Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

As we all now are getting used to being spoiled with regular band openings I have been making the most of my daily commute to work. Most mornings I make at least one QSO whilst mobile on the 20m band. Today was very good as I managed three QSO along the way. The band was very busy with DX and short skip signals coming up and down to the trusty YAESU FT-857. The past months morning mobiling has brought me some good surprises as I keep hearing the west coast of The USA. I managed to bust a pileup into Oregon which I was very pleased with as I ran about 80 watts into the mono band MALDOL HFC 20 antenna which is still effective after over 15 years of daily mobile use.  Solar cycle 25 is definitely interesting so far, especially early morning mobile, by lunch I have noticed a lull with just a couple of signals and then its back wide open again at my finish time.  My home-based shack is slightly down on action as the pleasant WX on an evening has caught my attention just lately b

  Now receiving with a new INNOVANTENNA 12 Element LFA YAGI (X Pole)  innovantennas x-pol-yagis software used .. WXtoIMG

Today started well with the awesome news that M7ELC managed a truly great first Contest result. Elsie M7ELC created a new England Record operating on all bands running low power in the Youth category and hit the podium position as Number 1 in England! Go Girl! We are all proud of her great start to her amateur radio participation and lets hope her future experiences on Ham radio continue to develop. Well done Elsie M7ELC England's No 1 Youth on Low Power! As for myself (Elsie's Dad) I did quite well as usual and came 5th in England as a High Power All Band Classic operator. I did better than usual with the Zones but there is still plenty of room for improvement. Have a fun on the bands! Thanks for passing by. 73.  

  What a difference a few weeks have made, cycle 25 has definitely woken up! A slightly delayed start due to an overlap of cycle 24 causing disturbance to the new born cycle 25 and keeping the flames quenched. But now the its out with the old in with the new as we experience some fantastic DX openings on all of the HF bands. Enjoy! My Fellow DX Friends! I have been racking up lots of DX as I operate some late night DX, my station has been hitting all over the globe and the bands have stayed wide open until late and often all night long. It has been really addictive and I have found myself active every day from my radio shack in the search of DX stations that are currently booming through. Morning activity /Mobile from the van has also popped up some nice surprises with  JA, VK and ZL signals and a QSO into Brazil whilst on the move with 80 watts. On my return journey I have heard YB and HS 5/9+ whilst driving and listening on the 20m HF band. A lot of you will be also experiencing the

Well I don't know about you but here in Bradford the band conditions on an evening have been absolutely terrible with high QRN levels and little activity.    I have made the odd DX contact on 40m but overall the shack has had a lot of noisy AF and very little RF generated  I'm looking forward to getting on during the daytime over the weekend, so let's hope that the solar cycle starts peddling again and gets a bit of speed up offering some decent band conditions. My Ameritron amplifier with its GI7BT valves has helped me have some fun thankfully. The current band conditions certainly favour QRO operation but even with 400w it's been quite tough to fill my log the way I like to  Not to worry I am sure it will not be long before I am back up on 20m Late night DXing. In the meantime I'm battling it out QRV on 80m and 40m with a terrible high noise level. Boo 👎  Catch you again soon. Keep a watch for Aurora and vhf band openings as this week's forecast l

Greetings to one and all! I hope you had a good Christmas and you are having a great new year so far. We are enjoying one or two decent DX openings when they occur but overall the bands have been average to poor at my end.  However I have had a few good DX contacts on HF and worked down on the lower end of HF operating on the 40m and 80m bands.  My mobile activity has been slightly better than from the shack, mainly due to the time I get on air at home. When mobile I'm hitting the long path DX to VK and ZL on my morning work run. The other day New Zealand was booming into the van as I pulled up into the college car park. Today I worked into Brazil, Iceland and Italy using 80- 100w from the FT-857 and Maldol HFC 20m antenna. As you already know that combo has been an excellent mobile station for me and is still effective 18 years later. Lol,  the durability and robust build of both antenna and transceiver has definitely been outstanding. I have made thousands of DX /M us

Just thought I would drop by and have a quick catch up with you all. We are all back at work and school after a couple of weeks of having covid and other than been very tired on an evening nothing too bad to report, other than its a slow comeback. As for the radio activity I have recently spent a considerable amount of shack time working the satellite bands. Since I carried out the antenna work on the satellite array over the summer I can say my satellite operation has been awesome. The signals are much improved both on TX and RX and I have made many excellent QSO on SO-50, AO-91, ISS, RS-44, XW-2 Sats. I definitely cannot wait to be back on the satellites over the Christmas holidays as the passes are now more frequent in the day time when I am usually working. The good news is there are only two days to go and the holiday period at college starts! Yay hay! I have checked the 40m band out most evenings and although I have been tired and not feeling like calling CQ I have worked a coupl