Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Well it's been up for 8 years and is still working really well for me. Yes I am talking about the HF mini beam which has a small footprint and a big signal. The largest element is aprox 17.10 ft wide and the boom is only 7.30 ft long. Despite its relatively compact size it works absolutely Fabulously and I would not change it as it's a perfect fit for my garden. As you can see in the picture my MA5B is not a sight for sore eyes but is instead very difficult to find. It's mounted via a heavy home brew tripod base which houses a mast taking the antenna to just 20ft above the ground. The trees are old and well established towering above the beam.  After years of operation with previous poor conditions and now with much better band conditions I can honestly say what a great antenna the Cushcraft MA5B really is. I can usually work who I can hear unless they are running extra high power QRO and have a high noise level at their end.  The recieve is something special ab...

This morning I caught the almost perfectly overhead pass of one of my current favorite satellites RS-44. I have made some awesome contacts via this bird and with my satellite antenna array I can work into it up to 3000 miles away which is more or less a full footprint.Here is the action caught on video as usual of course. Hope to hear you on the birds soon.  

  I finally got around to adjusting the UP-link on the SatPC32 software. It now matches the Doppler correction required to operate the SSB Transponder much easier with less adjustments whilst in QSO.. RS-44 Russian Sputnik Satellite. A couple more contacts made and a final Doppler adjustment made towards the end of the pass. Now I am bang on frequency. Every radio differs slightly when setting up SatPC32 pre configured settings for the up link and down link. Careful adjustments using the CAT tab can be made when the pass is nice and clear. This helps to save time next time I use this bird as I will not require further fine tuning and will have a better copy. 73 thanks for following! I hope you have fun on the Satellite bands!

Well it has been a busy few weeks as we enjoy our summer holiday, we have been to many places from beautiful riverside walks, moor tops, coastal beach walking and beyond. Some of the places I was at included ham radio and I have been busy with my mobile and portable operation's.  The mobile HAM Radio station is still the same old original YAESU FT-857 and Maldol mobile mono band antenna's. This still works awesome as ever despite been 20 years in service. I have been making quite a few FM 2M mobile contacts recently as well and that has been pretty cool as well as providing impressive performance with my second antenna that is permanently mounted on the van roof. It is a Diamond dual band VHF UHF antenna. I have also had that one years as well 😀.  Whilst in Scotland (last week) I had plenty of time to work portable and we also had electric hook up on the beach side camp at Port William. This allowed me to set up my 50amp PSU which I used to power the f...

When Elsie M7ELC obtained her foundation amateur radio licence my good friend Pat W0OKE, Norm and the whole Portland Oregon HRO team sent her a fantastic first radio to celebrate her achievement as at that time, 2021, Elsie was 10 yrs old . She was very happy to receive this lovely radio which is the YAESU FT-4X. She uses it every now and again but not as often as the mobile FT-857 or shack station. So I decided with her permission to give it a go myself. After all my FTDX-101MP gets her attention so its a fair deal.     So today's adventure was to hike to the top of one of the local trig points about 15 miles to the North West of Baildon. The exact location is overlooking Bolton Abbey situated higher up above on Langbar Moor and is known as Beamsley Beacon which is 1300 FT ASL.  A great walk and also spot on for VHF UHF QRP.   The YAESU FT-4X is really nice radio to operate and is nice and simple to use so with my eyes...

   Some of you will remember me getting the Arrow Mk2 antenna back in 2007 and as you can see it still does me a very fine job. I still enjoy the QRP satellite work which is always a surprise on how well it actually works. Tonight's efforts paid off as I cracked the pile up and worked two stations through the International Space Station. The ISS has its FM repeator active for radio amateurs to work each other on 145.990 FM up (Transmit with a CTSS tone 67hz) and 437.800 FM down (Receive frequency) Good luck if your going to have a go yourself. 73 thanks for following my madness. For more on ISS, FM and SSB Satellites as well as weather satellites check out all my Satellite adventures in one place. This image was received this morning at my shack in Baildon Yorkshire from the NOAA-18 Weather Satellite using WXtoIMG to decode. *Thanks to WRAASE Electronic for the stable free download version and Kepler update info and program. All working great for me!

Today has been a good day for ham radio here at the shack. The DX has been coming in really nicely throughout the 20, 17 and 15m bands. I made some great DX into China, Indonesia, South America and as seen in the video Japan. The QSO with Kazuhito JH3NGD was a really good example of having a decent QSO with fantastic stable band conditions, I really enjoyed the oppertunity and from the sounds of it Kazuhito san enjoyed looking at my old classic japanese motorcycles seen on my QRZ page. Kazuhito had some intresting pictures of his amazing set up which I also enjoyed looking through whist we made QSO. I hope to hear Kazuhito JH3NGD again soon a great operator from Japan, Thank You for the QSO!. My next great QSO tonight was into Mildura, Victoria, Australia with a nice chat with Moz VK3CWB exchanging a 5/5 report. Moz is located spot on for the hobhby with plenty of space and has a very nice antenna. Thanks Moz! It has also been a typical Yorkshire day regarding the WX but we...