Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

The wind has been battering the trees at the bottom of the garden for the last two days which is a pain in the rear as I use the nice tall trees to support the far end of my wire antenna, you can imagine the rest. I had been watching my Carolina Windom wire slap about until eventually it fell to the ground. In between a rain shower I decided to brave the gusts and managed to get a next piece of rope up into the tree and wound the wire back up in the air. It looked good, nice and straight with an extra 10 feet of height after a lucky throw that I pulled off earlier. I ended the evening the way radio amateurs like best as I made a very nice QSO on 17 Meters into Tokyo Japan with Yoshi - JA1OJJ. JA1OJJ signal was a 5/8 solid copy on my Ft1000mp MKV, Yoshi give me a 5/6 report on the tree swaying Carolina Windom (CW-80). When I awoke this morning the CW-80 was still in the air but not for long! The dreaded wind took it out again sometime today, as you can see in the picture above I wont be

Since moving in to the new QTH I have been regularly tweaking my amateur radio set up and testing out various equipment configurations. I have now finally got my station working effectively and have settled for a lay out that I can comfortably work with, which can be seen pictured below. Equipment Used YAESU FT - 857 YAESU FT - 847 YAESU FT – 1000MP MARK – V YAESU SP – 102 Ext Speaker YAESU FP – 1030A Power Supply Unit YAESU G – 5500 ELEVATION – AZIMUTH DUAL CONTROLLER YAESU MD – 1 Mic YAESU MH – 36 DTMF Mic HEIL GOLDLINE GM5 Mic Labtec Head set & Mic RIGblaster plus Interface MFJ – 962D VERSA TUNER III 1942 CW Key 22” Monitor and Dual Core 3800, 2Gig Ram - P.C, Running XP Pro. Software Used Winlog32 RadioCom 5.2 Satscape MMSSTV PSK31 Deluxe DX Atlas Ham Radio Deluxe Decorative Equipment I also enjoy making models in my spare time usually out of metal. In my shack you can see a couple of models I made for my collection. Supporting my HEIL Microphone, I made a mast like structure wi

Earlier this afternoon whilst receiving NOAA weather images on my FT-847, I was listening to 17m on my FT-1000MKV mp hooked up to the Carolina windom, when I heard Mega - JA3EGZ. I listened for a while as he worked a nice steady flow of Stations located across the globe. After about 30 minutes once the initial pile up had diminished I heard him with a signal strength of 5/7 calling "QRZ." It was then when I gave just one Call and to my great satisfaction was heard by Mega - JA3EGZ. JA3EGZ gave me a 5/5 signal report during our qso, I am very pleased with the CW-80 antennas performance on 17m as well as from 80m right through to 10m.The Carolina Windom is a great wire antenna when installed well, with the 6 band Vertical as a second choice, this new QTH is working well on the HF bands and seems to have a great path to JA. Happy DXing, 73!

I applied for a Royal wedding special Prefix which is "R" and have been celebrating the Royal Wedding on the airwaves working lots of stations and getting spotted on the DX cluster a couple of times in the process. The best DX I have worked with the 2R Royal call so far is VO1JNS on 80M. Thanks to all other stations I worked and catch me throughout the week airing the Royal Call sign 2R0HTS..73!

I am halfway through my two week break from work and I have had a great week so far spending lots of quality time with Louise, Dudley and our six and a half week baby Daughter. As you know from my last post I have also been busy in between times trying to get my antennas set up and working more effectively. I finished off my antenna installations by putting up a second mast to support a Tri-band vertical covering 6m, 2m & 70cms. The shorter leg of my Carolina Windom is also attached to the same mast and terminates at my out building. You can also see Dudley keeping an eye on what's going on in the doorway. My HF antennas are simple but effective, in the background is my Hustler 6BTV and the previously posted homemade radial kit. Hanging at about 30 feet is my Carolina CW-80 wire antenna which is working really well on all of the HF bands, so is the 6BTV. Its nice having both antennas fed into the FT1000mkv mp as I can easily switch between the two as and when required, making t

Earlier today we had a visit from a fellow Radio Amateur and friend Adam - 2E0LXA. I had asked Adam if he wouldn't mind lending a hand to fit my 145/435MHz Satellite Array up on the house. Adam installs antennas as well as supplies various radio communication equipment for a living so I was extremely fortunate to have his expertise on board and the antenna array went up a treat! Thanks Adam! The 435MHz X beam and 5 Element 145MHZ Yagi dismantled from its tripod and fixed to a 15ft ally mast Adam 2E0LXA up the ladder drilling the brick work to fix the home made "very heavy" mast brackets. The result - 25 ft above the ground my 145/435MHz Satellite Array which is now working really well now it is clear of all obstructions. The tripod used previously was great but the house blocked signals from the south that were below 45° elevation which was a little annoying when the Sats passed by on that particular path. A problem no longer thanks to Adam and his ladders! I borrowed Ada

Here is a quick video of the latest satellite gear in action. The first Call I made is through SO-50 on FM, followed by 3 QSO using SSB via VO-52 with SQ9MES - IW4BIF - EA6SA. Thanks for all the comments regarding this project, as you can hear in the video I am getting my signal into the satellites quite well with the Ft-847 and Tripod array. I hope to work some more of you via the "birds" as its always a pleasure to catch some of you guys that actually follow my crazy antics. 73 Happy DXing and SAT Chasing.

I have been having some good results with the latest Satellite array but still found AO-51 a little difficult at times due to the regular European pile up hi hi. However, after receiving an interesting comment from Tom - F8COD regarding the Sat antenna set up, I decided to act on Toms advice and have a tinker around with the 145 Yagi. Tom - F8COD advised me to try vertical polarisation instead of horizontal on my Yagi antenna after noting better performance on his own satellite array. I set the 145MHz Yagi vertical and since then I have been hitting AO-51 with ease. I have also had some excellent QSO's via AO-7 and VO-52 on SSB. I am really impressed how well the Tripod mounted system is working. Merci Beaucoup Tom! Catch you via the "birds" soon!

Earlier I got lucky in between a nappy change when I worked TJ3FC - Cameroon on 12 meters using my Carolina Windom antenna and FT-1000MKV. I Hope you like my second station its slowly taking shape and getting nearer the finishing stages. I shall hopefully finish off soon by fixing the SAT antenna and Tri-band Vertical up on the house.

Finally after been two weeks late I am proud to be able to tell you all, we were blessed with a beautiful Daughter. She is only 3 days old and is already practising her CQ call as seen in the picture. We were up early again listening around the bands for some rare DX All the best from a very Happy Ham Family. 73

This week I continued with my latest radio project which was to be some kind of rotator mount that I could use to set up my latest Satellite array. As mentioned in my last post, I am planning on fixing the new Satellite antenna high up on the house. However, before I can begin working on that installation I want to build everything up at ground level and give it all a good testing out, ironing out any problems there may be on the way. With all this in mind I began to search through my scrap material pile that I have stashed away for a rainy day etc. I soon came across some heavy duty pipe and found some screwed/threaded bar. Then with a bit of sawing, grinding and hammering, I began fabricating the scrap pipe and metal which I finished off by welding it all up into a fairly substantial tripod. The finished tripod can easily be dismantled and folds up nice and neat allowing it to be transported without any hassle. I finished the job by painting it black, I then fitted the Yaesu GS5500 r

I awoke nice and early on Sunday morning, walked the dog and then listened to the local RSGB news broadcast as usual. Straight after the weekly news broadcast, I headed outside and began installing a CAROLINA WINDOM 80 (133FT offset dipole). The CW-80 tunes nicely from 80M to 10M and after listening around the bands for a short while yesterday, it seems to be performing well on 40M, 17M & 15M. I will be testing it further on the rest of the bands and recording the results. The CW-80 is suspended between the House and a reasonably tall tree at the far end of the garden, as seen in the picture. I shall be fixing the CW-80 higher up once I install a mast on the rear of the house which will help elevate the wire high above the roof. The next job was to begin work on the Satellite antenna array that I am planing to use. I began by asembling the two antenna systems that I will be using, a 5 element 145MHz Yagi and a 30 element 435MHz X beam. I built both antennas up to a stage that can b

Despite another weekend of poor WX, I was determined to get started with the radial installation that I have been working on for use with my Hustler 6BTV antenna. I decided to start with radials cut for 20M and wanted each radial to be 1/2 wave lengths. I set about the second stage of the task by measuring four lengths of 2mm diameter wire and cutting them all the same. The four wire radial lengths were all cut at 34ft. I soldered small lugs on each end of the four wire radials, which I screwed to the brass stakes and brass mounting bracket (as seen in the previous post). To do this I used stainless steel self tapping screws. The image below shows the mounting bracket installed. It is located directly beneath the Hustler 6BTV feed point. The radial bracket is clamped around the ground stake as well as having a seperate short connecting wire fed directly from the antenna to the brass radial bracket. I will be adding more radials for 40m and other bands next time I get a couple of hours