Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Radio Amateurs are needed to help The Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TSNIIMASH) in Russia with some space plasma experiments taking place onboard the International Space Station (ISS) Nov 25nd - 28th and Dec 2nd -5th. The experiment will use the ISS Amateur Radio 145.825 MHz FM AX.25 1200 bps packet radio downlink. For more information visit  Amsat  or find the website about the experiment  here

After work this evening I fired up my ham radio shack and started tuning up and down the bands. I had heard recent reports that the 10m repeater KQ2H was coming in strong on a regular basis with lots of interesting stations working through it. I tuned my FT1000 to 29.620MHz FM and sure enough I could hear the KQ2H repeater. KQ2H is located across the Atlantic near New York in the Catskill Mountains. I heard lots of stations calling through to begin with, it was slightly chaotic at times but then I suddenly heard Jose - XE2YHR coming in well with a big signal. After calling him three times Jose pulled me out of the crowd and we had a short QSO exchanging reports and location information. It was very nice indeed getting into Mexico via a repeater in New York on 10 meters FM. I'll be listening up on Ten FM over the weekend to see what activity might be found as well as enjoying time with the family. 73 all have a great weekend & happy DXing

Over the weekend I enjoyed some of the fantastic openings up on the 10 meter band during this years WWCQ Contest. I managed to work some excellent DX for the first time in a long time up on 28MHz. The last time I heard conditions as good as they were, was back in the 80s when I was an avid 11 Meter DXer as well as a spotty faced teenager. My old President Adams at the time brought exotic signals to my early radio days. I still have some old chicken box kit from way back which includes a couple of 40 channel AM rigs, an original colt as well as a little president AR7. I also have a Ham International Multimode II. This years WWCQ contest was worked mainly on 10 Meters for me using my FT1000mp MKV field and Carolina Windom antenna (CW80). I exceeded my previous total of 15 Zones by spending my time up on 10m more or less throughout the contest and working a total of 21 World wide zones. This is the best I have done since getting on the air during WWCQ and I am pleasantly surpr

Whilst enjoying the half term break from work we have been getting a few household jobs done. One job I have been considering doing involved moving my radio gear from one side of the room to the other. I made a metal racking system that has been on standby and today was the day I was going to get to use it. I began by dismantling my radio equipment carefully and then I moved one coax at a time avoiding any possible mix ups. I decided to run a new earthing wire to the outside, where I soldered it to a brass grounding spike. I made the box section rack big enough to house all of my equipment and rigs including my PC tower. It fits nice and snug inside a corner alcove wear I can operate the various rigs and bands nice and comfortably with ease. The new layout is more spacious and user friendly than the previous shack set up and better still, the YL likes it! I took a few pictures showing the new radio shack layout with my home brew rack housing my YAESU powered station. View of the Shack

Up early as usual and listening around 21.290MHz this morning, I heard a strong signal coming out of Australia. It was coming in at my station at around 5/7 to 8 from the Ham station of VK2GWK, operator - Henk. VK2GWK - Henk was calling CQ DX so I gave Henk a quick call back making it back around the globe into Henks QTH which is nearby to Sydney, making another great DX qso. During the contact I was running my FT1000mp MK-V hooked up to the CW-80 wire antenna. Henk was beaming long path to my QTH coming in loud and clear as seen in the video. After our qso I checked VK2GWK on QRZ.com and found a neat link by Henk where I downloaded his QSL card for our recent QSO. Great idea Henk! Tnx & 73.

I continued the early breakfast DX by working into New Zealand. I tried my luck on my Carolina Windom this time and got my signal heard at 5/1 when I made QSO with Wayne - ZL2WL. Once again the good old 20m band performed its magic and another good DX QSO enters my log. 73

Another advantage of having a 7 month old baby Daughter is that I am up and awake very early. Lucky for me I can also catch up with some long path DXing on my Ham Radio Station. This morning at 06.25 utc I was tuning around the 20m band when I heard Neil - VK2IZI coming through with a 5/9 signal out of Australia. The exact frequency where I caught up with Neil was 14.178MHz, I gave just one call using the Hustler 6BTV which was received long path by Neil 5/7. I was surprised the vertical was working so well for me, I did my usual comparison test whilst receiving Neil on my wire Carolina Windom, which was almost the same as the vertical. The wire RX the signal from VK at the same 5/7 to 5/9 strength, so I decided to stick with the vertical during our QSO. Neil - VK2IZI is located in the Blue Mountains near by to Sydney and was running an Optibeam antenna system. The Optibeam was working very well for him. Yesterday morning I heard lots of Japanese Stations coming through up and dow