Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

During the last hour of the day just before bedtime I like to tune around the bands to see what stations I can hear coming in to my amateur radio station. The past couple of weeks most evenings have found the majority of the bands have been closed and the little bit of late night activity has been mainly on the lower bands such as 40m & 80m. On the lower bands late on I have worked and heard many US Hams coming in well up on 40 meters and I have heard one or two good ones coming in great on 80m at around midnight local time staying open throughout the night until I am back up early for work listening over breakfast. Last night before I hit the sack I heard CU7MD at 11.50 utc on 3.790MHz who was up at 5/9 with very few takers responding to his CQ call. I listened for while and decided to give Jose - CU7MD from Azores Islands a shout back where I was heard at his end with a matching 5/9 report. I was running my FT-1000MK V MP and Carolina Windom 80m antenna system which is onl

As I listened to the weekly GB2RS news broadcast I heard the sad news that Bill - G4KQJ had passed away last week at the age of 87 and a half after he had recently been poorly. G4KQJ had read the RSGB news for over twenty five years and was always a 5/9+ signal up on 145.525MHz from his amateur radio news station GB2RS which was located in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. Bill known as King Queen Jack, was a first class amateur radio operator and a very good news reader who always had time for a rag chew before and after the RSGB news broadcast. Bill had a wealth of experience in many topics but the ones that I remember the most and had the many pleasures of discussing and listening about were of his many years of service in the Royal Air Force. Bill was originally from the south of England but fell in love with a northern girl from nearby Bradford, He settled up north and he became a respected fellow Yorkshireman. G4KQJ was a amateur radio friend who I spoke almost weekly with for ove

Since my YAESU FT-100 came back from the rig docs I have been itching to change it back over into my mobile station. The FT-100 had a technical issue a couple of years back which turned out to be a number of dry joints. I have had my FT-100 in service since 2004 /M and really like this particular radio, I prefer the FT-100 screen size over the FT-857 especially the signal meter which is much better on the FT-100 in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I have to say that the FT-857 is also a good mobile rig and has served me well as my spare whilst out and about in the DX Machine. But the FT-100 is my preferred radio of the two for every day mobile operation, so my FT-857 is better off back in the shack coupled to my Tri band vertical next to my other lovely YAESU Radios. In the DX Machine I have already been working stations loud and clear with the FT-100 earlier today during the work journeys on my favourite mobile band which is 20m. I will be back in the mobile and on 20m again in

ICE - Industrial Centre Of Excellence One of the courses I am delivering at the College where I work comprises of Engineering and Electronics (ICE) . The ICE students on this course are into their second year of having me as their tutor and so far they have developed skills in MIG, MMA and TIG Welding, Metal craft and Fabrication, Plasma arc cutting, Sheet metal and are currently focusing on Electronics. So far my students have built basic soldered circuits using boards, resistors, diodes, and LEDs, as well as Morse keys which work with buzzers. The students have also been learning about amateur radio and responded well to sending messages to each other in Morse on their home brew kits. Over the past few weeks they have come on very well with their soldering ability and have moved onto the final project which is a Digital FM receiver . The FM radio receivers are quite nice kits and it was very exciting when the first student to successfully complete the receiver had radio 1 coming i

I added another way of viewing my Ham Radio Main Site's Guest Book by creating a second book simply entitled "View The 2E0HTS Guest Book," both books can easily accessed and are pictured below. They are available for anyone including non Hams and can be found attached to the front page of my Ham Radio Main Site Its early days but so far I have received a good response, Thank You! To all who have dropped by and left a comment and name. Don't forget to sign and say hello! Best 73 de Simon 2E0HTS.

I just read the sad news that G4ILO Julian Moss has passed away after a long illness, I will always remember the banter and encouraging comments Julian always left for me on many of my blog posts. He will be truly missed by many and our thoughts are with his wife and family.

Its half term at the College where I work so I am off for the week, my youngest daughter Martha has been wide awake since 6 am so I thought I might get up out of bed and show her some early morning DX. 20 meters was not open yet and 80 meters was closing down, however up on 40 meters things were happing and I worked W3DIY loud and clear 5/8. I was running my FT-1000mp into my Hustler vertical and received a nice report from Rick who was booming in.

The CQ World Wide DX is my favourite contest it is the best way to work lots of DX from all around the world on the HF bands. This year I had lots of fun as did one of my Daughters Elsie, I let her join in with her own DX Zone chart to fill in each time I worked a zone. This proved to be a good idea, she really enjoyed it and kept asking me to get another! This was the best encouragement that any Ham dad could ask for during any contest h.i. As a single low power operator I had a real blast and ended up working into 21 different zones which included 46 different Countries logged by the time the contest had ended. The 21 Zones I managed were worked on 10 and 15 meters, I also made QSO,s on 20, 40 and 80 meters toward the end of the contest. Conditions were reasonable throughout the entire 48 hour contest, I have known even better conditions in past contests but I am more than happy with the performance of my main amateur radio station during this CQ WW (2014). I worked 21 zones

Just in case you wanted a copy, I made this years CQWW Zones check-list available to download or share.

A nice start to the working day as I drove my DX Machine I worked special event station ZL1AA . ZL1AA was celebrating 90 years since they first worked into the UK. Follow the link to read the full story .  ZL1AA came in well at around 7.15 utc up on the 20m band with a 5/9+ signal to my FT-857, I received a 5/9 report back!

Its been almost 3 months since I got injured on my Motorcycle and I am almost back to my usual self. My torn quadriceps is on the mend and is becoming less painful day by day. I am enjoying being back at work and I am also pleased to be able to continue my latest DX-Machine project which is coming on strong! I have been active on HF from my new van on 20, 15 and 10 meters where I have had many successful QSO's into VK, USA and throughout Europe. The YAESU FT-857 and my old Maldol mono bander's are still performing well for me, I have yet to experiment with the other bands which I am well equipped for with antenna's such as the large Hustler mobile antenna with loading coils for 80, 40, 20, 17 and 15 meters as well as the rest of my trusty Maldol's. I have produced a part 2 video of my "DX-Machine" which shows the latest installations and improvements to the van such as its passenger privacy tinted windows, stainless steel bling, lots of carpet, some join

I have been back to the docs regarding my injured leg that I obtained during my recent motorcycle accident.The Doc said I must take it easy as I have damaged the quadriceps in my knee which explains the pain and swelling I am getting! Anyway rest is what I have been doing and of course playing radio is a good way to keep happy as I heal! Whilst being active I have worked some great stations from Europe to Australia on 40m, 20, 17 and 10 meters. The bands are up and down but can be pretty good if the timing is right. Earlier today I was checking ISS on 145.800 MHz when I heard a burst of SSTV coming in well. I wasn't set up to decode the signal at the time but I did manage to record the transmission from ISS on my mobile phone, using its voice recorder. Later I plugged it into my pc and decoded it directly from my phone using MMSSTV. As you can see pictured above, it worked out quite well. I hope to catch some more Images from ISS tomorrow if RS0ISS is active! 73

My summer leave from work did not start so well as I was knocked off my motorcycle on the way home from work back in July. I survived with a few aches, knocks, bumps and bruises but never the less was fortunate not to get too seriously injured. The bike however was a right off! A real shame as I have looked after my Suzuki Bandit for 12 years and it was an absolute minter. As you can imagine I have been feeling stiff, sore and fed up with myself and my usual happy holidays was not quite as happy as it should. With this in mind my better half told me to go out and buy something cool to get my mind off of things, so I took her advice and came back with a new vehicle. I chose something that would benefit the family as well as myself and with this in mind I got a Ford Transit Van. The reason why I chose the Transit was because its a good size of vehicle to be able to convert into a day van/tourer and the Transit van has a good reputation for reliability as well as economy with a 2.0

My Google+ account keeps me up to date with all of the things and people that are important to me and it was there where I first received the sad news that my favourite earth orbiting amateur radio satellite VO-52 had become silent key. I had a look on the AMSAT-UK site to see in more detail what had happened to the long serving satellite. It appears to have been down to a problem with the battery unit as I read that during VO-52's 49,675th orbit, the on-board lithium ion batteries finally gave in and are not likely to be recovered. I first got interested in working the VO-52 satellite when I made my first home brew yagi  which I called the" broomstick yagi". Since then I have had hours and hours of fun working hundreds of radio amateurs and making antennas whilst trying my best to improve my satellite station. For many years I have caught lots of daily passes from the superb LEO satellite -VO-52 allowing me the opportunities to practice making qso's and perfe