Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Despite the constant downpours of rain that we have been experiencing, as arranged from the previous weekend Barry - 2E0OOC fellow Ham and good friend was waiting for me as I returned home Sunday evening. He had recently changed his vehicle to a Toyota Estima which was the same as mine so I had offered to install his radio equipment for him as I had already established the best way to do the job. 2E0OOC 's rig and antenna's are also the same as what I use in the mobile which are: Yaesu FT-857 Rig & Maldol HFC Antenna's. After around 90 minutes the Rig was mounted in the dash fed direct to the vehicle battery and I had fitted two antenna mounts (HF & VHF) to the rear of the vehicle. Barry was mobile once again and I was slightly weathered and rained on but satisfied with the result. All in all a good evenings work! I also have had the pleasure of working BARD member and fellow YouTuber M0OGY - Dave from North Lincs. This time we have worked each other mobile to mobil

This Sunday the 17th of May we will be active alongside the rest of the CRAG Members at Bancroft Mill , Barnoldswick, Lancashire. The Craven Radio Amateur Group will be operating from the Steam powered mill which will be running with the steam engine fully powered up. Listen out for the CRAG call sign – MX0BCQ/A operating on most of the HF bands as well as VHF. The WAB square at the steam powered mill is SD84 which will be up for grabs during the activation. We will be on air from around 10.00 utc and the event will be all available to the general public. Louise – M3TLL and I, will be taking some pictures in between playing radio as well as learning about steam powered mills and weaving. It should be a great day out as I used to be the Maintenance Engineer during the 80s working in a still existent local Baildon Steam Powered Mill. I will tell you more about Sundays event when it happens and hope to work some of you on the day.

Solar activity was favourable last night and I was fortunate with my timing as I tuned across 20m to find VK3MO putting out a CQ call. I was straight back to Melbourne, Australia with a 5/9 report from Ian – VK3MO. Earlier around 22.30 utc also on 20m I made another QSO with CO6LC located in Cuba exchanging 5/7 reports. The band did seem to be quite stable with plenty of good DX openings, I heard The British Virgin Islands as well as lots of Stateside some of which were loud 5/9 signals. The only problem I encountered was the clock ticking away and at Midnight (local time) I had to pull the plug to catch some shut eye ready for work in the morning. I was running the Yaesu FT-767GX, Heil Gold line Mic and 50Watts into the Vertical Delta Loop cut for 20M. This homebrew antenna is still outperforming the Doublet and Hustler 99% of the time, I recommend trying one found in my earlier post on the. 20M home brew Delta Loop I also got the chance to set up the Arrow Satellite antenna and use t

During last nights 144MHz UKAC I worked 27 Stations the furthest being G4RRA, at a distance of 371 miles. Claimed points: 4013 Multiplier: 11 DXCC: 2 Overall score: 44143 G4WFR/P IO91DA G8BUN IO93EQ G3YJR IO93FJ G1HLT IO93JD G0TAL IO93DR M6AXL/P IO93BV M0XLT IO83WX G4DEZ JO03AE MX0SRA/P IO93AF GM4PPT IO75SK MM0GPZ/P IO85SK G3SDC/A IO92FM G8CUL IO91JO G0KPW JO02RF M0NUT IO91IN M0COP/P IO82NN 2E0DOD IO93AF G4CPA IO93AV M1PAC IO93AU G0XDI IO91RQ M1DDD IO93AE G3ZVW IO80MS M0YJT/P IO92EN G4RRA IO80BS G3UUV IO81WK G4GSB IO82XM 2E0XLG/p IO83WV Equipment used: Yaesu FT-847, 50 watts. Antenna – IOIo home made 1 element/loop. The Contest started off quiet at first but livened up after ½ an hour or so. Lots of QSB was present throughout the full 2 ½ hours but I still managed to do quite well calling CQ as well as a lot of hunting up and down the band. Somewhere around the ½ way mark Louise – M3TLL presented me with

Tonight at 16.52 utc I worked my first Aeronautical Mobile Ham Station. I was listening around on 20m when I heard NQ4I/AM - Rick 5/9+20 on 14.192 usb. I gave Rick a call just before the pile up kicked in and Rick- NQ4I/AM returned back giving me a 5/9+10 signal report. During the QSO Ricks Aircraft was at 40,000 feet somewhere between England and Ireland, flying over the sea. NQ4I/ Aeronautical Mobile told me they had a 9 hour flight ahead and were heading for California via Greenland and Canada. May be some of you guys will catch him on 20M?

Earlier Today I built myself a Yagi beam and a lattice tower. What I forgot to mention was that its a model Yagi & tower that I made from 3mm wire, MIG welded together. I would like to build the real thing one day! It looks good in the shack and it would make a nice ornament or gift, I am considering mass production with different antenna themes.

The past week has been a busy one both at work and at home but I still managed to play quite a lot of radio. I also got a bargain buy on Friday which was a Yamaha XT600E. I am already considering the XT600E for portable off road radio operation and I will be fabricating some brackets to be used to mount the FT-100 and a mobile whip. I can also ride the Enduro machine up to the trig point located on the summit of Baildon Moor. Set up the Arrow beam and see what happens during the monthly VHFCC contests (WX permitting of course). The new Bike should prove to be an interesting way to play some Ham radio on two wheels rather than four, as well as getting to the slightly more difficult locations. Picture shows the XT being guarded by DX Sniffer Dudley Besides riding the Yamaha XT600E with Louise- M3TLL (riding pillion), I did work 6 Stations on 20M, 4 Stations on 40M, 13 Stations on 2M FM and 3 Stations Via VO-52 Satellite. Check the log for Call Signs and information. click to enlarge

This afternoon I heard Caine - M6MOF working from his mobile in Lincolnshire whilst I was monitoring S20 on the 2 meter band. Caine - M6MOF is a member of the Brigg and District Amateur Radio Club - BDARC and is also a fellow YouTuber. We made a qso on 145.525 FM and Caine was coming with a 5/2 signal to my FT-847 and 7/8 wave vertical antenna. Thanks to Caine's video cam you can hear how well he received me at his end.

The last week has been spent touring around the South West Coast of Scotland and taking in the many spectacular sights as well as making some good radio contacts on the way! We arrived at Ayr where we were to be based for the stay at the beginning of the week and once we checked in at the accommodation, we were straight out checking out the scenic views and lovely beaches. Listening around the bands from the mobile set up proved to be very interesting as the noise levels were none existent allowing weak signals to be heard with ease especially on the 20 meter band. I found a nice beach side location to park up the Toyota to try work back to some of the big signals we were hearing. Louise - M3TLL (MM3TLL/M whilst in Scotland) kept the log and I began putting out a few shouts operating under the Scottish prefix 2M0HTS instead of my home call 2E0. It wasn’t long before the calls were answered back to other operators on the 20 meter band, the first contact I made was at 19.13 utc on Tuesd

This week has been excellent so far regarding radio and up here on the blustery Moor top, I am in to my 3rd day of holidaying away from work loving every second! I started off on Monday running in and out of the garden making lots of QSO’s via the “birds”. I worked into AO-51, SO-50 and AO-27 very easily using the two hand held rigs coupled to the tripod mounted Arrow antenna. The little Station performed very well with 4W, making 12 good contacts and a couple of others that were caught up in the QRM. The Satellite worked Stations I managed to exchange locaters and reports successfully with were, LY3L , RA3OEV, UA9FFF, DG7MHR, OH7FES, F1UGK, ON4CAP, MM3YEQ, F1UGK (again but this time on a different Satellite), EB1GKS, EI2HW and regular contact/fellow Yorkshire Man, DL1YAL - Steve . I am still getting very excited when the signals are booming through as I point the antenna into the Sky and call “CQ Satellite”. Hope to play some more when the wind drops. In between running in and out and

It's that time of the year where we find ourselves spending as much time as possible in our gardens or out walking enjoying and making the most of the much welcomed lighter nights. As well as walking over the surrounding Moorland with our Dog Dudley this evening, I decided to root out my QRP Satellite set up. The portable set up comprises of my arrow antenna, FT-470, TH-F7, Ipaq and my old Compass. I gave the Yaesu FT-470's batteries a quick charge and headed back out side just as it was getting dark (18.45 utc). I assembled both hand held transceivers to the home made ally rig mounts that are fitted to the boom extension. Next, was to run the TrackSat software on the Ipaq palm held P.C which showed AO-51 approaching. I checked the satellites position data and used it to set the arrow to 205 degrees azimuth and 10 degree elevation. It wasnt long before a hive of activity began to flow through the arrow into the FT-470. I called through AO-51 a couple of times using th

Tonights Craven Radio Amateur Group meeting took place and the group voted and annouced that Louise - M3TLL and myself Simon - 2E0HTS are now officially members of the group. It is fantastic news that we are now both "Craggies" and We are excited about getting involved with the CRAG monthly activations.

I was alarmed to hear this news on the weekly RSGB news broadcast. For those that can’t be bothered clicking the link I’ll summarise: they are introducing a new licensing system in Portugal whereby Foundation licensees have 5 years to upgrade to an intermediate license or they lose it. I think this is incredibly short sighted of the Portuguese licensing people. As an M3 who’s had her license for 3 years if they introduced this ruling here in the UK (which some G stations have recently been arguing for in the letters section of Radcom, much to my annoyance) this would mark the end of my hobby. In fact you’d probably hear me on CB frequencies instead - I’d be the only operator not swearing their head off. I’ll say it loud and clear for all to read: I have absolutely no intention of getting an intermediate licence. Why you may ask? Well my Foundation licence gives me everything I need, I can operate 10 watts. I have the shop bought Yaesu FT-847 plugged into the shop bought length of co-a

After seeing the pictures sent by Cyril F4FUL of his homemade dual band Arrow style Satellite Yagi, I finished off the prototype model I had been building during the week. The newly finished off home brew Yagi antenna comprises of 4 X 144-146 MHz Elements & 8 X 432-435 MHz Elements. The Elements are made from 3.0 mm Welding Rod and the boom is a wooden broom handle. The Elements are gently tapped into 2.5mm (tight fitting) drilled holes in the boom. I used two lengths of 50 ohms Coax soldered straight on to each of the two bands driven folded dipole element. Finished and all tuned up and ready to assemble to the mast. I used a PVC mount which connected to the boom acting as a bush and allowed simple elevation adjustment locked off with a 6mm bolt. Set at 30 Degrees Elevation looking southerly into this evenings sky. Now it will be a case of testing as I have got some nice lengths of 6mm ally bar which is waiting to become either extra elements for the IOIo or a Cross Axis dual ban

For all of you living in the Northern Hemisphere today is a great day. Today the Spring Equinox (or Vernal Equinox) is upon us, this is great as it hails goodbye to winter and officially means the start of Spring. At 11:44 UTC the sun crossed over the Earth’s equator which means longer hours of sunlight for all of us up North! Thanks to the Earth’s tilt 23.4 degree tilt we will now be getting more of the Sun’s rays increasing the temperature (hopefully) and signalling the start of Summer. The Spring equinox also has a marked effect on propagation. We will now be having longer hours of sunlight. These longer hours mean the sun will be increasing the energy in the ionosphere more than during the winter. You may have noticed propagation improving over the last few weeks, this is due to the Spring equinox. The Vernal equinox is a particularly good time for HF propagation as on the first day of spring the length of the day and night in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres will be 12