Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

It is exactly 10 years since I sat the exam and first obtained my amateur radio licence. Two days after becoming a radio ham I made contact with my loyal buddy and YouTube video co-presenter,  Dudley the DX hound. 10 years on, we are both wearing well and have managed to put together a very nice family which will be increasing in size yet again this coming April. I am proud to be able to inform you all that we are having another baby girl! 73 Happy DX.

WX Warning of severe storms! The UK continues to get battered with gale force winds, snow and lots of heavy rain storms. Here in Baildon, West Yorkshire my Ham radio antennas are holding up well  despite the bad WX conditions. Earlier I had to recover my daughters play house which had been dismantled and blown away, fortunately it will be ok and should easily be reassembled. Our dustbins have also wandered off somewhere down the garden spitting rubbish out along the way, which will be not so fun to collect in the morning. All things said and done I can't complain too much as I am well used to bad weather due to living at altitude up on the windy Yorkshire Pennine mountains. Hopefully the storms will ease up in the early hours of tomorrow as predicted and the antennas will remain undamaged. Recent Radioactivity I have been enjoying some good openings on 20m whilst mobile especially in the mornings and during the past three weeks I have made qso's into the US, Tasm

The RSGB has published new band plans for the UK amateur radio spectrum which covers frequencies from 136kHz to 250GHz.  Copies of the band plan is freely available to all (including non members) via the Operating section of the RSGB website. You can also view the latest band plan here    which I have added to my Amateur Radio Portal  archives. 73!

On my workbound journey this morning I got lucky when I made QSO into ZL land from my mobile Ham radio station. As usual I was listening around the 20m band on my FT-857 searching for interesting stations when I came across Al, ZL1BD. At approximately 08.15 utc I gave a call back to ZL1BD's CQ call from my mobile and was heard at Al's station in Hamilton, New Zealand. My signal report was 5/6 and Al was coming in at 5/8-9 to my mobile as I drove my car. Al mentioned it had been two years since our last QSO which I still remember well. It surprised me just how quickly the time had passed.  I was very pleased to make the contact again this morning especially as my Yaesu FT-857 recent install seems to work well. Finally I can feel confident that it is as good as my beloved FT-100 which is having a well deserved rest (for now h.i). It sure is great fun operating mobile and never ceases to amaze me how well you can get a signal to radiate. Who knows what tomorrow mornings mobile

I just finished clearing out my eQSL archive and have uploaded my latest QSL cards to view at my Online gallery. 

Happy New Year To All From 2E0HTS & Family I wanted to kick the new year off with the official launch of my latest online project which is a Ham Radio Site containing lots of useful content such as live satellite tracking, downloads and lots more. I shall leave the rest for you to explore yourself at:   2E0HTS HAM RADIO SITE Don't worry friends and followers, I shall still be active blogging right here as usual, but for those of you wishing to access a lot more regarding Ham radio in general as well as my station I shall be continuously providing quality updated ham radio content at the all new 2014 2e0hts ham radio hub . 73 Have a great 2014!

I hope you all are having a wonderful festive time, among the festivities I got an hours fresh air outside earlier when I fixed myself up with a very nice additional antenna. Its coming up to about a month since I installed my old YAESU FT-890 neatly in the corner of our dinning/craft hobby room. I had strung up a 20 meter dipole at first and made a few qso's into Europe but noticed I was picking up some noise which spoiled the reception quality.  I changed antenna's from the dipole to a delta loop to compare and as expected the delta loop was much better with hardly any noise. I tested the loop for about a week until the YL noticed a corner tied off to the washing line pole which resulted in the "look" which translates to "move it now". So today I got my weights and rope along with the delta loop and began throwing a weighted rope up into a big tree which is part of a wooded area at the bottom of my garden. The land after my wall is a steep banking tha

On my way in to work I was amazed to hear loud signals from every corner of the Earth. I received  ZL1BD as well as VP8LP both on 20m at about 8.15 utc, (I have previously worked these guys). Shame I had to do a days work instead of playing radio, lets hope the bands are just as good during the two week holiday starting next week. Happy DX & 73.

On my way to work this morning the 20m band was wide open and I made a nice QSO with PT2GTI from Brazil.  PT2GTI  Roberto was 5/9+10 db to my mobile and I received a 5/9+ report back. A nice way to start my working day. 73

This little beauty has been hiding in the top of my wardrobe since I first moved in, I had almost forgotten all about my first ever HF Transceiver the YAESU FT-890. I built a 20m dipole and went with the easy option of inverting the dipole fed with coax  from my sat array mast which is nearby on the outside wall. I hooked up my old Nevada TM1000 antenna tuner also tucked away in my wardrobe along with a brand spanking new 30 amp PSU I bought a few years back as a backup.  Out with the soldering iron and the little setup was soon fired up and tucked away in the corner of our dining room. It is working well on 20m with the inverted V, I use the Nevada to tune the Inverted V for best reception on the other bands with ease as the old unit is well put together. I had always thought that the FT-890 was a great radio and I am planning on keeping it set up for a while. I can have a listen to the bands when I am sat at the table having a snack h.i.So far I made a QSO into Lithuania at

I can't quite remember just how many years I have been planning on replacing my prototype microphone mast/stand,  yesterday I finally made myself a shiny new one! I engineered my latest home brew microphone stand to house my HEiL GM-5 studio mic at the perfect height for my operations. The early design was made from 6mm round bar making it heavy so this time I opted for some 3mm TIG welding wire making the new mast very light. I cut my wire to the required lengths during the assembly, which I carried out with the TIG Tungsten Inert Gas welding process. Once completed, I gave it a coat of aluminum aerosol paint and left it to dry overnight. This afternoon my daughter/apprentice and I began to assemble the microphone head mount and PTT switch to the new mast which also involved getting the soldering iron out (-: more fun :-). We checked the soldered joints with the multimeter which was the best thing ever for my new tech especially when I found an old electrical switch t

I have just made my first FUNcube QSO at 11.05 utc using my FT-847 and Satellite array. I thought I would see how well I could receive the very recently launched Cubesat and to my pleasent surprise I could hear lots of activity via the SSB/CW transponder of FUNcube AO-73. I found it very easy to get into the tiny orbiting funcube at around 15° and had a good first contact with Walt - ON5NY who is a regular for me via all of the satellites I work. Walt was a nice strong 5/9.  As I made my first QSO via FUNcube (AO-73) the satellites pass peaked up to 20° elevation and as I lost the pass I heard CW signals down to around 5° elevation at around 330° azimuth, then I lost reception. Not bad for my first go! FUNcube (AO-73) Operating Frequencies.  145.935 MHz BPSK Telemetry 300 mW or 30 mW when the transponder has been activated  Inverting SSB/CW transponder 300 mW PEP  435.150 – 435.130 MHz Uplink LSB  145.950 – 145.970 MHz Downlink USB

. I parked my motorcycle up a couple of weeks back due to the wet and slippery dark mornings and nights during my daily commute to the works QTH. This is the time to enjoy the comforts of four wheels and the added bonus of my mobile HF station the Yaesu FT-857 mobile transceiver, Maldol and Hustler mono band antenna's. Over the past few weeks I have made lots of great QSOs /M and heard plenty of VKs, ZLs as well as many other DX stations on the morning run in to work with signals often over the 5/9 mark. The return evening journey has not been quite as good but I still hear activity and  have made a few nice contacts usually in and around Europe. For the best results I have been operating mobile mainly on two of the HF bands - 15m and 20m. Its been great fun as usual playing radio /mobile with my little FT-857 and with a quick change over I can experiment with my various mobile HF mono band antenna's. 40m is also very good for mobile operation and I have worked some fa

As we reach the midpoint of Cycle 24 we may experience disturbed or "wide open" band conditions when operating our Ham radio stations. This is due to the effect on the Earth's ionospheric layers being battered by lots of flowing electrons more commonly known as solar flares. The sun's magnetic field has been reversing over the last few months and will shortly experience a complete flip of polarity. This event now known as "solar max" happens every 11 years and like our treasured DX delivering solar cycles is subject to random peaks of activity (solar super storms). The last super storm happened back in 1989 resulting in a massive geomagnetic storm caused by a coronal mass ejection during solar max. Solar max is a term used by scientists to describe the sun's 11-year cycle. During "Solar max" our sun's magnetic field reverses polarity, typically spawning sunspots, flares, auroras and geomagnetic storms. When Solar max takes place, fiel