Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

 I would like to thank all of you guys that entered the competition, it was a bit of fun to mark the end of lockdown and my regular weekly live streaming check ins. I'm sure you have all seen enough of me keeping you up late at night lol. So finally the time is here for at least a bit less of the live streams. lol.  I'm amazed how many of you guys have kept up. Thanks for the company throughout the past year and half of a very unusual time and we made it! Yeah!!! From now on as we move into the next solar cycle and summer freedom I will be doing the live stuff as and when I am in the mood lol, the same goes for the regular video recordings.  Anyway the answers to the competition for the microphone stand are: 1. My 1st Call - M3HTS   2, How many Valves in my amp - 2 3,What is my most popular YouTube video of all time - Hustler base station antenna used on my mobile  So a few got some correct and three of you got all of the right answers. Well done! I did a live draw on the YouTu

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Well its been far too long since i posted here so I thought I best sort that out. What have I been doing lol. Lots of radio including livestreams, a few repairs and plenty of work. You might have seen on my YouTube channel that my eldest daughter Elsie has now become one of us and now holds her own Call sign at the sweet age of 10 years (only just as well). Her Mum M3TLL, Sister and I are all very proud of her amazing achievement. We have been working together throughout lockdown teaching Elsie and she has been an awesome student that's for sure! Well done M7ELC - Elsie. As well as playing plenty of radio I recently achieved the QRZ DX100  using only a microphone and antenna no digital modes or internet!  I have also had a bit of time to take down the satellite antennas and rotator for a 5 year service. This went well, I since refit the installation in a different more accessible location to the side of my QTH as well as replace a broken reflector and change the polarisation from

  Another successful improvement to the station this winter was putting some 12 ft radials at the base of the Hustler 6BTV antenna. Since I did the performance has greatly improved with regular DX contacts into Monserrat in the Caribbean, Canada and USA. Chris GM4ZJI was the one who told me to try the 1/8th wave radials which work amazingly well. Thanks Chris!!! As you can see the signal on the QSL card from Adam KA1KA is not 5/9, the band was quite poor so that is why I am over the moon to make the QSO and QSL with the 6BTV. My fan dipole on 40m is very similar in performance, almost as good but slightly down on outgoing signal with about 5-10 db less signal reports back in. (just for info).

Greetings and hello, hope all is well. Since I built the 40-80m Fan dipole antenna I have been much more active on the 80m band, this antenna with its 1:1 balun has been receiving many excellent signal reports from both short and long skip local and DX.  The SOTA wire is an excellent radiator and combined with a 1:1, 50 ohm balun which I bought  a Diamond BU-50 rated to 1200 watts seems really good despite its small physical size, it appears to be working very well so far with 400 watts. I am pleased to report it has not shown any problems or issues over the winter months where we have had lots of snow and ice. The homebrew 40-80M FAN DIPOLE, YES! I would definitely recommend. Also, I recommend fitting a balun to any dipole made for HF as it does help to prevent unwanted RF return and reception interference that is often picked up on the feed line. Since I fitted the balun, I have noticed a positive difference whilst using it. The dipole seems to be a very good performer al

A very late Happy new year to each and everyone,  I hope you are all keeping well and safe as we enter another year over shadowed by this dreadful virus. Once again I am working online with my students rather than being in the welding and fabrication workshop where I belong. Despite the chaos there is plenty of fun and laughter in the household and I have also been very active on the ham radio bands. My log has never looked so healthy and I have been making many QSO meeting some great guys and girls on the air.  The last few months have flown by and I now seem to be live streaming both welding sessions and ham radio from the shack. Every Sunday evening I have been live on YouTube working lots and lots of other radio amateurs on 80 and 40m as well as up on 20m when conditions permit. Its started to become a weekly ritual and I have almost formed a virtual gathering of regular friends via the YouTube channel stream and of course on the air. It is a real pleasure to finally ge

Greetings friends and followers around the World! 73 Seasons blessings and good will and health to each and all! Merry Christmas! I received a nice diploma on Christmas day for receiving SSTV images which commemorate 20 years of onboard amateur radio activity. It was easy enough to obtain via  ARISS SSTV Award  link.  Here is an earlier one from the Sputnik series. Its great fun receiving images from ISS and can easily be decoded using MMSTV free software on your pc. There are a few apps for phones and tablets that work well also. Check out my latest video as I decode ISS SSTV images if you want to see how easy it is.  Also if you like that you might want to decode weather satellite images which is a very similar method apart from you need a slightly more complicated decoder which again is free and is called WXtoImg Above is a recent image from NOAA 18 below is a video showing how I successfully decoded the weather image. Keep yourself amused this Christmas as we all stay safe, have a