Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Today brought some long awaited activity to the usually quiet portion of the HF spectrum. From early morning the bands were at times busy with the sound of lots of stations from Europe working other stations and big signals were flying around, at last 6 meters SSB, 10 meters 12 meters and even 15 meters were alive. I worked Spain, Italy, Belgium, France and Portugal on the lively opened up bands with good signals both ways. I did not hear any real DX but still I was more than happy to make plenty of European QSOs and I also got the chance to try out my other radio equipment at the same time. I made the QSOs using the Yaesu FT847, Yaesu MD1 desk mic and around 50 watts into the Maldol 6 Band vertical antenna which is mounted outside with an excellent ground plane system. The antenna has been in my collection for almost three years and covers 40m, 15m, 10m, 6m, 2m and 70cms. The contacts that I made on 12 Meters were worked on the home brew 20m delta loop which was tuned with my MFJ 969

Greetings Ham Radio People, thank you Nash and Tomas for the recent Comments they are always appreciated. The past couple of months have been busy for Me at my workplace which as some of you know already it is a College . This time of year is when we have to make sure everything has been covered and our students will achieve their qualifications. So you can imagine theirs lots to do, I've also just about completed my first year on a part time University course. Which once completed next summer I will have a full Teaching licence and be able to continue practicing teaching in FE. So I have found myself getting in front of my HF Rig a bit later in the evening when usually 20M has closed. Over the last couple of weeks I have been fortunate to find some good openings on 20M in the evening into the early hours of the following day. Using the Hustler 6BTV and the Delta Loop I made some great QSOs with big signals exchanged both ways. On the Hustler 6BTV I worked 5N8NDP (NIGERIA), W1AW (U

THE EQUIPMENT, A FEW ADJUSTMENTS LATER... UP AND RUNNING... RADIO The radio installation in the vehicle mentioned in the last post which comprises of the Yaesu FT-100 Field Commando radio, it is fed by 12V and wired directly to the vehicle battery (In line Fuse Protection close to the battery). ANTENNAS Maldol HFC mobile mono band antennas, and a nice big ground plane (Toyota Estima vehicle body). IMPORTANT INFORMATION Good ground connections are essential to provide maximum performance and good SWR. The method I use is, by using clamped on antenna mounts, that are grub screwed to something conductive, like a gutter or rear door which provides an excellent ground. During the installation I had problem tuning the Maldo HFC antennas on all of the bands as well as creating RFI within the vehicle engine management system and music player. I sourced the problem and found that the HF antenna mount had not pierced the Toyota paintwork on the inside door seam. I tightened the two grub screws u

I have been considering a different vehicle for a while and I have been more than happy with the Toyota Rav 4, so the decision was difficult to make especially considering the performance of my mobile Ham Station with its three antenna mounts. Eventually after careful consideration and Our love of travelling to nice remote scenic places that are great for radio, I decided to try another reliable Toyota. This Time I chose the Toyota Luicida, a 2.2 turbo diesel 4X4, fresh Japanese import. The vehicle is low mileage for the year and A1 condition, and with the price of fuel these days I am slightly better off by changing from a petrol 2.0 4x4 to a 2.2 turbo diesel 4X4. The MPV is also useful, spacious and very comfortable especially whilst CQing and catching a few Zs. I managed to mount the FT-100 (Yaesu) into the dash by removing the Japanese banded radio tuner and cassette player, which then also allowed me to fit my Panasonic CD MP3 Player below the Rig. The Antenna mounts were clamped

There have been some signs of improvement with regular openings on HF most days here at My Q T H. My home brew 20 meter delta Loop has been Performing well since I repositioned it in a Vertical configuration. DX. Stations are becoming more regular on 20 M especially stateside and the Middle East. 40 M has provided some nice openings into South America as well as Canada. Ive been fairly active lately making the most of the good conditions making many interesting QSO I’ve also been putting out some good Signals from the mobile making plenty Of contacts on my favorite band 2OM. It’s always a Pleasure to work new Stations and especially nice to be able to say a quick hello to a nice group of regular radio amateurs. Like Ivan LZ2LP. Mohamed 7X4AN and Gary EW1MM. I got the illness us Hams get regularly which was the itch and urge to have a go at another home brew delta loop over the weekend. So with the Sun shining I rounded up some tools and wire which turned out to be 3mm plastic coated co

Last night I was very happy to make my first QSO with Ham Radio blogger and fellow DXer Nash JN4VWH. We have been in contact via the Internet for quite some time, so as you can imagine it was very exciting and pleasurable to finally make QSO using our radio equipment. We have both tryed listening out for each other on HF for quite a while, but the bands have not yet been open when we have both found a mutual time that is convenient for us both to play radio. With propagation not quite reliable enough to work JN4VWH the plan had to change, so we decided to use more Technology that is available to give us a helping hand. Using the Gb3YR repeater I was able to hear Nash JN4VWH coming through loud and clear via echolink through his local IRLP echolink link JE4YIZ-L. It was a real pleasure to finaly be able to speak with Nash on his new Icom 7000 using my Yaesu Ft-847 and an echolink enabled repeater and Link in England and Japan. Truly great Ham radio Technology. We had some interesting ov

SkillWeld 2008 is part of the World Skills Olympics and fortunately for myself I get the fantastic job of helping to arrange the regional final to be held at the College where I work. Thanks to a great team and the fact that we have just recently merged with Park Lane College Leeds, Park Lane College Keighley(PLCK) held a very competitive event 'SkillWeld 2008' at the fantastic state of the art Fabrication and Welding workshop based at Keighley. The various welded joints were marked and examined by the judges to extremely high standards and there was quality competition from another college taking part at Keighley. But we still managed to deliver the goods with a victorious 1st, 2cnd and 3rd place finish. Well done P.L.C.K Lads!!! The event involves using Metal Inert Gas(MIG),Manual Metal Arc(MMA) and Tungsten Inert Gas(TIG) welding processes on Mild Steel, Stainless Steel, Aluminium plate and pipe of various thicknesses. These skills also come in handy for constructing radio m

The word HAM is often used by many as a shortcut for amateur radio “ HAM RADIO ”. As a radio operators we call ourselves “ HAM ” or “ HAMS ”. The actual meaning of HAM is taken from the three pioneers that helped to make it possible for us all to become “ HAMS ”. The letter H stands for Hertz ( Heinrich Hertz ) who helped to develop the theory of electromagnetic waves . The letter A stands for Armstrong ( Edwin Howard Armstrong ) who was successful in inventing FM ( Frequency Modulation ). The letter M as you may have guessed already stands for Marconi ( Gugliemo Marconi ) who was the first to transmit signals across the Atlantic. H = HERTZ A = Armstrong M = Marconi

This time of the year here in the U.K certainly puts any outdoor antenna systems under a lot of strain from windy, wet, winter weather. I decided to do some routine maintenance on my antennas. The first job was carried out on the reasonably recently erected delta loop cut for 20meters. I took the loop down from the horizontal configuration, which also meant that the mast it was supported by which was also the fixing for my vhf vertical also had to come down. This allowed access to both antennas, so I began with the loop by shortening the overall length of the loop, which involved cutting 500mm of each length. The shape being triangular meant removing a total of 1500mm (1.5 meters) of wire and then re measuring each side of the loop to ensure that it was still divided into 3 equal sides. Each side now measuring 6.2 meters in length, giving a total wire length of 18.6 meters. Previously the swr had been at 5.0 on 14.200, the swr with the adjustment was now 2.0 a much more resonant leng

The Bands have been very unpredictable lately with frequent openings around late afternoon on HF. I was lucky enough to tune around 20m whilst driving home from work when I came across 9Y4W(Trinidad & Tobago). He was booming in 5/9, with a big pile up. I gave a couple of calls whilst on the move, and made the contact from the mobile. This was quite surprising in the middle of a pile up with only a simple mobile antenna. Later on during the weekend I worked LW9EOC(Argentina) on 15M using the FT-767, and Hustler Vertical from the QTH. The past few days have been difficult conditions during the evening time due to excessive QRN that I seem to be suffering from every now again. The noise levels have been unusually high, probably down to the extreme wet winter weather we have been getting up here in the North Pennines. It’s been gale force at times with frequent weather warning bulletins given out. The wind has visited my QTH quite a few times recently as well as some snow and more rain

Today I managed a nice QSO with Tom ZD7X who is located at St. Helena which is quite a distance away from my location. I managed to work Tom ZD7X with a 5/9 report operating my FT-767GX with my home brew 20m delta loop assisted with the MFJ-969 to tune the antenna with 50 watts on 12 meters. 12M is rarely open and I have only had a few QSOs on this band so I guess the new Cycle has begun at last! Good DX de 2E0HTS 73

This information is courtesy of QRZ.Com, I thought Id share it with everyone especially those who might of missed it! QRZ.Com for those of you that don't know it is well worth a look. QRZ.Com SOHO: the new solar cycle starts with a ‘bang’ The European Space Agency (ESA) reports that the SOHO solar observation spacecraft witnessed the start of the new solar cycle. The appearance of a very special solar spot on the sun surface a few days ago, signalled to scientists around the world that a new solar cycle had begun. This solar spot also produced two solar blasts. Each solar cycle lasts an average of 11.1 years. The new solar cycle, called ‘Cycle 24’, started on 4 January this year, when SOHO observed an event scientists have been anticipating for about a year. A fairly small and, at first sight, inconspicuous sunspot on the Sun’s northern hemisphere showed a reversed magnetic polarity compared to sunspots of previous years. A sunspot is an area of highly organised magnetic activity o

Happy New Year to all! The final few weeks of 2007 did not seem to bring any good propagation making DX openings few and far between. I was fortunate to work just one distant station during the festive season on the 27th of December, and using eQSL.cc I sent and gratefully received an eQSL card confirming QSO with ZP5MAL (Juan from Paraguay). This QSO was on the Yaesu FT-767GX with the hustler 6BTV operating on 20M exchanging 5/3 reports. The Ft-767GX has also been working well for me on 7.038 mhz with the aid of my P.C and nomic rig blaster as I have had many successful QSOs using winPSK31se digital mode. The 40m band has been fairly flat for phone contacts just like 80m and 20m for most of the time. Most of my radio talk time has been taking place on 2m running the FT-847 & FT-857. A distinctive increase of activity has been happening on 2m lately which has been welcomed locally. This is probably down to the many new recently licenced operators that have come into the hobby over

Chris on the Right of the picture with his pass certificate who is a fellow work colleague at Park Lane College Keighley. Chris is a lecturer in Electrical Installation and has been spending lunch times and the odd couple of spare hours with Louise and myself over the last two months. Louise is a registered Examination officer for the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB). I am RSGB registered as a Foundation Licence instructor. Chris has been undergoing Foundation Licence training comprising of practical and theory lessons as well as self study. On Friday the 15th of December Chris sat the Foundation Licence Exam successfully gaining a Pass result. Chris has now applied for his Licence and will be operating his Yaesu ft-847 in the next few days. I am looking forward to working him on some of the bands. Well Done Chris! (Non Amateurs) If you are thinking about becoming a Licenced radio ham, there should be a local club or School/College that might be able to help. More info on this at