Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Another pass from the International Space Station allowed me to catch a second SSTV image as seen below.

A successfully received image from space using my FT-847 and satellite array  Using MMSSTV software I received images directly from the International Space Station as it passed over my region a few minutes ago.

Today was a good day! I decided to take the family to the sea side for a little adventure. We left Yorkshire and headed west into the neighbouring county of Lancashire ending up on the west coast at Cleveleys which is very close by to the world famous Blackpool. As we arrived it was the peak of high tide and the waves were splashing nicely over the sea wall. I fired up my Coleman petrol stove and made a warming brew to compliment the stash of sandwiches Louise had knocked up before we set off. Even Dudley our trusty hound had his lunch by the sea side and a fun time was had by all. DX MACHINE M0YKS Mobile As well as having a superb view ahead the view behind wasn't bad either, in fact it was perfect I could see a playground/park directly behind the van which the kids would enjoy for 30 minutes. I decided I would take a look at 20m whilst the family were playing where I heard a lot of contest stations coming in strong to my mobile station. I have recently reinstalled my

Reception of todays weather image directly from NOAA 19 Satellite.  I am running some different software to decode the image called WXtoImg . Satellite tracking software is gpredict . Radio is YAESU FT- 847. Antenna 5 Element Yagi YAESU G-5500 elevation and rotation controller.    Late Night Activity It was another late night back in the shack of M0YKS. The family are all tucked up cosy in bed fast asleep as I take a listen up and down the HF & LF bands in the hope of hearing some rare and distant stations.

Just a quick Thank You to all of you for passing by and supporting this Blog as well as my Ham Radio Main Site  and a special thanks pictured above as a tribute to the first 20 entries to my main site visitors guest book. Its half term at my local college which has allowed me to enjoy time with the family as well as play some day time radio. I have been enjoying calling CQ and will try my best to continue airing the new call whenever its possible especially throughout the next few days.  This week you will be able to catch me on HF as M0YKS throughout the day as well as most evenings operating from the shack from around about 22.00 utc. Also some daytime activity is planned as M0YKS/M from my HF mobile " DX Machine" as seen below now running a couple of extra watts... 73!

I am still experimenting with WXtoImage and caught some earlier satellite passes to try out.  NOAA 15 Today at 17.23 utc NOAA 18 Today at 16.36 utc  NOAA 18 Today at  14.56 utc NOAA 19 Today at 13.26 utc

Beamsley Beacon North Yorkshire Today was our first trip up the to the top of Beacon hill near Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire. It was a bit chilly at the top so I couldn't hang about for to long, but we did hear a few stations on my handheld Kenwood THF-7e transceiver. Well done to my girls on their first ever trig point summit.

Weather Image Received From NOAA-19 I recently changed my computer and replaced it with the acer Aspire XC-115 mini tower. The PC is very fast and has all the required bells and whistles with the latest windows 8.1 operating system. The program that I normally use for decoding (radiocom 5.2) was designed for XP and is a bit old for the latest operating system so I decided to try another well known satellite decoder known as WXtoImg .  I downloaded the latest window 8 version which seems to be working quite well as I caught a pass earlier this afternoon from NOAA 19. The decoded image above was received via my FT-847 and satellite antenna, the frequency used was 137.100 MHz.

I am enjoying my new call sign and have been using it mainly on the HF bands which has been very enjoyable and surprisingly I have not made any mistakes so far. Yankee Kilo Sierra rolls of my tongue quite easily and seems to be heard on my first call by most of the stations that I have worked using my new call. I decided to tweak my new M0YKS logo as seen above, I changed the layout slightly and added a different Yorkshire rose as well as some colour to represent the spectacular Yorkshire Countryside. I hope to catch some of you soon somewhere on the amateur bands. best 73 _ . _

I thought I would try out google draw to create a handy reminder in my shack of  my new Call sign.

Greetings to All! Its been a long time since I blogged, this is because I have been very busy studying for the advanced amateur radio licence examination. I am extremely pleased to be able to share with you the fantastic news which I received earlier today which is....... I passed! My new Call sign is 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