Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

With the new Autumn beginning the WX (weather) is not expected to allow outdoor operations to continue as regularly as the last months Satellite operations here at the 2E0HTS QTH. With this in mind Louise(M3TLL) and I decided to invite our friends/fellow Radio Hams, Phil-M1PAC and Josh-M0DIT to a last bash of BBQ, Out Door fun and some Radio QSOs using my ARROW LEO set up and Phil's IOIo set up. We also had a play around with the FT-847, GS-250 and IOIo during the busy day. The WX was great, the sausages, burgers, steak and corn also went down great! We had lots of contacts on the FM SATs outside and a couple of VO-52 passes were worked inside the shack. We also heard Scotland-GM4PPT from up near AYR on 2M SSB (144.300) and on the FT-767 the US stations were coming through well as were stations from Brazil on 20M HF. The Sun was on our side, here Louise-M3TLL is busy taking pictures and enjoying the day. Myself-2E0HTS re-positioning the ARROW. Operating as BBQ Chef In Between pa

After watching a selection of second hand antenna rotators on eBay, I decided to go for a brand new model which I got through Nevada's eBay shop at a buy it now price. Nevada have been selling the Yaesu G-250 Rotators at a promotional discounted price so it wasn't to hard to decide to purchase a new item rather than a used one which gave me peace of mind instead of not knowing the life expectancy of a pre owned unit. I've been using the recently purchased antenna rotator for the last 10 days and have found it to be excellent value for money. I installed the recently mentioned IOIo beam on the GS-250 and have had successfully greatly improved 5/9 exchanges on the LEO Satellites, as well as the DX worked on 2m SSB. The Rotator is well constructed and assembles easily in minuets, it comes with u-bolts ready to fix to your poles. Its design and choice of material has been well thought out as its shape is pleasant to the eye as well as practical and usable with good water resist

After progressing from my vertical to the broom stick yagi and then experimenting with the IOIo beam, I finally ended up using some 10mm alum bar for the 144-145 Loop and Reflector and 6mm alum bar for the 435-436 Loop and Reflector. Mainly to stand up to the WX and Winter. The finished model of the IOIo beam was then mounted at 20 degrees elevation on the new Yaesu gS-250 rotator that I have just added to my Shacks equipment list. With the new antenna and rotator installation I have made many QSOs over the last weekend and found it to be very successful on VO-52 using SSB. At present I have not experimented fully on the FM SATS such as AO-51 and SO-50. I have made a few QSOs on both of the FM birds and have so far noticed that the horizontal polarisation on the RX 435-436 Loop is not as good as the Vertically polarised previous design. I might consider altering the antenna but it's too early to say at the moment, as you can see in the video it does a good job and is working v

Using the The IOIo Beam To Work Satellites and also 144MHZ SSB DX During A Contest. /Portable Hope you enjoy the video.

Here is another opportunity to see the new Arrow antenna with the the two Hand Held Rigs in action working Amateur SAT SO-50. TNX To all Stations worked during the pass 73.

After making many successful QSO on AO-51, SO-50 and AO-27 with the Arrow antenna using the two handheld Rigs, I have made a few new Ham friends who gave me some good tips regarding home brew SAT antenna's. One Station Steve DL1YAL, gave me the link to EA4CYQ Juan's website showing his impressive SAT antenna the IOIo. The site contains detailed home brew construction information, which I followed using some 3mm TIG welding wire and PVC Tubing of Three different Diameters . I made Three IOIo antenna's in total, the first one (MK I) worked well into VO-52 using SSB on the FT847 in the Shack. I was very impressed and wanted to experiment further, so I decided to try a slight change by changing the polarisation on 435MHz, making the antenna X shape. I gave the completed MK II to Phil M1PAC and as you see in the picture Phil has mounted it to a Tripod. Good luck with your set up Phil, and I hope to work you via one of the 'Birds' soon. I then knocked up the MK III where

Watch the video to see how M1PAC-Phil and 2E0HTS-Simon Work Multiple Contacts on AO-51 with the new QRP set up. We used 4watts and two handheld radios(FT-470 + TH-7) and the Arrow antenna. 73 thanks for watching.

I have recently received the US Imported Arrow LEO 145/435 hand held Satellite antenna which I purchased from The Antenna Warehouse in The US. I decided I would like to try work a few Satellites with my hand held radios after watching fellow Ham and Youtuber K7AGE Randy, in one of his many excellent Youtube videos. I particularly enjoyed Randy's video which showed him making a QSO via AO51 with the Arrow Antenna mounted on a tripod using a simple hand held radio. I also found other Hams on youtube with similar videos, one video with EA1GHW using two hand held radios which made the job of listening to your own transmission via the down link much easier. So with the inspiration and ideas both taken on board as well as some ideas of my own, I began to set up my own Portable QRP Satellite Station. The first job was constructing the extension boom which would incorporate two radio mounts as well as providing somewhere to site a compass and my HP Ipaq which runs windows mobile softwar

The past few weeks I have been exploring the world of VHF by listening and playing around on 2M SSB as well as VO-52. I have had some success on 144.300 with my vertical and home brew Loop with DX opportunities such as GM4PPT (Richard) located in Scotland near to Ayr and one or two other interesting QSOs. The rest of the time apart from HF operations, I have been tracking VO-52 and trying my best to put a signal into its Transponder and making some QSOs. I successfully had a QSO with DL6HP via VO-52 and tonight's pass brought signals to my Earth Station once again but this time I received them with my new home brew 2M Yagi. Tonight's contact was with G7BTA (Dave) who was approximately 200 miles south of my QTH down in Hereford. The Home brew Yagi received well but my TX was still going through my vertical so you guessed it, the next job is a 433/70CM Yagi. Here is the story so far, I used a broom handle, some 3mm thick aluminium sheet, and some 3mm Brass sheet. I cut the sheet

The best way to work Amateur Satellites is to program your radios memory with the up links, down links and any necessary PL tones required to activate the Transponders. Here is the result, which if you are new or are just getting in to Satellite Communications, you may find the frequencies shown helpful. The rig seen in the pictures is an FT-847. SO-50 AMATEUR SATELLITE TX Up Link 145.850 FM 67HZ Tone. RX Down Link 436.795 FM +/- AO-51 AMATEUR SATELLITE TX Up Link 145.920 FM 67HZ Tone. RX Down Link 435.300 FM +/- VO-52 AMATEUR SATELLITE TX Up Link 435.250 LSB RX Down Link 145.900 USB+/- Hello to All at Planet Ham and Tnx for linking to Ham Radio Blogspot 73

For those of you that like working satellite or possibly the ISS, have you come across the latest version of SATSCAPE? SATSCAPE has been around for years and is now written in Java which allows a better graphic display to be used whilst tracking your favourite NOAA Satellites and the ISS as well as other Space Comms such as AO-51 and VO-52. I use SATSCAPE to assist me when trying to call CQ on the Earth Orbiting Voice repeaters which are FM and SSB, so far success on SSB but still trying to make it on FM. The new version can be downloaded via the link with support and updates also found at the SATSCAPE Website AS you can see it looks very nice Satscape screen shot click to enlarge Here you can see the ISS's Orbit and course click to enlarge ISS Zoomed closer and over Europe in Range of 2E0HTS Earth station click to enlarge FT-847 Yaesu Radio is listening on 145.800 the ISS downlink but no signals are being transmitted by the crew during the overhead pass which is plotted and tra