Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Hi All! Hope you are keeping safe... We are in the same position as most regarding lock down and other than going to work I have been stuck indoors a lot lately. So, off outside into the garden it was and antenna building time once again was here.  I decided to replace the prototype 40/80 fan dipole that has been in use since the end of spring. It has been working really well even though I made it from some random used wire, I bought three reels of SotaBeam military spec heavy duty wire which come in 50 meter reels. The wire is stainless coated multi strand 50 ohm and is in a low impact green colour. It is very good for antenna elements or radials and solders up nicely.  I also decided I wanted to try out this new build double dipole with a suitable 1:1 balun that would help prevent unwanted coaxial line transmission and also help reduce unwanted reception noise on the feed line from random electrical sources nearby. The balun also helps to isolate the returning RF at the fee...

  As we move into the last couple of months of 2020 which has been defiantly a year to remember for obvious reasons, we can look forward to getting back down to the lower HF bands such as 80m. I really enjoyed the winter DX last year and made plenty of good qso across to USA, Canada, Caribbean and South America whilst operating on the 80m band. This year I have the 40m/80m home brew Fan Dipole which has already proven to be an awesome asset to my HF station. For those of you that have been coming back to my call on the regular YouTube live streams you have already sampled its performance h.i. Thanks for the super qso's guys, I look forward to catching you all again over the weekend this coming Saturday evening about 10.30pm local (21.30 utc). So, the homebrew Fan Dipole worked out well for me. I must admit I am quite impressed with it, I have some brand new SOTA beam wire reels in my possession which at some point will be used to build a brand new replacement which will be cut to t...

 Hi everyone I hope all is well? It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted so thought I'd drop by and update you of some of the activities I have been getting on with. First I will start with the card I received this morning confirming a great qso with ON3ONX who was worked via SSB Satellite XW-2A.  Over the past fortnight I spent a number of evenings trying my hardest to get into the new ISS repeater, I have probably tried around about 50 passes which I would say out that I made a qso 5 times giving me a 10% success rate. At first I thought I had an issue at my end but soon realised that the majority of stations in the UK and N.W Europe that were getting in each time (the same stations) are in fact running higher power than myself. This of course is quite unnecessary as well as out of order lol. I guess some people are so desperate to make it their own personal repeater hi hi that 300w is acceptable. I cranked it up to 50w and still struggled and at one point went the w...

 Its been just over a month since I purchased the COM 232B antenna rotator interface.  The neat little box sits nicely on my G-5500 control unit and is hooked up to my Windows 10 PC running Orbitron and WiSP DDE tracking software. The auto tracking of the antenna has made making a contact into the satellites much easier allowing me to focus on the reception and uplink signal out from my FT-847. I am looking at the next step which is configuration of the cat control for auto frequency doppler correction but at first glance its a bit of a faff and is not something I have the time to commit to setting it up properly at the moment. However, I spent a couple of hours last night trying to get it functioning on Orbitron but had no success so far. I more than likely will have to try something else if I want the auto frequency control, possibly GPredict.  I made a new video of my satellite operation which features CW, SSB and FM communication. Best 73 from the family and myself an...

 The FlightAware setup that I received from my good friend Pat W1DUK recently has been performing really well with the "Cantenna" 1/4 wave vertical antenna for 1090MHz. The set up comprises of a raspberry Pi with a FlightAware SD card and a FlightAware SDR USB Dongle, into a 1090 Mhz Antenna. Today I was up early and with a freshly fabricated bracket I managed to clip the Cantenna up high in the sky on the top of the mast. The reception footprint has now become up to 200 miles and possibly further with a greatly improved omni-directional pattern. I am in the first couple of hours of testing and have seen the number of aircraft increasing from an average of 10 to 20 + aircraft at once being tracked. A great success so far! A screen capture taken with my first go using the "Cantenna" 1/4 wave vertical mounted in the top window inside the house A screen capture of much improved activity and reception range taken with the "Cantenna" 1/4 wave vertical mounted o...

  Well guys I have had a busy few months playing radio and staying safe at the same time! I am back at work now and decided to post a few of the videos that I recently created! I hope everyone is safe and healthy and if you haven't seen these yet enjoy! Operating a Yaesu FT-847 on the Satellite bands using VHF and SSB. A quick DX catch up with Kurt in Trinidad. Beautiful signal as always! Upgrade made to the Diamond F-23 high gain 2M band mono band vertical antenna On my way back from Burnley in Lancashire over the hill tops!                                                              IOTA 2020 Warm Up                                                 A quick pass from a couple of FM Satellites M0YKS mobile ham r...

This morning I was pleased to receive an email form Kwon -HL2-0112B from South Korea. Kwon had received my signal whilst I worked OZ/DB4ST  up on the 20m band. I will be writing out a QSL card for Kwon shortly, thanks for the report Kwon! 73 to South Korea hope to make it to your SWL station again soon Thank You!