Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Once again we awake to a fresh covering of Snow up here on the Yorkshire Moor top. I thought It would be a good idea to take at look at the Weather(WX) for myself with the help of Earth Orbiting NOAA-17. The NOAA-17 Satellite is in continuous orbit with an altitude at around 500 miles and produces excellent real time images of the Earth that can be received around 137.620 MHz APT (Automatic Picture Transmission) or 1707.00MHz HRPT (High Resolution Picture Transmission). Earlier This Morning Once the Satellite came into range (from the North) I was able to receive the signal using the FT-847 and IO-10EL Sat Antenna. The received signal was decoded with the computer using Radiocom 5.2(RC50) which can be seen in the image below. Close Up Of The UK Covered With Snow Clouds I've been decoding the NOAA Weather Satellites for over 5 years using the RC50 software with excellent results which can be found in my archive posts. The images allow you to make up your own mind up regarding what

Whilst listening around 40M tonight, I managed to stumble across a nice pile up down on 7.157.6MHz. I was pleasantly surprised to hear EY8MM coming in 5/9 loud and clear. As expected EY8MM had lots of stations calling him in the pile up and with his excellent operating skills listening for specific regions one at a time, lots of Stations were worked. I called into the pile up when appropriate, giving only the last three letters(Suffix) of my call sign - HTS. After about 10 minutes EY8MM pulled out "Tango Sierra" from the crowd and I was in like a flash working him with a 5/9 exchange both ways. Tajikistan is an all time new one for me which inspired me to share the news. At present I'm up to 149 DXCC so far, out of a possible 338 DXCC. Its always nice to catch a rare opportunity and add a new one like EY8MM - Tajikistan. The equipment that I was running was: Heil Gold Line GM-5, Yaesu FT-767GX (50W), into a Vertical (Hustler 6BTV).

Since I erected my latest home made wire antenna which was the full wave 80m Delta Loop, I have spent quite a lot of time down on 40M & 80M experimenting with the new loops performance. The loop tunes up well from 160M through to 15M with the MFJ-969 ATU and is resonant for 80M at around 3.5 MHz. It is slightly on the long side for the band as I will be operating mainly on the phone portion higher up the band with some occasional psk31 down on 3.583 MHz. The immediately obvious improvement that I noticed first, was the clean receive and clear sounding signals that I am now receiving across all of the HF bands. The Loop also provides minimal noise levels compared with the previous Dipole and G5RV antennas. Since the installation I have had a good couple weeks to give it some stick and the tests have been interesting as well as rewarding as I worked some DX Call signs whilst using the new Delta Loop. The Loop antenna seems to put out a good signal which has been noted to have improv

click to enlarge image of Delta Loop I have been so pleased with the 20M Delta loop I decided to scrap the dipole and have a go at home brewing an 80m Delta loop instead. The result was well worth it as I found that the new loop antenna receives and transmits very well on 80M (resonant band), it also tunes up very easily on 160M & 40M, giving impressive results with very low noise levels. The Delta loop is installed as seen in the above image with all of the dimensions included. I shall be posting more once I have had chance to test it further, I am really pleased so far and excited as usual, I'm looking forward to telling you more!

I have been using my home made Delta Loop vertically polarized for the past couple of years with very good results. The Delta loop was made by myself with the intention of using it on 20M, I originally blogged about it here and since then, It has moved from the horizontal to like I said already a vertical configuration. The horizontal testing of the loop brought slight noise levels where as the vertical triangle or pyramid configuration, is very quiet for noise and excellent on performance both RX and TX. The only issue I have had with the Delta loop was with my original calculations which proved to be slightly long, making it resonant on 13MHz instead of the desired 14.200 frequency. I cut the loop around two years ago and unfortunately made it too short as it was now resonant at 14.800 which was slightly higher than the intended frequency. Subsequently I have been managing fine with the help of the ATU, but the burning feeling inside has been growing and niggling away as I have want

The first Twitter Net was a lot of fun despite the 80M band being a little difficult for into G at the times that we have been running the net. However the Thursday Net still had plenty of us trying to get our signals back to each other with some nice QSOing had by all that made it in. Unfortunately my first NET QSO was shorter than I anticipated as at the time there was around 3FT of snow covering my dipole ladder line, which after around 5Mins of TXing shorted out the feeder and caused a very high SWR reading back in the shack. I was forced to continue monitoring the Twitter Net in SWL mode but could still pass reports as “Tweets” to the #TWNET that were monitoring Twitter at the same time. Before the Snow shorted the feeder, Tomas OK4BX Tweeted that he could hear me in Czech Republic along side the other Stations that were also operating on the Twitter Net. Tomas OK4BX kindly interfaced his Icom powered Shack with his web cam and streamed his side of the Net live over the internet w

Lots of interest has been shown so far on Twitter regarding the 1st ever 80m Twitter Ham Net, which will be held tomorrow (Wednesday 13th January) at 20.00 UTC. Since the idea was suggested there has been a lot of Hams tweeting messages and leaving comments confirming that they will be by their Ham Radio Stations and at the same time be on Twitter tomorrow night. I can’t believe how well you have all responded from as far as The USA, to Czech Republic and the UK alike, there is a lot of enthusiastic Tweeting Hams out there! The easiest way to join in is by getting on Twitter, create an account and either follow somebody or just search for other Hams to follow such as myself, example @2E0HTS. Once you find us all, you will easily see what were up to and which Hams are operating as well as any SWLs. All are welcome. :-) Useful info for Twitter Ham Net Ops - All updates can easily be searched for by using the trending topic #TWNET - Tomorrow Nights NET - 80M. Actual Frequency will be post

Over the last few months I have been slowly building up my list of interesting Twitter users to follow and be followed by. This has helped to take the mind off the WX (which of course is still snowing) by enjoying some Tweeting over the internet. Most of the Twitter Folks I follow are Either HAMs, SWLs or people involved in radio and they are all full of interesting Tweets which I have enjoyed a lot. Since new friendships are beginning to form via Twitter, We have all decided to try out, a planned radio sched on 80M this coming Wednesday evening at 20.00 UTC. We will use twitter to relay the frequency on the night at 20.00 UTC as well as any reports from SWLs and anyone struggling to get back to NET. So far there has been 7 Stations that have confirmed that they will be on the Air at 20.00 UTC (Wednesday 13th) and as we only decided two hours ago we are off to a fine start. There will be regular updates on Twitter regarding which Stations will be active and on the night as well as disp

The New Year is proving to be a challenging one so far for many of us across the Globe. Here at Baildon Moor, Yorkshire we have been suffering now for almost 3 weeks with no sign of improvement. At present the temperature has dropped down to -2.5°C which isn't helping much regarding the frozen pipework that is preventing the use of the kitchen sink and shower. We have been visiting the Family on a regular basis where hot food and the use of the shower is available, but to be honest it has been really hard going. The upside was a chance to play on my new Yaesu FT-817 at a different location using the Miracle Whip and 5 Humble Watts. It wasn't long before I got my first long distant QRP contact on 20m, which was Andy - EW6GF from Belarus. The QRP rig worked very well for me and back at the QTH, I decided to try the little FT-817 with the Hustler 6BTV. The mighty Hustler Vertical and 5Watts began to impress me as I continued having QRP fun working as far as The US thanks to K3C,

I was very lucky this year as far as receiving presents. Louise (M3TLL) my lovely YL got me something that she new would be well received and appreciated more than most things, which was of course some Ham Radio equipment. Thanks Lou! Louise managed to get a good deal from our local Ham Buddy – Adam 2E0LXA, who had a great little Yaesu FT-817, QRP multi banded/mode portable transceiver that he was selling. The little rig came with a “Miracle Antenna” and a “Wonder Wand” tunable counterpoise which I have already tried successfully on 5Watts making QSO into Estonia as well as across the Atlantic into the US. I must admit I was surprised with the performance of the Miracle Antenna and I am looking forward to getting out with the portable QRP station and finding out what the possibilities are with a simple QRP set up, as well as using the rig outside on the Satellite’s. I have already been trying the standard rubber Whip (YHA-63) connected to the BNC located on the front panel, I worked m

Christmas is upon us once again and it the time of year when Santa has a lot of presents to deliver, so as usual Dudley our four legged friend will be busy lending Santa a Paw. The picture was taken earlier today when Dudley suddenly flew off in the direction of Lap Land where Santa is awaiting the annual return of all his helpers. So if you leave out any mince pies for Santa tonight don't forget to leave a couple of gravy bones for Dudley, Rudolph and the rest of Santa's helpers. I hope you all get some nice presents and have a Merry Christmas!

Click on Image to enlarge Despite the snow continuously falling up here on the Moor top and both Louise and I feeling full of cold, the water supply being frozen solid - BAH Humbug! I have still kept up with my usual radio antics whilst trying my best to keep us both warm and comfortable. I have been playing around with the Radio Com software that I have had installed on my machine for the last 4 years which is proving to be unbeatable for decoding the NOOA WX SATs. This time I have been using the software to monitor the new Chinese Satellite - XW-1(HO-68). The Sat is still mainly beacon only, which transmits around 435.790MHz in CW mode. I use the Ft-847 and IO-10El antenna to receive the "bird" feeding the incoming AF from the rig to the computers sound card where the Radio Com software picks up the audio to be decoded. The software works similar to any other radio decoding software having lots of nice and useful features. The Spectrum Analyser is one of the many useful to

As an avid Satellite Operator Santa has come early for me, I am referring to the exciting news from AMSAT China regarding the recent successful launch of their very first Amateur Satellite XW-1. XW-1 payload was deployed by the CZ-4C rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center earlier this month and is currently commissioning in a sun-synchronous orbit at about 1200KM, ASL. The XW-1 communications payload includes a beacon and three cross band transponders operating in FM, linear, and digital modes. Mode V/U (J) FM Voice Repeater (30 dbm (1 w)): Uplink: 145.8250 MHz FM, PL 67.0 Hz. Downlink: 435.6750 MHz FM Mode V/U (J) Linear Transponder (Inverting) (30 dbm (1 w)): Uplink:145.9250 - 145.9750 MHz SSB/CW Downlink:435.7650 - 435.7150 MHz SSB/CW Mode V/U (J) PacSat BBS (30 dbm (1 w)): Uplink:145.8250 MHz AFSK 1200 BPS Downlink: 435.6750 MHz AFSK 1200 BPS Mode Beacon (23 dbm (200mw)): Downlink:435.7900 MHz CW I am looking forward to hearing XW-1 on my FT-847 and IO-Ten El Sat antenna

With the IO-Ten Element Satellite antenna working so well since I put it up, I decided to have a another shot at making a video demonstrating just how easy and uncomplicated it is to be able to work the Low Earth Orbiting SSB Sat like VO-52. Hope you enjoy the video and look out for the Festive hat.

Whilst SWLing the HF bands each evening, I had a play around with Adobe PhotoShop CS2 and came up with this funky cyber shack. I enjoy the SWL side of Ham radio just as much as actually transmitting my own signals, I like tinkering around with the PC at the same time as keeping a close watch out for interesting signals. As you can see with the above image, I had a mess with some of the filters, which is pretty straight forward enough. Basically I was just messing about and having fun whilst listening to fellow Hams. Oh yes, I could not resist working a couple of interesting Stations at the same time. 2E0HTS CYBER CHALLANGE I wonder how many Rigs you can spot and for those who enjoy the challenge leave the Make & model info as a comment (just for fun)