Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Conditions are reasonable again this evening upon 20 meters, I'm hearing plenty of Europe as well as some North and Central America. I just worked Carlos TI8II nice and loud and now I am hearing some some big stateside signals 5/9 ++. Time to hit the ptt and make some qso......well that was good, straight through to David KA2HTV in Maine who nearly blew my S meter away. Check his antenna system and 1500 watts. Awsome! Well I better get back to my FT-1000 mp and 400 watts legal limit and see if I can get somewhere distant before I hit the sack. Fingers crossed the 20m band will be open again tomorrow. 73 GN.

It's over a week since I installed the Diamond F23 mono band vertical antenna and so far I am very impressed. The 15 foot 3 section antennas awesome gain has made a huge difference in both TX & RX. I have been working with the Yaesu FT-100 field commander and 50 watts which has been really successful as I have worked across some long distances down South and also to the East of around 100 miles. My YL M3TLL Louise has noticed the FT-100 has been squawking away as she said she keeps hearing plenty of hams interrupting her TV watching h.i The 2 meter band is much more interesting than before with the new 5/8 over 5/8 over 5/8 of vertically polarised signals bouncing into the F 23 mono bander. I will be playing around with the FT-100 and F 23 over the coming weeks, business as usual on HF from the shack, cabin and mobile. 73  for now.

We are all still enjoying the holidays and today timing worked out well and I borrowed a 3 section ladder and managed to swap over my old tri band vertical for a big high gain mono band for 145 Mhz. I was very lucky back in March on my birthday to receive the new mono band vertical from a very good friend. This of course was my old buddy Phil M1PAC whom I have known since the beginning of my ham radio activity when I was M3HTS. THANKS Phil!  The new Diamond F23 H looks good at it's new QTH. The specs. I worked my first station using the new antenna and YAESU FT-100 just now. Yes of course it had to be my good friend M1PAC Phil who was 5/7. I will be playing around with the new F23 H to see how well it performs and also some HF. See you soon.  73

I usually check the VHF side of the bands most Sunday mornings as it is usually quite active up on 2 meters. This morning I had a couple of local qso on 2m using my Yaesu FT-100 and triband vertical antenna. Afterwards I checked the SATELLITE tracking software and decided I would try my luck at working a couple. So with my Satellite array pointed towards the sky I tuned my Yaesu FT-847 to the correct up link and down link frequencies and waited for AO-91 to come into range. Once AO-91 was receivable I could hear lots of Stations on top of each other so I waited until the frequency cleared and worked a handful of radio amateurs from across EU. I caught the full pass on video. 73

Back in Yorkshire England after a week of van camping up at Port William on the Galloway coast. The WX was awesome and our holiday was excellent throughout the full tour. I got to make some good qso on my FT-857 /mobile from some superb locations next to the beaches. We visited lots of interesting historical sites from Kirk's to lighthouse as well as beach cliffs caves at low tide. Yep we had so much fun up in Scotland, the people are so friendly and welcoming, we will be heading back up at the next opportunity. A great place to enjoy peace and quiet, spectacular views and nature not forgetting excellent radio conditions with no noise. I still have a couple more weeks to play radio and enjoy myself with the family, I will be posting something radio related. In the meantime enjoy the weather and thanks to Jannis, Gordan and Martin for working MM0YKS/M in the video. 73

A nice surprise just now as I worked across the Atlantic into Eastport in Maine USA on 28.400 Mhz better known as the magic 10 Meter band. I worked Ray-W2RE with his massive antenna array with a 5/9 signal exchange both ways during a nice pile up at around 22:12 utc, which is most unusual on that band at most times of day h.i. I also heard K6JO and gave him a shout but struggled to make a proper exchange as I lost his signal which was only 5/1 at best. Nether the less a nice late night DX catch on a most unpredictable band.

The DX machine will be getting packed and ready for another adventure up north. The holiday times are here again and we will be planning on hitting the road and operating the Ham mobile station from Scotland on 40m, 20m & 17 m as well as the 2 meter band. Keep an ear out for MM0YKS/M or P.

I usually switch my transceiver on around about 6.00 UTC most work days as I eat and prepare for work. Today was extra special as I heard a 5/5 signal coming in on the 20m band over the north pole from the north Pacific area. The station was KH7XS who was working on a split frequency and operating by numbers. I was quick to act and fired up my valve amplifier as I new it would need a few minutes to warm up first. So with a mouth full of wheat, oats, raisins and bran I waited for number zero to be called. With one call I was straight through with a 5/6 to 5/5 signal report with my FT-1000, Russian amp and cushcraft 3 element yagi. A great start to my working day for sure and 127 DXCC logged so far under M0YKS.  A short video made just after my qso.

After finishing off a week at work I started my weekend by firing up my ham radio station where I heard K6YRA coming in loud on 14.193 Mhz. K6YRA - Al was on the west coast of N. America in California and I was hearing him with a signal strength of 7-9db and Q5 audio. As I waited for my amplifier to warm up its ceramic valves I set my antenna position to 310 degrees and listened in. After a few contacts by Al across Europe I gave one call and got straight through to K6YRA - Al who gave me a 5/9 signal report from California. Not a bad catch and a great DX qso once again in the log. Have a good weekend and watch out for some interesting openings. 73 Simon M0YKS

I managed to get a bit more done on my latest project which is the antenna mast which I will use for my Cushcraft HF beam. It's still work in progress but going well so far and easy enough as well as great fun to build. Im making it up as I go along, let's wait and see how it all pans out. Best 73 see you soon. 

I've been planning on building myself a small neat lattice tower and today I made a start. So far I have produced some guides that will hold the tubes in place as well as providing some strength to the tower. The next stage is to build it up using tube and then fully weld each joint.

Another good evening of DX on the 20 meter band as I work into North, South and central America. Once again the radio propagation is providing great conditions with some excellent signals coming in to my Ham radio station here at Baildon Moor. If you haven't already been on your radio this week I would recommend tuning around the 20m band between 1900 - 0000 utc. I have been making lots of good qso and so have lots of other radio amateurs as we all enjoy the long awaited reliable openings across the Atlantic every night this week. Dont miss out, get on the band! Best 73 and do you like my new CW key made by Bencher?

It sure is great to be able to tell you that the past month or so has shown significant improvement regarding radio propagation and DX. I am still mainly active operating towards the end of the day and into the night after work and family are taken care of and for a long time the bands have not  been open for DX. Lately it has been a different story as the 20m band has finally come alive and  woken up for the night shift allowing regular state side QSO and also some big DX signals from Argentina, Chile, Peru and Japan. I also got a nice one on the short skip earlier as I managed a couple of hops again on 20m over to the Isle of Man when GD1JNB came in booming through like a local. The short skip wasn't around for long but was pretty cool whilst it lasted, as for the DX you catch me in QSO with LU9MBY from Argentina as I bust the pile up!

I often enjoy listening to other Hams working some DX stations on 3.795 MHz just before bedtime and also in the morning at first light.  I've been doing this for years and have worked a few nice DX myself occasionally when I've picked up the microphone. This evening I heard a cracking signal coming in from across the Atlantic which belonged to W2RE. He was a real 5/9 + at my end to my FT-1000 and I received the same report back as I made the contact with 400 watts out of my G17B amplifier into the 6btv Hustler antenna. Now that is what I call a good way to end the day! Best 73 I'm off to bed.

It's been a busy start for me so far this year with little time to blog. I hope you are all enjoying life to the full and getting on. As for Ham Radio it's been a bit slow with not so many opportunities to make DX or any kind of decent qso. My evening operating has been mainly swl style on 40m and 80m as the higher end of HF has more often than not closed down at sunset. About six months back I put up a balanced doublet for 80m but now I have come to the end of the experiments and have concluded that the configuration is not best suited to my setup. The dipole was very noisy compared to my vertical Hustler 6btv and at times was unusable due to extreme noise levels on 80m. Earlier I remade the configuration of the dipole into an OCF dipole which basically means one leg is 81 feet long and the other leg is 50 feet. The total length is 131 feet and it's fed with 50 ohm coax into a 4:1 balun at 25 feet above the ground. I have used 3 support points with nylon insulators allow