Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Searching round the internet I found this useful site for those of you that don’t have satellite tracking software. The site shows real time satellite tracking for a range of satellites. The ISS is the default satellite tracked on the homepage and it gives you useful information such as speed, altitude, elevation and azimuth position as well as the current longitudes and latitude. The site automatically works out your location from your computer’s IP address, you can also choose to add the satellites footprint and direction line At the top of the page you can find menus for most popular, most tracked and latest launches. If you click on All Categories you’ll find a list of satellites listed which includes Amateur Radio and Weather satellites. Click on the type of satellite you are looking for and you’ll find a list of information including launch dates and the options to either ‘Track it’ or ‘Passes.’ If you choose ‘track it’ it will show you the satellites current position on Google

Earlier this evening (Saturday) I managed to get in to the ISS (International Space Station) cross band repeater during its oncoming orbital approach and worked M0IKB Angus from Scarbourgh, E.Yorkshire. The ISS’s onboard Transponder was very active with many Hams being heard during the ISS pass over my location, IO93CU Baildon Moor. I used my Yaesu FT-847 & IOIo beam to work through the ISS and Satscape on my computer to track and get the correct position to turn the beam. Thanks for watching, best 73.

The Holiday seems a distant memory as the last couple of weeks have been flying by speedily here and I have felt the strains of work and the cold dark wintery days that we have been seeing. Despite the usual moans, the New Year has started off ok so far. As far as playing radio I have already had some fun filled hours of radio from the shack as well as some nice contacts being made from the mobile. The beginning of the month started quiet on the HF bands here in Yorkshire. The entire HF spectrum has not been very active with not much propagation during my usual radio time which is usually most evenings and weekends. The 2 meter band has however been quite interesting especially around the first weekend of the month (3rd) when contacts of over 200 miles were being made throughout numerous QSO’s up and down the country. I made the most of the sporadic E conditions operating the Yaesu FT-847 and 50W using FM and a 7/8 wave vertical antenna. I gave a couple of CQ Calls on the calling frequ

As the holiday draws to an end Louise (M3TLL), Dudley (Dx Hound) and I continue to make the most of our new walking boots and weather proof clothing and once again take to the Moorland high ground. We head up to Rombalds Moor totting up a few more miles whilst taking in the winter sights. After the walk I decided to change the 20m Maldol for the HFC 80 and see if I could get into the W.A.B Net that was active on 3.760.0 LSB. The Net Controller - GM3VTY Keith was receiving me well from SE14BRA and gave me the opportunity to work all of the other W.A.B Stations that were on the band. I have been a member of W.A.B since 2004 and don't activate squares as regularly as I could whilst out in the mobile. After having so much fun today you can expect to hear 2E0HTS/M calling CQ W.A.B! Hear is the video showing my W.A.B activity. Thanks to, GM3VTY, G8CBU, G0RQL, ON3WAB, G4JZF, G7WAB, EI9HQ, & G0TRB all worked from SE14BRA.

Happy New Year to all and hope to meet you on the Air Waves some time soon during 2009! The new year has started rather chilly hear at the 2E0HTS QTH, so I decided to try out one of my Christmas presents that Louise (M3TLL) had got me ;-). I headed outside into the cold (0 degrees) with my LG KU 990, a 5Mega pixel camera phone and took some shots of the antennas looking slightly frozen. Despite the ice formation on the elements, signals are sounding clear with very little noise on the HF bands which is a welcomed change as the noise levels were very high during the Christmas period. (Too many Christmas Tree lights causing QRN h.i). Here are a few pictures of my antennas which are basic but work well for me at 1000ft asl. I Hope to work some good openings during 2009 and wish you all Happy DX! Home Brew IOIo Beam (145/435 MHZ|) and One side of G5RV Leg Other side of opossite Leg of the G5RV and the Magnificent 1000 ft ASL View looking West 20m Home Brew Delta Loop Hustler 6BTV Ground M

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year To All! Thanks for all of the fantastic comments, advice, ideas and encouragement as well as all of the emails sent during the year. Thank you to All at Planet Ham . Thank you to all Stations worked and all QSLs received, hope to do it all over again in 2009. And finally Thank you All for visiting Ham radio operator.blogspot.com and reading my blog posts as well as putting up with the many radio video's h.i! Have a great Christmas holiday and all the best for the new year!

After hearing Al, ZL1BD most mornings for the last couple of months it gave me great pleasure to make QSO with Al this morning on my work bound journey. ZL1BD AL was a real 5/9 into Baildon Moor when I heard him calling CQ at around 8.15 utc, I gave him a shout back using my Yaesu FT-857, Maldol HMC-20 antenna and 50watts. Al, ZL1BD came straight back to me and gave me a 5/6 report and also remembered me from our previous QSO from around 18 months ago. Al had remembered that I was near by to some relatives he had here in yorkshire U.K. and knows my home area quite well. I can now rest easily regarding the FT-857s performance as it seems to be working very well making good DX contacts from my Toyota Lucida Estima. I Hope to work more early morning DX openings during the winter months.

The WX is very wet here in Yorkshire at the moment so I decided to make the most of the situation by playing some radio. I worked some stations via the Earth orbiting VO-52 Satellite, OM3VAN, HA6NM, DL3JIN and MW0BBU all on the same pass which lasted around 10 Min's. I then had a listen around 20m and noticed that the noise levels were very low allowing weak signals to be heard. I heard some European stations working Australia, and the US Virgin Islands the pile ups were quite crazy, it reminded me back to the day I heard a US station once say it sounded like "Wild Dogs in a meat shop". A good way to sum up a lot of the mad pile ups you here when those rare or interesting stations are spotted and discovered on the Ham bands. Picture of OH2FFY/Mobile It was around 11.30 utc when I came across OH2FFY Greg working mobile on 14.187 mhz with a signal of 5/7 - 5/9 with QSB and lots of QRM (Mad Dogs h.i). I listened for over half an hour and realised that we had already made co

Last night whilst tuning around 40M I managed to work some good DX into Senegal, West Africa which is a new Country for me. I was running 50W from the FT-767GX with a G5RV type Dipole when I heard a pile up around 7.092mhz, the voices stoped calling and I was able to hear the DX station 6W2SC. 6W2SC(Peter) was coming through up to Baildon Moor N.Yorks quite well with a 5/8 signal report received at my station. I worked Peter with a little patience form his good self, which he had as other stations were insistent on calling over me. h.i I still managed to make the qso despite the heavy QRM back to him sending a 5/5 2E0HTS signal. Its a nice bonus working a new one and lets hope propagation is improving at last! Thanks from myself to Peter 6W2SC for making it possible to add a next DXCC in the old log as well as the speedy eQSL confirmation ;-)

With the WX (weather) bringing snow flurries to the UK, this weeks radio activity has been spent once again in listening mode. Both the FT-767GX & FT-847 have been in operation receiving signals on HF and VHF in combinations of weather Fax's as well as satellite weather imagery. The snow was around 6 inches/30 centimeters at its peak which was on Thursday and is still present today (Saturday) despite the suns rays trying to melt it. As usual the best satellite images came fro NOOA 17 using Radio Com 5.2 to decode and satscape to track. This image shows the clear sky over the UK, but looking at the approaching weather front that is in the Atlantic we better enjoy it while it lasts! RX using IOIo beam & FT-847 Here was the scene earlier on in the week, I guess I wont be riding the Kwacker for a while. h.i The Snow did bring some good openings on Tuesday on 2m ssb during the contest as I worked some good Scottish DX using 50W on the home brew IOIo beam. Thanks to GM4PPT dick,

This weekend brought freezing temperatures to the Yorkshire Moor where we live, I couldn't resist putting this spectacular view looking north west from my QTH up the Aire Valley on here for all to see. Normal visibility from this QTH is usually up to 30 miles, this weekends view was almost from a fairy tale. The QTH is at around 1000 ft above sea level and as you can see anywhere below a 1000 ft has been eaten up by freezing fog. click on image to enlarge Other news apart from the WX is I tried the Maldol HMC-6S on my mobile set up. The antenna is a bit on the big side for driving around with, but when stationary I was pleased to hear the multi banded beast pulling in some big signals on 20m. I checked the SWR on the 20m band and it was 1.1, the other bands were also working but propagation was not so lively. I will be fully testing the antenna in the near future on the other HF bands, more than likely when Spring arrives. click on image to enlarge That's all for now, just a q

The WX-Weather has brought snow, wind and freezing temperatures to North Europe. At my QTH-Location Baildon Moor, N.England, at 1000ft above sea level the temperature dropped to 0 degrees Celsius last night and we had a threat of snow but it did not settle. The bands were in good shape late last night/early this morning, as I worked Russia, The Ukraine, The USA and lots of other Stations from Europe using PSK31 on 40 & 80M. All signals were loud on both bands with plenty of activity, I dragged my self away around 2am to get some sleep but it wasn't easy! h.i At present the sun is beaming with outside temperatures at 5.0 degrees Celsius and the wind is stirring making it feel even colder. The image I have just received is from Earth orbiting weather monitoring satellite NOOA 17, which just passed by heading South West. The image shows N.W and W Europe with N.England under heavy cloud cover. I believe this is probably the best image I have received for a while using the IOIo beam

My journey to work on my Kawasaki Z750 was becoming unnecessary now that the dark nights and late sunrises have got under way and we are now into Winter. So for the last couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to use the FT-857 on 20m and 2M from in my Toyota Estima Lucida mobile Ham shack. Conditions have been quite remarkable most mornings at around 8.00utc as I embark on my work bound journey, I am listening up and down 20m ever hopeful of some distant signals. Recently without to much tuning around I have come across some big signals, real 5/9 from the Far East. Last week I heard a few VKs on the morning run as well as ZL1BD, who boomed through and as usual with a large following from G-land and Europe. I worked AL ZL1BD some time last year when conditions were good in my old mobile RAV-4 using the FT-100. It will be good to make the QSO on the FT-857 and latest Toyota, I will get lucky one of these fine mornings I am sure! h.i AL ZL1BD was loud again this morning at around 8.15

I have had a passion for tracking and receiving NOOA weather Satellites for a few years and have tried a few different antenna's along the way with some reasonable images being received. I have had the home brew IOIo beam up for the last two months and have been pleasantly surprised with its performance. The best way to ensure a clear image is achieved by having an almost inaudible sound level from the output of your radio to the sound card. In other words make sure the sound-in to your computer is set very low from the radio. The software I have been running since 2004 is Radio Com 5.2 which has now been superseded by version 6.0. Radio Com 5.2 seems to work exceptionally well still, and I have had a lot of Radio Hams around the world getting in touch with me since they have watched the Weather Satellite videos I did for this site and Youtube. A lot of other Hams told me that they were using WXtoIMG decoding software which allowed the user to play around with the received imag