Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

With the CondX being as good as ever, I have continued making some brilliant DX QSOs on the 15M Band using the SSB Phone mode. Yesterday was very good up until dusk with a repeat of the same excellent openings today also on the 15M Band. I have been working with my good old Yaesu FT-767GX and 50W into the Vertical Hustler 6BTV which is fitted with wire radials and is ground mounted with a 5’ foot length of 1 ½ inch, solid steel bar that protrudes from the ground 18 inches for the fixing of the antenna base. I have had the Hustler for over 5 years and find it works excellently on the higher portion of HF, especially during the day times when the F-Layer position suits the vertical angle of radiation perfectly. I find that during the evening when the F-Layer changes the three sided vertically polarized delta loop usually takes over from the straight forward vertical, giving a different angle of reflection/radiation. Again the Dipole which is totally horizontal at around 30 ft above the g

I was pleased to awake to the sound of an old friend taking me back thirty years to my youth. I am of course talking about the HF Chipper that I am hearing on 17M and 15 Meters making a pleasant QRM sounding woodpecker noise. I used to hear this noise a lot back in the early 80s when propagation was very good. When State-Side signals from mobile Truckers were coming in loud on AM using simple mobile antennas and little rigs. When I switched on this morning and heard the noise, I said to my YL Louise how conditions should be definitely on the up. Shortly after I tuned around 20m and I found signals coming in from Dominica Republic, Jamaica, India and China all before mid day. I am now making the most of the opening and at present I am active on 15m using the Hustler 6BTV and FT-767. I've just had a great QSO with Gary - VE3XN on 21.290 and right now I am tuning around the many loud signals. Hope to see you on the band somewhere over the weekend, especially now we are entering the

As well as Ham Radio, Work and Life in general, I have been studying in service with the University of HUDDERSFIELD.  This has meant that I have spent the last two years teaching, writing papers as well as reading and researching many different types of Theorists. It's been lots of hard work, self discipline and commitment but well worth the effort when I graduated earlier receiving a Certificate in Education (PCET). I took my YL – Louise and Mum – Janet, to the Award Ceremony, where it was a proud moment for all. MUM and Mysel f Louise took some nice pictures to put up for you to see - 2E0HTS, washed, scrubbed and gowned, which is a once in a lifetime experience! Louise and Myself  However after seeing myself in the Cap and Gown I wouldn't be at all surprised if I am found to be appearing in the next Harry Potter, Hog-warts adventure, as a Wizard or something? Hope you enjoy these pictures… The day was extra special as the Chancellors blessing was on screen from Professor Patr

The past couple of mornings have been a bit frosty so I decided on the Car rather than Motor Cycle to get to work which worked out well as I've heard some great signals coming in on 20m from VK - Australia and  JA - Japan. The distant DX Stations usually start coming  through well up here from now until around late February time. I use the trusty little Toyota 4 X 4 to get through the winter months and at the same time I get more radio time in to operate my FT-100 mobile Ham Station. For the time being, the Motorcycling will be used solely for pleasure when the WX is more reasonable avoiding any unpleasant accidents. Back in the Shack, the past two evenings have been a different story as by the time I get back from work the 20M band has closed down and 40M has not been particularly exciting either. So I have been tuning down on 80M instead and having fun working European Stations on SSB using the recently made home brew 130 ft dipole. I have been getting good reports from the dipol

The past couple of nights have seen quiet conditions on 20m so I've concentrated on working a couple of satellites as well as listening around on the LF bands. I had some fun last night on PSK -31 working stations up and down Europe. Using my home brew 130ft Dipole, FT-767 interfaced to my PC and Nomic rigblaster I worked quite a few stations on 80m running qrp (30w). Stations were coming in well on 80 meters around 3.582 lsb and I worked stations from Norway, Sweden, Germany and the UK including SM6 AMU and a fellow Twitterer M0 TZO - Paul. For a full transcript of the contact with Paul you can read it here on MØTZO's Blog . Twitter is proving to be a lot of fun and I'm managing to bag a few Twittering followers into my log. Thanks to all my followers so far, hope to get many more. If you're not on Twitter you can join up here feel free to add me to find out when and where I am active on the bands.

I have always used fixed mounts on my vehicles for both HF and VHF antennas which are the boot mounted grub screw type to ensure a good ground is obtained. The only snag is the corrosion that an take place beneath the mount and not forgetting the wibble wobble whenever I opened or shut the back door. I decided to fabricate my own mounts which would bolt to the roof bars giving an extra 5” (127mm) height above the existing mounts. To prevent any further corrosion problems I decided to use 3mm stainless steel as the material which took a bit of drilling but easy enough at a very low RPM using a radial drill. Once I removed any burs I bent the mounts into a right angle and mounted the stainless plates as far apart as possible on the roof bar. Each of the mounts is drilled in line to match holes in the roof bar (2 holes each mount) which I bolted up tight. The antenna mounts went on to the stainless mounts nice and straight, I fixed a short grounding wire to the locking nut on the antenna

Over the weekend I celebrated 4 years of romance with my lovely YL Louise M3TLL. I first met Louise at work during the 2005 CQ World Wide DX Contest when we were involved with the STAR Centre project. Louise and I hit it off during the contest and I have managed to continue to catch the yearly contest ever since. I look forward to the CQ WW Contest every year as Louise always supports me by encouraging me to take part in the contest; it reminds her of when and how we met. I guess I am the lucky one when it comes to how we celebrate our anniversary playing radio during the CQ WW DX contest. I sure did get lucky and picked a good one there! Thanks for putting up with me Lou! This Years CQ WW results gave me, 48 DXCC and 15 Zones. 14MHz, 21MHz, & 28MHz were worked using the FT-847 and Hustler 6BTV Vertical. Both 3.5MHz & 7MHz were worked using the FT-767 and a 135 ft Dipole. I made just over 100 QSO and gave away lots of points. Thanks to all participants and for all of the effort

I had a go at making a slightly different mini tower and yagi out of TIG welding wire and this is what I came up with. The tower is two sections with a six element yagi antenna that can be rotated 360º simply by hand. The model is made by myself from 3.2mm TIG welding wire which has been built using the MIG welding process. As usual it was fun making it and there is no doubt that I will be fettling up some other project soon. Hope you like it!

Since I last blogged about the latest tweak with the modified IO-10Element 145/435 dual band Sat Yagi, I've been watching out for AO-51 and VO-52 in order to continue testing the latest antenna. The performance is proving to be excellent both the AO-51 & VO-52 down links have been coming in loud and clear, I have made plenty of QSOs this week after work in the evening. Its been a lot of fun, I am addicted again h.i. List of Stations and which Satellite was worked to make the qso with latest IO-10 dual band Sat Antenna. VO-52 * 2M1EUB/P *11/10/09 * 1950 * 432 * J3E * 59 55 * Scotland VO-52 * SP9UNU *11/10/09 * 1954 * 432 * J3E * 59 59 * Poland VO-52 * SP5MG *11/10/09 * 1956 * 432 * J3E * 59 59 * Poland AO-51 * MWOBBU *12/10/09 * 1825 * 144 * F3E * 59 59 * Wales AO-51 * MOITF *12/10/09 * 1827 * 144 * F3E * 59 59 * England AO-51 * EB1HBW *12/10/09 * 1828 * 144 * F3E * 59 59 * Spain VO-52 * EB1DGH *12/10/09 * 2147 * 432 * J3E * 59 59 * Spain AO-51 * MOJMO *13/10/09 * 1748 * 144 * F

Being content with something is often easier said than done when it comes to Antennas, yes you guessed more messing with the Satellite beam. In the past, the FM Satellite signals that I have received have been very weak compared to the portable outdoor ARROW Antenna. The SSB SATs such as VO-52 & FO-29 have always been stronger and much easier to work compared with the FM Birds whilst using the IOIo Antenna. I have been using the FT-847 Noise Reduction and DIG Filter to assist in pulling out the voices from the FM hiss but still have had a struggle on my hands with most passes. I had another look at my A430S10 Yagi and decided to fix it above the 145 IO Beam using 30mm wooden spacers at a fixed 30º elevation. I have tried 15º, 20º and 45º elevation fixed in the past and have found 30º to be the best compromise. The Compact IO 145 Loop out performed a 4Ele Yagi, I just need an edge on the IO 435 loop. The 10Ele was the answer! A more accurate aim is required which I have now mastered

The weather is once again lousy here in N.England so I decided to leave riding the Motor Cycle at home today and drive to work instead. On my return journey back home from work, I came across a nice 5/9+20 signal on 20M which belonged to K7ZSD - Brad, who is located 25 miles N.W of Portland, Oregon in the US. I listened to Brad - K7ZSD working Stations all over Europe as I drove home and decided to give him a call from my mobile Station which worked out great. Brad came straight back to me with a 5/5 report and very good sounding audio from my trusty FT-100. When I got back home I checked Brads call sign on QRZ.com and released why Brad sounded like he was sat with me in my vehicle! Here is Brads - K7ZSD ham station tower array which is so impressive I thought you guys would like to see it.

Check out the latest 2E0HTS Satellite video filmed by my YL Louise-M3TLL. This video is aimed at newcomers to the SSB Satellites and shows me using a home made IOIo antenna and a Yaesu FT-847 making Contact with IK3VZS-Italy and LY3L-Lithuania. Both contacts are made on SSB via Earth Orbiting Amateur Satellite - VO-52 and are worked from my home location in N.England. VO-52 was launched on the 5th of May 2005 from Sirharkota (India) and is still performing very well.

After work I was out in the garden making the Neighbours look confused as I waved my tripod mounted Arrow into the skies in the search for AO-51. I shouted over to my Neighbour "Signals from space" He looked at me with one of those puzzled looks similar to the ones you get when someone spots your vehicle covered in antenna's, you know the look I mean. He didn’t wait to see what the fuss was all about which turned out to be 3 nice QSOs into Ireland, France and Estonia running just 5 watts QRP out of the TH-F7(uplink) and back into the Ft-470 (down link). I always get a real buzz when outside with the Arrow QRP Satellite set up, I got lucky tonight putting in some good signals from the Moor Top QTH. I will be trying to get in to AO-51 on the next pass which has a possibility of getting across the pond to the U.S as AO-51 will be on a low pass on the horizon with a maximum elevation of only 5 degrees, it will be short quick and I will have a good chance for some QRP DX. If y

Today's weather image from NOAA-18 on 137.912.5 MHz, received this afternoon as it passed over Northern Europe. You can just make out the U.K in and amongst the cloud to the right of the image. Spain and the Balearic's are easily visible.

Since last night we have been suffering from gale force winds which are still hitting us hard up here on the hill. Despite the antennas taking a pounding from the wind and rain, conditions have been excellent on HF with lots of DX stations coming through on 17M, 20M & 40M. Last night (Friday) I was hearing stations from Peru, New Zealand and Stateside coming in strong on 20M. At 21.44 utc I made QSO with Cuba when I worked CO6LC - 5/9 on 20M. Later on 40M, I heard lots of big signals coming in from the U.S, at 22.31, I came across Richard - VE2ZVZ/P, who was on a camping Dxpedition in the forest of MONTREAL. We managed the QSO with QRM making it difficult at times but still getting there in the end with a 5/5 report. The wind was so bad this morning I had to move one of my Motor Cycles away from a scarily bendy old tree and park it up in a more sheltered space. The WX continued to get worse and during the morning the power lines were blown down somewhere near the local sub station,