Ham Radio Operator - M0YKS

Its just over a year since I parted with my savings 😁 and treated myself to the YAESU FTDX101MP.  Since owning this fabulous transceiver I have had hours of pleasure getting used to it which was quick enough and reasonably painless. The radio has been fantastic to operate and the reception quality is the best I have ever experienced. I have been using the YAESU M-70 desk mic which if you remember I got free as part of the deal along with £85 cash back from YAESU. The microphone is nice to use with a good ergonomic design and with the radios onboard equaliser set for my preference the audio reports have been coming in with compliments especially from the more weaker DX contacts.  So my friends, you can guess I will be holding on to the FTDX101MP and my FT-1000mp will be there as a portable or back up transceiver. I am really happy I got this radio and since installing it at my QTH I have been using it barefoot with the standard 200 watts rather than running my a

Early morning DX was in great shape today as I beamed west I could hear plenty of US stations coming in well working stations active in the worked all Europe contest. I haven't been in the contest so I qsy'd to 17M (18 megahertz) and was hearing some big signals coming in loud and clear from down under. Australia and in particular Tasmania where I worked the Australian Ladies Amateur Radio Association VI7ALARA. I got through the pile up easy only one call and was using my Cushcraft MA5B Yagi antenna and Yaesu FTDX101mp transceiver, running the full 200w. Good DX and thanks for passing by Ham Radio Operator .Blogspot .Com. 73 good DX. de Simon M0YKS  

This pass was directly overhead which meant my antenna array had to turn a full revolution as it hit the stop point N 0 degrees. This happens sometimes but still good to see the antenna on video live as i tracks. The image is a bit dark but that is because it is actually my bedtime and its late here in Yorkshire England.  73 thank you as ever for following this old blog.Good DX!

Well it's been up for 8 years and is still working really well for me. Yes I am talking about the HF mini beam which has a small footprint and a big signal. The largest element is aprox 17.10 ft wide and the boom is only 7.30 ft long. Despite its relatively compact size it works absolutely Fabulously and I would not change it as it's a perfect fit for my garden. As you can see in the picture my MA5B is not a sight for sore eyes but is instead very difficult to find. It's mounted via a heavy home brew tripod base which houses a mast taking the antenna to just 20ft above the ground. The trees are old and well established towering above the beam.  After years of operation with previous poor conditions and now with much better band conditions I can honestly say what a great antenna the Cushcraft MA5B really is. I can usually work who I can hear unless they are running extra high power QRO and have a high noise level at their end.  The recieve is something special ab

This morning I caught the almost perfectly overhead pass of one of my current favorite satellites RS-44. I have made some awesome contacts via this bird and with my satellite antenna array I can work into it up to 3000 miles away which is more or less a full footprint.Here is the action caught on video as usual of course. Hope to hear you on the birds soon.  

  I finally got around to adjusting the UP-link on the SatPC32 software. It now matches the Doppler correction required to operate the SSB Transponder much easier with less adjustments whilst in QSO.. RS-44 Russian Sputnik Satellite. A couple more contacts made and a final Doppler adjustment made towards the end of the pass. Now I am bang on frequency. Every radio differs slightly when setting up SatPC32 pre configured settings for the up link and down link. Careful adjustments using the CAT tab can be made when the pass is nice and clear. This helps to save time next time I use this bird as I will not require further fine tuning and will have a better copy. 73 thanks for following! I hope you have fun on the Satellite bands!

Well it has been a busy few weeks as we enjoy our summer holiday, we have been to many places from beautiful riverside walks, moor tops, coastal beach walking and beyond. Some of the places I was at included ham radio and I have been busy with my mobile and portable operation's.  The mobile HAM Radio station is still the same old original YAESU FT-857 and Maldol mobile mono band antenna's. This still works awesome as ever despite been 20 years in service. I have been making quite a few FM 2M mobile contacts recently as well and that has been pretty cool as well as providing impressive performance with my second antenna that is permanently mounted on the van roof. It is a Diamond dual band VHF UHF antenna. I have also had that one years as well 😀.  Whilst in Scotland (last week) I had plenty of time to work portable and we also had electric hook up on the beach side camp at Port William. This allowed me to set up my 50amp PSU which I used to power the fr

When Elsie M7ELC obtained her foundation amateur radio licence my good friend Pat W0OKE, Norm and the whole Portland Oregon HRO team sent her a fantastic first radio to celebrate her achievement as at that time, 2021, Elsie was 10 yrs old . She was very happy to receive this lovely radio which is the YAESU FT-4X. She uses it every now and again but not as often as the mobile FT-857 or shack station. So I decided with her permission to give it a go myself. After all my FTDX-101MP gets her attention so its a fair deal.     So today's adventure was to hike to the top of one of the local trig points about 15 miles to the North West of Baildon. The exact location is overlooking Bolton Abbey situated higher up above on Langbar Moor and is known as Beamsley Beacon which is 1300 FT ASL.  A great walk and also spot on for VHF UHF QRP.   The YAESU FT-4X is really nice radio to operate and is nice and simple to use so with my eyesight not as good as it wa

   Some of you will remember me getting the Arrow Mk2 antenna back in 2007 and as you can see it still does me a very fine job. I still enjoy the QRP satellite work which is always a surprise on how well it actually works. Tonight's efforts paid off as I cracked the pile up and worked two stations through the International Space Station. The ISS has its FM repeator active for radio amateurs to work each other on 145.990 FM up (Transmit with a CTSS tone 67hz) and 437.800 FM down (Receive frequency) Good luck if your going to have a go yourself. 73 thanks for following my madness. For more on ISS, FM and SSB Satellites as well as weather satellites check out all my Satellite adventures in one place. This image was received this morning at my shack in Baildon Yorkshire from the NOAA-18 Weather Satellite using WXtoIMG to decode. *Thanks to WRAASE Electronic for the stable free download version and Kepler update info and program. All working great for me!

Today has been a good day for ham radio here at the shack. The DX has been coming in really nicely throughout the 20, 17 and 15m bands. I made some great DX into China, Indonesia, South America and as seen in the video Japan. The QSO with Kazuhito JH3NGD was a really good example of having a decent QSO with fantastic stable band conditions, I really enjoyed the oppertunity and from the sounds of it Kazuhito san enjoyed looking at my old classic japanese motorcycles seen on my QRZ page. Kazuhito had some intresting pictures of his amazing set up which I also enjoyed looking through whist we made QSO. I hope to hear Kazuhito JH3NGD again soon a great operator from Japan, Thank You for the QSO!. My next great QSO tonight was into Mildura, Victoria, Australia with a nice chat with Moz VK3CWB exchanging a 5/5 report. Moz is located spot on for the hobhby with plenty of space and has a very nice antenna. Thanks Moz! It has also been a typical Yorkshire day regarding the WX but we

My satellite activity has proven to be popular so I decided to hit the record button whilst trying my luck on the SSB satellites JO-97 and RS-44. I got into JO-97 easy enough but it was a quiet pass regarding working anyone. It was a bit noisy on the downlink but a good signal for sure. I used the BHI DSP filter on my external speaker to kill the noise, it works well on the SSB birds. RS-44 was awsome, I had a decent run and worked some great operators during the pass. SSB Satellites provide great DX oppertunities with a reasonable portion of bandwith to allow multiple stations to make a qso at the same time unlike the FM sats. A bit trickier but worth the effort. Good luck and thanks for the visit.

I still have a go at recieving NOAA weather Satellite signals on 137 MHz. There are just three currently operational which still provide a decent image of the Earth. The decoding is done with the same software as before which is WXtoImg. I use a program to update the satellite position called Kepler update which WXtoImg reads and keeps up to date for accurate decoding. The WXtoImg program used to update within the program but that stopped being supported so a add on method as mentioned must be used. Anyway hope you enjoyed the decode and image.

Well I was surprised to see how long ago I last posted on my blog. It has been a busy few months with time passing quickly.  As for the bands they have been on and off but overall I would have to go for more of the on with some pretty cool DX  I have as usual been making the most of the great outdoors with the odd attempt of operating both mobile and whilst walking. My next plan is to take my FT-817 and have a go at some long wire QRP. I might get an opportunity over the next few weeks as it's the end of the college year and I am off for a month.  Space communication has still been keeping me occupied as has ADSB aircraft tracking and of course I am active daily on the HF bands. This coming weekend on Saturday 22 July at 20:00 UTC a few YouTube hams are getting together including myself and plan to break the 40m band by simultaneously live streaming on 40 meters. This has been organised by James M0GCQ and is a great opportunity to try

Today's ISS activity from OR4ISS on board making contact with a secondary school located in France via ground station  ON4ISS. Reasonable reception at my end with my FT-847 and Innovantenna - loop fed 6 element X YAGI on G-5500 Rotator. Saint Anatoile secondary school is a French private catholic school located in a rural area in the department of Jura (258,000 population), Burgundy, France Comté region. In conjunction with hosting this ARISS contact, the school has developed a 2-year "ARISS contact" project to provide students a real opportunity to discover and understand an environment that is unknown to most of them. The objectives of the project are to deepen the scientific and linguistic knowledge of the students through workshops, and various STEM projects incorporated in their curriculum. All students participated in the project (about 100 pupils aged 11 to 14)..The workshops covered topics that included: an introduction to amateur radio, Mo