Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

CQ100 is a program for use exclusively by licenced radio amateurs and is a simple and effective way to keep in touch with hams all over the globe 24 hours a day without any propagation. If you are interested you can download a 3 month free trial if you follow this link http://qsonet.com/programs.html I have already heard many CQ calls through the CQ100 virtual radio and I will be listening out for you all, and monitoring all the other bands at the same time on my real rigs! 73 C u agn Simon

This Antenna design was one that I used about 4 years ago, it worked exceptionally well on 80m and 40m. The size of the antenna makes a Half wave length on 80 meters, and with the traps a half wave on 40m with a SWR (standing wave ratio) of 1:1-1.5 across both bands. It worked well also on 20m with the use of an A.T.U (antenna tuning unit). I made my version of this antenna using 3mm multi strand copper cable which I left covered by the PVC insulation. The traps can either be home brewed using some 40mm diameter plastic drain pipe and winding wire around the pipe approximately 10 turns, then connected in line after the 10 metre lengths. Or the alternative is to purchase some commercially made 7.1 MHz traps, and fit them in line the same way. The antenna can be fed with 50 ohm coax with a home brew balan or again a commercially purchased balan. The wire lengths of the dipole are 2x 10 metres and 2x 6.7 metres as shown on the diagram above. This antenna can be mounted quite low to the gr

Greetings to all, I recently acquired the Heil mic and had planned to use it in the mobile with the ft-100, but after trying it out I decided to stick with the original fist mic from Yaesu. The Goldline from Heil had struggled to pick up my voice from the dashboard mounting bracket, and with the whole idea of making mobile operations more inconspicuous by not drawing attention to myself, fitting a hands free mic seemed to be out of the window. I was having to shout that loud to hit the alc level, most peoples heads were turning and wondering what I was shouting at. So back to basics and the fist mic wins! I then decided to try the Heil microphone in the shack on the ft-767. This was the beginning of a potentially beautiful relationship as the rig and mic compatibility seemed good with some good reports from experienced G-Stations on 80 meters. I have been using the microphone for the last couple of days and I am finding it OK with the wired PTT switch in my hand and ready to engage. T

I have recently had the pleasure of assisting a fellow member of Staff at work by helping him train to become a radio amateur. Chris is an electrical lecturer at the college where we both work, I was extremely happy when Chris asked me to help him get into the hobby and with his electrical/electronic knowledge it will be fairly simple to pass the foundation examination and obtain the licence which will allow him to operate his recently purchased yaesu ft-847. Good luck with the exam Chris and welcome to the world of Ham radio. Chris asked me about Q-codes so I decided to post the list of Q-codes which are used by radio amateurs around the world. The Q-codes were originally invented for use with telegraphy and then Morse code allowing messages to be transmitted quickly without having to rattle out long and difficult sentences. These days they are still used as a way of sending voice messages as well as Morse, whilst communicating with another station. The Q-codes can be very useful espe

Greetings once again, I've been playing radio quite a lot since I repaired the ft-100 /mobile rig, making many successful DX and local QSOs on 40m, 20m and 2m. The next stage of improvement for my mobile station is to fit the heil base mic that I recently acquired from Ron 2E0DOG. This should be an easier way to operate hands free as well as maintaining top quality audio. I tried a hands free kit from Watson last year but the quality of audio was poor, so I've been using the standard fist mic from Yaesu ever since. I shall fabricate a bracket to mount the mic in the Toyota at the side of the steering wheel close to the dash. The mic has a separate PTT switch that will fit at the side of the hand break. I am awaiting a mic lead which will convert the round pin plug to the ft-100 mod type plug this should hopefully be arriving soon allowing me to begin operating the new set up. The other equipment has also been working well, especially the old ft-767gx which I have been running o

Today has been a good day for Bradford North scouts, Bradford South scouts, Windhill Shipley scouts and Keighley Scouts who have all been active on the bands with the club station call sign MX0KSC. During the event the scouts got a chance to learn about Morse code, Q-codes, phonetics, International pre-fixes and call signs, as well as speaking world wide on amateur radio, also logging and e-qsl/qsling. All of the scouts sucessfully completed a range of tasks enabling them to obtain a scouting radio communicator badge. They were all extremely happy with thier achievements. The JOTA event is running all weekend and as it is celebrating 50 years of activity on Ham radio you can imagine all of the bands are extremely active with this celebration for jota. We spoke with 20 different Stations and all scouts spoke with each operator so if you multiply 40 scouts with 20 QSOs we had a total of 800 exchanges of voice contacts and greetings messages, not bad for 7 hrs of operation. Thanks to all

I came across a simple delta loop design courtesy of dxzone found on the net some time ago and have been planning to give it a go for a while. This weekend I had a couple of hours spare, so I decided to give it a go using some 2mm multi strand wire cable, a dipole centre and a mixture of 75 ohm and 50 ohm coaxial cable. The delta loop is supposed to be resonant on 20 meters but I found it to be a little high so at present I am tuning the Loop with my mfj-969 which copes extremely well. The resonant frequency is 13.2 MHz at the moment so the next chance I get, I shall shorten the overall length making sure that each of the three sides are still equal in length, and hopefully adjusting the antenna for maximum performance ATU free for 14.2 MHz. I believe the miscalculation in the resonant length is probably down to the fact that my wire is covered in the plastic sleeving from the manufacturer which always effects the swr as I have noticed in past experiments with dipoles you always get sl

As most of you know its been 50 years since the historic launch of Sputnik. This link will take you to an interesting artical on Sputnik at the ARRL website. http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2007/09/28/03/ Its well worth a read if you havent seen it 73 all the best.

For those of you that are regulars you will all know about the problems i have had in my mobile station over the last fortnight and for anyone who is here at ham radio for the first time,hello and welcome to my web blog. After operating all week from the mobile on the recently fitted ft-857 I was now missing my old friend the ft-100 which was suffering with a locked up solid vfo with no easy way to tune up or down. So I struggled all week on the ft-857 that seems to not be able to blank out the rfi from the engine too well but still made a couple of QSOs on 20m, 40m, and 2m asking for a audio reports. The Conclusion FT-857 vs FT-100 The Old ft-100 in this case is better than the new ft-857 on Receive, Audio quality,and overall performance on HF and FM. As for the ft-857, is easy to use and looks good but that's about it, as soon as the FT-100 gets back in its right full place the better. Well, Karl G1YPQ got it right when in qso he was telling me that I did not sound as clear as u

I managed some good reports today whilst driving too and from my works QTH. At about 7.15 utc I worked into the Azores on 40m from the ft-857 with 50watts into a maldol hfc40 mono band antenna. I was given a 5/6 report which was well received at 5/9, I then tuned to 20m and switched to the hfc 20, where I managed a 5/9 into Italy just as I was arriving at work. The best report of all came on my home bound journey at around 15.45 utc from Gary EW1MM on 14.174mhz who I have made QSO with many times from my mobile, my home station, and at the STAR Centre. Gary gave me a super critical report of sounding sharp and clear with a very occasional clip on the odd word.As soon as I was stationary I reduced the ssb mic gain down from 40 to 30. I will see how that setting works and hopefully it will be a true 5/9 if I can manage to refain from shouting into the mic, I have constant reminders from Louise that I can get quite loud when struglin to get through the QRM whilst in QSO. You no what its l

I have worn out the VFO on the magnificent little ft-100 that has served me well in my mobile. The rig works fine apart from the actual vfo that has now locked up which makes it awkward tuning around the bands using the select knob and mic buttons instead of the vfo, and of course driving at the same time. After trying to operate this way for a couple of days, I soon decided to take the ft-100 out of the vehicle and exchange it for the ft-857 from the shack at my QTH. The ft-100 will be ok interfaced to the p.c where my mouse, keypad, and screen control my rig. I will send off at the same time to yaesu UK and hopefully obtain a replacement VFO which looks fairly simple to install. In the meantime I have been running the two rigs in reverse rolls, I am just about getting used to the changes in my mobile. I am not sure about the ft-857 on 20M or 40M as I have only had a couple of QSOs on each band so far, but apart from the electrical noise picked up from my Toyota Rav4 all is well. The

MX0KSC is the Call Sign of the Keighley STAR Centre which is part of park Lane College Keighley. The Station has been active for around three years and was set up to promote Science, Technology, and Maths using the theme of space to inspire learning.The shack is found along side a mock space craft, mission control, laboratry and mars landscape all located in the STAR Centre. Since the project started over 2000 students aged 6years to 86 years have visited the STAR Centre and experienced the Radio Comms Shack of MX0KSC and as previously mentioned, many scouts have gained radio communicator badges and some Air Cadets have recently passed their exam and now own foundation licences to operate Amateur Radio. MX0KSC usually operates During the week days or evenings and sometimes Saturdays whilst engaged in training and learning, also on special events such as JOTA, TDOTA, Scout Camps, National science week and Keighley show. The Club station is run by , Louise M3TLL, Phil M1PAC, Barry 2E0OOC

History of Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872) Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born on April 27, 1791, in Charlestown, Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of Jedidiah Morse, a pastor. Samuel Morse trained as an artist and worked as a portrait painter until the 1830s. However, today Morse is remembered for inventing the electric telegraph and the related code system known as Morse Code in 1837. In 1832, while returning from a period of art study in Europe on the ship Sully, Morse overheard a conversation about the newly discovered electromagnet and came up with the idea of an electric telegraph. The electric telegraph was basically an electrical circuit made up of a battery, a key, and an electromagnet, all connected by wire. The battery created electricity that travelled along the wire. The key, at one end of the wire, was pressed down to complete the electrical circuit. The electromagnet, at the other end of the wire, had a pencil attached to it, which moved and made a mark

Here is the location of the last 100 visitors Thanks for visiting 73 to you

I hope you like the new blog look that Louise has found me. The past week has been very busy at the College where I work.There are many new Students starting new courses in various Vocational subjects. Its the one of the busiest times so you can imagine I am running around trying to remember everyones names. I am looking forward to seeing these young learners progress and succeed and at the moment its good to see some good behavior and enthusiasm from young learners. As you may have guessed it has not been so easy to play radio the last few evenings. I have been riding the recently purchased Kawasaki 750 to work due to the good weather lasting, so working mobile has been limited.Its been fun and also saved me a fortune on petrol. This Thursday evening I am gonna be in the STAR Centre with Louise M3TLL, we will be helping a group of Ranger Scouts learn a bit more about radio and propagation with the aid of the Centres Radio Communication shack situated next to the MARS Landscape. It sho