Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Whilst tuning around the HF bands over the weekend I found myself up on 12 meters listening to a nice signal coming in well on my trusty YAESU FT1000MP MKV transceiver and Carolina Windom antenna. The signal I was hearing at 5/9 was Joe - JA1LZR( Japan), on his FT-5000 and 4Element SteppIR. JA1LZR is located at a short path distance of 5757.4 miles away. Joe was running 1KW and came back to me after my first call giving me a 5/9 report back. I enjoyed the short rag chew with Joe very much, it was a great 1st QSO with JA1LZR as well as my first 12m QSO into Japan so far this year. I hope to catch Joe - JA1LZR again soon on another band, with a bit of luck and good propagation it shouldn't be too difficult. Happy DX & 73!

Calling all amateur Satellite operators! Friday nights are now officially known as party night and I have been joining other satellite ops in some late night party style radio activities via the FO-29 Satellite. If you can work FO-29 I  hope to meet you on the next Friday night Satellite QSO party. Certificates are awarded for all participants as seen below. Check out the FO-29 QSO party sites via Sylvain's -  F0FVK  and also Luis -  CT2GOY   links for more information and times for the next FO-29 QSO Party.

Over the next few months I shall be active with a couple of different temporary call signs marking both the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen, as well as the London 2012 Olympics. The first of the two temporary call signs will be Diamond Jubilee special call “Q – Queen” with 2Q0HTS active on all bands from 80m upward & Satellites. The 2Q0HTS call can be heard from 00.00 BST 5 May 2012 to 23.59 BST 10 June 2012. I shall be active with the other Special Call Sign later in the summer when the London 2012 Olympics begin. I shall be using my temporary Olympic call sign 2O0HTS. You can also hear this Special “Qscar” call active across the bands from 80m up, starting from 00.00 BST 21 July 2012 to 23.59 BST 9 September 2012 inclusive. I am looking forward to using both of my temporary special call signs and hope to work some of you somewhere across the bands in the process! 73

Over the past few weeks it appears my Twitter Account has been hacked into by some sad arsehole. I can no longer log into my account so can't see the messages this spammer has been sending but have been getting a load of irate replies from Radio Hams that use Twitter. Thanks to these irate replies I realised my account has been hacked as I hadn't been on for a while so didn't notice. I tried logging in and resetting my password for a good few hours but have been completely locked out. When this finally gets resolved I am seriously considering closing my Twitter account as it's supposed to be fun but all I've been receiving in my email inbox are angry replies from Radio Hams. All people who I've never communicated with via Twitter in the past angry at allegedly getting links to weight loss sites - as if I need to go on a diet?!!!! hi hi! Most of my blog followers will realise I have a good sense of humour but I am the sort of guy who doesn't take any sh...

Earlier I managed to work the pileup down on 3.770MHz and make a QSO with special event station GB4T  (follow the link for more info) 73!

I was lucky to catch some nice band conditions this morning as I made some nice DX qso into Belgium and Germany. ON6ZT, ON4KHG, OO7K and DL6YBF were all worked using SSB on 144MHz. I received some excellent signals from all stations, the 2m band is wide open today and I hope to catch some more activity whilst the conditions last. The VHF propagation forecast looks good all week!  Have a nice day. 73