Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Ham Radio Antenna's Hold Up Through Storm Doris. Storm Doris is the latest weather front to hit the UK with wind speeds of up to 90 MPH I have been keeping an eye on my antenna's and shed roof. Storm Doris was loud last night and there was heavy sleet in the early hours with very strong gusts of wind but so far so good on all antenna's shed roofs and not forgetting wheelie bins. Storm Doris weather affecting a flight coming into Leeds Bradford Airport which about 3 miles away from my home QTH. Picture from the Telegraph, taken by: CHARLOTTE GRAHAM/GUZELIAN I am off work on half term holiday having a nice time with the family. Elsie my oldest got chicken pox a couple of days before the holidays so we have been taking it easy in doors which has allowed me to be in and out of the shack quite a lot where I have made many nice QSOs on 40m, 20m, 17m and 15m with a new DXCC - Antarctica in the log. The HF bands have been quite good at times throughout the week an...

This evening was the first time that I made QSO with fellow blogger and radio amateur Bas - PE4BAS. We have been following each others online activities for years and our radio contact was well over due. Bas suggested we try the 80 meter band at 21.45 utc, I checked to see if the frequency was clear and heard a big gun signal telling me to clear off h.i. It was the amateur station of PE4BAS who was coming in very nicely indeed. We moved up the band and managed to sustain a perfect QSO  for almost an hour with 5/9+ 20 to +40 db copies at both ends throughout the entire QSO. Bas was running an 80m Loop which was horizontally polarized with his ICOM and 100 watts out. I was running my FT-1000 MK-V and 100 watts into my Windom antenna. I checked the Hustler 6BTV during the QSO and found that I could hear Bas just as well apart from about 20 db drop in his signal strength with the vertical. All in all it was an excellent radio contact with plenty of information exchanged during ...

As another weekend draws to an end I am once again listening out for any interesting signals coming through on my ham radio equipment before bed. Me recent antenna modifications definitely seem to have improved my station both the beam and vertical are working well. My next tweak will be shortening the Carolina windom by 3 inches or so to make it more resonant higher up on the 80m band. That will be easy enough and I might get it done one evening after work weather permitting, currently the windom is showing SWR at 1:1 on 3.6 MHz and reading 1:8 - 2:0 on 3.8 MHz which is where I want to listen for DX. Besides that I am active working random stations near and far in between family life and work. 73 have a good week!

Last weekend I ordered a 50 mm / 2 inch diameter aluminum antenna mast from TLC electrical supplies , at a reasonable price. The tube arrived last Monday which was a very quick delivery, my YL Louise M3TLL knew I would be itching to put it into service so she sent me a message when it arrived at lunch. On the way home I asked my work mate Kyle who is also a neighbor if he was up for lending a hand which was fine by him. I have the Cushcraft 5 band mini beam mounted on a home-brew heavy duty tripod which is held stable with ground rods and large concrete blocks, I previously made a service platform above the tripod which allows the mast, rotator and antenna to be taken up and down reasonably quickly.  With the assistance of Kyle who towers over me at a mighty 6 ft 4 inch of height I knew the changing over of a short 2 ft tube to my new shiny 6 ft tube would be a lot easier than my usual one man struggle. Sure enough the extra pair of hands paid off and the Beam was up, down, s...

HF radio conditions have been pretty grim on an evening back in the shack lately so I decided to try and optimize my Hustler 6 Band Trap Vertical in the hope that I may get a bit more of a helping hand on the 40 meter band. My new Pup Finn is already showing interest in antennas and is inspecting the new radials for size! I decided to go with the recommended radial sizes seen below taken from the Hustler 6BTV user manual. I used some 2.5 mm multi-strand PVC coated copper wire which is typically used in electrical installations. With the help of my larger soldering iron I was able to join three radials to two sides of the mount giving a total of six radials which worked out as, two for 40M, two for 20M and two for 10M. I might add some more bands later as the result so far are providing excellent SWR readings less than 1.2 without the ATU. I just need some half decent conditions to get some good DX signal reports down on 40M and I shall post the outcome. In the meantime check...

On the way in to work I was fortunate to get my 100 watts and FT-857 /m heard by  AL - ZL1BD  I have been hearing AL ZL1BD on and off in the mornings for the past week or so but today was especially good conditions as his signal was peaking at 5/9 as I drove over Baildon Moor. I had a good couple of overs into Hamilton New Zealand and received a 5/3 signal report back to the van. The Shack of ZL1BD AL

Hello from Finn, our new 8 week Lurcher pup. Finn will soon be learning about Ham radio, especially portable operations once he is big enough to embrace the great outdoors.