Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

The past few days has brought interesting conditions to most of the HF bands. I spent some time checking up and down the bands to find: 50Mhz - SSB Open 29Mhz - FM Open 28Mhz - SSB Open 24MHz - SSB Open 21MHz - SSB Open 18MHz - SSB Open 14MHz - SSB Open Its great to hear plenty of radio activity coming in on the higher portion of the HF bands, its been a while since I struggled to find a clear and empty frequency. Happy DXing have a great weekend!

Over the weekend I was tuning around the HF bands from my shack when I came across quite a few special event stations. I decided to have a go at streaming the received signals live from my shack via the internet using Ustream. I started off with the odd viewer and once I announced my live stream feed on Twitter it wasn’t long before I had a reasonable audience (47 in total). I began streaming the live signals I was receiving on the HF bands which turned out well and allowed other operators to compare my received signals to the signals that they were receiving at their locations. I was pleased to hear that many signals were coming in on my amateur radio equipment very well compared to the sigs received at the viewers end as I was quickly informed by one of Ustream live feed viewers. I was then asked by Twitter pal and software designer Scott “Satscape” Hather to stream some live Satellite operations via Ustream demonstrating how to make qso with amateur satellites. This worked out very

This morning was excellent propagation whilst driving to work in my Toyota 4X4. There were many VK's coming through very strong with 5/9+ signals all over the 20m band. At around 7.15utc I heard Ian VK3MO calling CQ around 14.178MHz, Ian was 5/9+30db in signal strength. I managed to get back to Melbourne and work Ian for 10 minutes as I drove to work giving him a 5/9 signal back from my FT-100 and Maldol HFC-20 mono band antenna. I love the early morning openings and I am always amazed how well the mobile set up always seems to perform.

With Iceland's Volcano Eyjafjallajökull causing so much controversy, I decided to track NOOA -19's latest pass with the help from Satscape . I wanted to see if I could spot the Volcanic ash that everyone is hearing about for myself. The equipment I used today was my good old Yaesu FT-2600M and a 137MHz vertical whip. NOAA-19 transmits APT on FM at 137.100 MHz. There are more NOOA Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite(POES) which transmit images of the Earth and are simple enough to receive and decode. I am still using Radiocom 5.2 to decode the WX images as seen below. Image of UK captured by NOAA-19, Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite(POES) received at my Amateur Station at 12.38 utc today.

Dudley says "Sorry I have been absent, I've been playing" The past couple of weeks I have been enjoying Easter break from the College where I work, it has been a fantastic holiday but unfortunately all good things must come to an end, as I will be working again next week. Despite my lack of posts here, I have been fairly active on the bands making lots of impressive DX both from the mobile and QTH. Conditions at times have been very interesting as well as totally flat because of the solar activity. One of the days when the propagation peaked, I was fortunate to be driving back from the East Coast when I made QSO with 9M6TMT - Tom, and HS0ZIN - Paul, both booming in 5/9+ signals. I shall be back to my usual blogging over the next few days as I adjust back to normality but in the meantime have a great weekend and hope to hear you on the bands.

Since I tested my latest project the miracle antenna mount, I decided to make another type of portable mount only this time I wanted something to house a mobile whip. I came up with a four legged stand which I made from 6mm thick aluminium as seen in the picture. Once I cut the aluminium, I was able to bend the four legs into the required shape fairly easily using a fly press. I then began to assemble the mobile antenna mount that would allow my vast collection of mobile HF antenna’s to be mounted securely as well as gaining a good RF ground through the mount. The next stage was to add wire radials directly to the aluminum which can be spread out into an X configuration. Once I completed the build I packed the gear into my rucksack and headed outside to climb the Moor top. After around 20 minutes of doggy walking, I found a bell pit where I quickly set up and I tried 20m and 15m out with some interesting results. Louise – M3TLL and or furry companion Dudley were kind enough to once aga

I could not resist sharing tonight’s fantastic Sunset view looking out from our Hill Top Shack which was taken earlier this evening by my YL, Louise – M3TLL. The winter WX is finally coming to an end up here on the Moor and band conditions on HF have been very interesting lately with a lot more reliable & good dx openings into VK & ZL occurring most mornings. I worked VK6ANC on 20M from my mobile last week 5/9 in the clear at around 8.15utc, using the FT-100 and Maldol HF-20 Mono band antenna. Evening DXing has been spent down on 40M most nights with plenty of QSOs into North America and the odd Caribbean station. 20M has also been good in the evening especially over the weekend during the US contest, It was nice to see the higher end of the HF bands also up on signal with lots of contester's booming in on 15M. I had a bit of fun working lots of big signals from across the pond down on my favorite band for DX, 20M. Antenna Comparisons. Both the 80M & 20M Delta Loop ante