Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Earlier today I checked over my home brew Delta Loop and ended up re tightening the guy ropes. After that I was playing around with the recently self repaired Yaesu FT-890 which is hooked up to the loop and came across VU2SWS - Sarla who was working a "pile up" on the 17m band. After a few attempts I made it into India and received a 5/3 report from Sarla - VU2SWS pictured below. A great contact as well as a good result for the FT-890 and Delta Loop setup! 73 & thanks goes to Sarla for pulling my signal in through the pile up!

FT-890 & Recent Delta Loop Experiment: I have owned my Yaesu FT-890 since 2002 and have enjoyed years of reliable service. A couple of months ago you may recall that I recently reinstated the FT-890 as a second set up allowing operation from our dining room as well as my regular shack. I have since worked a good page and a half of paper logged QSO's into places like the Middle East, The US and EU as well as across Russia. I have been using the homemade 20m Delta Loop that I recently made and installed which is performing very well on 20m. The delta loop works well on 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m with the help of an old Nevada TM1000 manual antenna tuning unit.This week I managed to get into a couple of US repeaters up on 29Mhz using the FT-890 and Delta Loop which is pretty cool. Frequency Drift:  Whilst enjoying my old rig I discovered that it had developed an error and occasionally would drift up and down frequency both RXing and TXing. The drifting in frequency seeme...

It is exactly 10 years since I sat the exam and first obtained my amateur radio licence. Two days after becoming a radio ham I made contact with my loyal buddy and YouTube video co-presenter,  Dudley the DX hound. 10 years on, we are both wearing well and have managed to put together a very nice family which will be increasing in size yet again this coming April. I am proud to be able to inform you all that we are having another baby girl! 73 Happy DX.

WX Warning of severe storms! The UK continues to get battered with gale force winds, snow and lots of heavy rain storms. Here in Baildon, West Yorkshire my Ham radio antennas are holding up well  despite the bad WX conditions. Earlier I had to recover my daughters play house which had been dismantled and blown away, fortunately it will be ok and should easily be reassembled. Our dustbins have also wandered off somewhere down the garden spitting rubbish out along the way, which will be not so fun to collect in the morning. All things said and done I can't complain too much as I am well used to bad weather due to living at altitude up on the windy Yorkshire Pennine mountains. Hopefully the storms will ease up in the early hours of tomorrow as predicted and the antennas will remain undamaged. Recent Radioactivity I have been enjoying some good openings on 20m whilst mobile especially in the mornings and during the past three weeks I have made qso's into the US, Tasm...

The RSGB has published new band plans for the UK amateur radio spectrum which covers frequencies from 136kHz to 250GHz.  Copies of the band plan is freely available to all (including non members) via the Operating section of the RSGB website. You can also view the latest band plan here    which I have added to my Amateur Radio Portal  archives. 73!

On my workbound journey this morning I got lucky when I made QSO into ZL land from my mobile Ham radio station. As usual I was listening around the 20m band on my FT-857 searching for interesting stations when I came across Al, ZL1BD. At approximately 08.15 utc I gave a call back to ZL1BD's CQ call from my mobile and was heard at Al's station in Hamilton, New Zealand. My signal report was 5/6 and Al was coming in at 5/8-9 to my mobile as I drove my car. Al mentioned it had been two years since our last QSO which I still remember well. It surprised me just how quickly the time had passed.  I was very pleased to make the contact again this morning especially as my Yaesu FT-857 recent install seems to work well. Finally I can feel confident that it is as good as my beloved FT-100 which is having a well deserved rest (for now h.i). It sure is great fun operating mobile and never ceases to amaze me how well you can get a signal to radiate. Who knows what tomorrow mornings mobile ...

I just finished clearing out my eQSL archive and have uploaded my latest QSL cards to view at my Online gallery.