Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Once again the Bands have become a mass of squawks and rumbles as Radio amateurs around the World battle it out across the HF bands trying to work as many SSB phone contacts amongst the racket of zones and signal reports. This is of course the very popular annual CQ WW Contest. The main objective of the CQ WW Contest is for radio amateurs around the world to contact other amateurs in as many zones and countries as possible within 48 hrs. The World is divided into a total of 40 Zones. The Bands used during the contest are all bands, from 1.8MHz through to 28MHz, except for WARC bands. I enjoy this Contest very much as it coincides with the anniversary of when Louise (M3TLL) and I first dated, Louise lets me play radio every year during our special weekend, as long as I pamper to her every need in between which is easily achievable hi hi. During this year’s CQ WW Contest, I don’t believe that radio conditions were as good as previous years. I did not hear the volume of regular DX station

Image received at 12.30 utc Below is a screen shot of my computer screen as signals are received from the NOAA -19 Satellite on 137.100 MHz(fm) To do this I use my IO-10 Satellite beam coupled to the Yaesu FT-847. The signal is fed to my P.C via a soundblaster sound card to be decoded into the image seen above.

I recently received the provisional Results from the IOTA 2010 Contest which took place back in July. I took part in this years IOTA Contest for the very first time really enjoying the whole experience and to my recent surprise doing quite well considering my low output power. I entered the Fixed, Single Operator, Unassisted, Single Sideband, 24hr, Low Power Section of the contest (a bit of a tongue twister to say the least). The shortened abbreviated version can be seen below with my score and position. 11 - 2E0HTS - EU005 - Great Britain - IOTA FIX SOU SSB 24H LP - 143 - 57 - 68913 Follow this link to see the full IOTA 2010 Provisional Results . Other recent activity has been mainly on the HF bands especially 40M, 20M, 17M and 15M. Over the past week I have worked some nice DX using the FT1000mp MKV and recent CW160 antenna, the good propagation has provided some excellent openings on the higher end of the HF bands. On 15M, I have worked into Brazil - PY2DN & New Zealand - Z

I recently added some more radio gear to my ever growing collection which comprises of a few more antenna's and a Ft-1000MP Mark-V to help bow the shack table some more. I strung up a Carolina Windom 160 by Radio Works last weekend which joins my collection of home made delta loops, wires, beams and verticals. You can never have too many radios or antenna's hi hi. Since the the CW160 was up I have made lots of great QSO,s on 80m, 40m, 20m, 17m, 15m & 12m. I have yet to try it out on 160m, 30m & 10m but the results so far on the other bands have been very surprising. The antenna is 265ft long and is suspending by trees in a more or less straight line and it is nice and stealth like not causing any complaints so far which always helps to keep things peaceful. The new addition - Yaesu Ft1000MP MK-V fine tunes the antenna well using the onboard atu, the antenna is less than 2:1 at worst across all of the HF bands and is at 1:1 on 160m without the atu in its present configur

As well as Ham Radio I have had a history of playing music - DJing on local community broadcast stations. I was involved with a local station for over 15 years before I got my amateur radio licence, broadcasting live to about 250,000 listeners three times a week never missing a show. So as you can imagine I have an extensive collection of Vinyl recordings. To sum it up, if I ever melted them down I would have enough plastic to manufacture 10,000 hand held microphones. On a more serious note I try to spend the odd weekend playing some of my records and at the same time I have the PC interfaced to my sound system allowing me to convert the tracks to mp3. I have had my "HI FI" equipment for over 20 years and it still sounds as solid as ever. It is connected to some PIONEER CS-777 speakers powered by a DENON PMA350 amplifier. I still have some 22" base boxes fitted with horns that I can "string up" if needed for venues etc. I obviously don't listen to music whe

Since I settled for the 10 element 435MHz and IO 145MHz loop antenna (IO-10EL) I have been getting into the OSCAR Satellites with ease. I have been making lots of QSO's with the home built beam fixed at 30º elevation for the past year or so on FM and SSB. Earlier this evening I made QSO's on AO-51, HO-68 and VO-52. On AO-51(FM) I worked ON5NY, on HO-68(SSB) I worked IZ7JXJ, DJ8DT and for the second time this evening ON5NY. On VO-52(SSB) I worked IZ5AVK and DK1IE, all were good signals and all Stations could hear me at 5/9. I was running approximately 35Watts from my Yaesu FT-847 and managed to still get in to HO-68 at a total distance of 2500 miles as the the Satellite headed over North America. I am always amazed how well my homemade antenna performs and I still get the biggest buzz when the "birds" pass over, in fact my hard done by YL - Louise M3TLL thinks I have a problem and calls me a "Satellite Junkie". Unfortunately for Louise, there doesn't see

We spent last week relaxing at the Galloway Coastline in the south west of Scotland. We had a very enjoyable stay at The Isle of Whithorn just 7yds from the sea. Our accommodation was excellent on the Harbor row, which was only a stone’s throw away from the historic landing place of St Ninian We visited this area for the first time three years ago when we stayed at the Galloway Astronomy Centre and have been revisiting as regular as we can, ever since. The area has lots of historic sites not to mention the stunning views, large empty beaches and plenty of wild life which for us makes up a great holiday. One of our favorite beaches is at Monreith where there is one of Scotlands best kept secerets The Church of Kirkmaiden hidden away but easily found along with St Medana’s Well . The Church of Kirkmaiden St Medana's beach at Kirkmaiden During our many visits to the beach I was able to get some HF Mobiling done with the trusty Yaesu FT-100 on 20m, 40m and 80m with some great cont