Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

The kids are asleep, the dog is asleep, Louise my YL is asleep. It's M0YKS Ham Radio Shack Time! It's been full speed ahead since the new year where I have been off to a fine start when it comes to getting my finger out and cracking on.....Especially when it comes to keeping the family sweet with a bit of home improvement. There is something about bending pipe that gives a you a special kind of happy feeling when you do it. Before I got into teaching I worked in the industrial sector where I maintained lots of plant, industrial and technical equipment as well as the buildings and workshops. Needless to say I am multi skilled which always comes in handy for keeping the costs down. As for getting on the bands it will be business as usual which means most evenings after 9pm local and /Mobile, as for any other opportunities I will take them when they appear. I still have got quite a bit of pipework to run and a few radiators to change before I am done and not forgetti...

I was very pleased to find the 20m band wide open this morning as I drove to work  /Mobile, I was straight into Sydney Australia as I worked VK2DX giving him a juicy 5/6 signal.  Nick VK2DX was booming with a genuine 5/9 signal. Well that's all for now time for some work. If you can get on 20m right now its wide open.

I built myself a full wave 40m loop, ordered a 22m fibreglass flagpole and went outside into my back garden. I erected the loop in a delta formation with one end supported by a convenient tree, the other my new flagpole and used a 4:1 balun and coaxial choke to feed the antenna with 50 ohm heavy coax. I am amazed that the the 40m delta loop works on 80 without any need for an atu with 1.5 swr. Also swr readings of 1.5 and less on 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m. Thats is awsome! I just need the atu to tune 40m and 20m as they are reading swr at around 2.5:3 which I may have a go at improving on when I get chance. So far the 40m Delta Loop is receiving superbly and seems great on transmit with my single calls getting over the pileup on 100 watts quite easily. Its looking promising and I will enjoy testing it out over the winter months. Homebrew 40m Delta Loop - There will be much more info including build instructions/dimensions and band results on the new 80m - 10m (40m full wave Lo...

This afternoon I introduced my engineering/electronics students to the world of amateur radio. The students are in their second year with me studying part time on a three year schools provision we are delivering at the college. The students have all built FM receivers so as promised I brought in some of my standby ham radio gear to show them how things work. I set up my YAESU FT -767 in the back of the van which I parked inside the college grounds. I showed the students my collection of mono band antennas explaining their purpose regarding wavelength size and resonance without trying to overcomplicate  things too much. I decided to make the most of the opportunity and got out the large Hustler mono band mobile antenna which has separate resonators (interchangeable top loaded whip sections)  for most of the HF bands. I powered up the trusty old Transceiver and began to check out the 40m band with the students listening by. We were fortunate as the band conditions were fav...

Last Call - M0YKS Feeling Pleased & Tired Finishing The CQ WW 2015 Contest at 00.00 utc  This year during CQ World Wide I managed 172 QSO's and 18 CQ DX Zones, conditions were reasonable throughout the contest but not quite as good as last year. Despite that I heard four other CQ DX Zones, Zone 3, 10, 23 and Zone 30 which if I had managed to work all four I would have beaten my high score of 21 that I had repeated last year. Nevertheless, I had a great time participating as a low power single unassisted operator and managed to log CQ Zones 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 33 and Zone 40. I was happy with the station and everything went well with some interesting DX from China, Japan, The Middle East, The Caribbean and West Indies, North and South America as well as Europe. I worked across the entire HF bands and thoroughly enjoyed myself, Thanks to All Stations Worked! I made a video during this year's CQ World Wide Contest which is now avai...

I have had a nice steady stream of subscribers to my Youtube Channel since I first began my video antics back in september 2006. Drum roll.....followed by loud trumpet!! Well today I made it to 1000 subscribers on Youtube! Thanks Guys! :-) I made a couple of ham radio related videos over the past few weeks which I have posted below. Thanks again, your support is very much appreciated. 73 Happy Ham ing!