Sunday, November 7, 2010
HO-68 Mode V/U (J) FM Voice Repeater
I continued chasing the Satellites yesterday and managed to get into HO-68 before I called it a day. I caught the HO-68 pass on video which can be seen below. Enjoy!
During this pass HO-68 is operating in FM mode. Contact is made with SW6KRV, UT3NW & ES5QA whilst the Satellite is at a distance of around 750 miles from the Station of 2E0HTS.
During this pass HO-68 is operating in FM mode. Contact is made with SW6KRV, UT3NW & ES5QA whilst the Satellite is at a distance of around 750 miles from the Station of 2E0HTS.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
AO-7, VO-52 & AO-51
In between cleaning my motor cycles, I have spent today in and out of the shack as I have been closely monitoring the various Satellite passes over my QTH.
I started the day early making QSO via the AO-7 Satellite at 08.44 utc with three stations from Europe - 9A2EY, EA1BYC and ON5NY.
The next "Bird" I worked via was VO-52, where I made QSO with OZ2SAT & DL7UHF at around 10.32 utc.
I then tried my luck again at 16.11 utc where I got into AO-51 which is an FM Satellite which always proves a bit more difficult than the SSB Sats that I worked through earlier. Despite the European pile up and only one station working at a time via the FM transponder, I still managed to work S57ORG who was quickly followed by ES5QA. I heard many other European Ops calling through the bird during the pass, as usual it was chaotic but still lots of fun.
To work the Satellites, I am still using my reliable home brewed IO-10 dual band Sat yagi with its 30º fixed elevation (seen on my QRZ page & this blog).
I have big plans for next spring when I shall hopefully set up my recently acquired Oscar 435 30 Element X beam and 145 Yagi which will be controlled by a GS5500 Azi/Ele rotator (seen in the picture below).
I will still be keeping my IO-10 El set up at this QTH as we are in the process of obtaining a second QTH. There I shall be installing some nice/big antennas for both Satellite and HF work. The Sat antenna pictured above is a sneak preview of some of the new equipment & antennas that I have been putting together recently for my new/second shack. Fortunately for me I have more HF antennas on standby waiting to be erected at the other QTH next spring. I am looking forward to posting more detail regarding this in the near future but for now you will have to imagine what I will be up to hi hi.(Besides changing nappies and being a Dad!)
I started the day early making QSO via the AO-7 Satellite at 08.44 utc with three stations from Europe - 9A2EY, EA1BYC and ON5NY.
The next "Bird" I worked via was VO-52, where I made QSO with OZ2SAT & DL7UHF at around 10.32 utc.
I then tried my luck again at 16.11 utc where I got into AO-51 which is an FM Satellite which always proves a bit more difficult than the SSB Sats that I worked through earlier. Despite the European pile up and only one station working at a time via the FM transponder, I still managed to work S57ORG who was quickly followed by ES5QA. I heard many other European Ops calling through the bird during the pass, as usual it was chaotic but still lots of fun.
To work the Satellites, I am still using my reliable home brewed IO-10 dual band Sat yagi with its 30º fixed elevation (seen on my QRZ page & this blog).
I have big plans for next spring when I shall hopefully set up my recently acquired Oscar 435 30 Element X beam and 145 Yagi which will be controlled by a GS5500 Azi/Ele rotator (seen in the picture below).
I will still be keeping my IO-10 El set up at this QTH as we are in the process of obtaining a second QTH. There I shall be installing some nice/big antennas for both Satellite and HF work. The Sat antenna pictured above is a sneak preview of some of the new equipment & antennas that I have been putting together recently for my new/second shack. Fortunately for me I have more HF antennas on standby waiting to be erected at the other QTH next spring. I am looking forward to posting more detail regarding this in the near future but for now you will have to imagine what I will be up to hi hi.(Besides changing nappies and being a Dad!)
NOAA-19 Weather Watching
Today's weather Satellite Image courtesy of NOAA-19, decoded by 2E0HTS using Radiocom 5.2 software.The UK can be just about seen in the centre of the decoded image. Yorkshire (my QTH) can be seen quite clearly with little cloud cover especially at the coast. Spurn point in Humber Estuary can easily be seen when you zoom in on the image.
Fellow Yorkshire folks - Enjoy the Sunshine!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The 2010 CQ World Wide Contest
Once again the Bands have become a mass of squawks and rumbles as Radio amateurs around the World battle it out across the HF bands trying to work as many SSB phone contacts amongst the racket of zones and signal reports. This is of course the very popular annual CQ WW Contest.
The main objective of the CQ WW Contest is for radio amateurs around the world to contact other amateurs in as many zones and countries as possible within 48 hrs. The World is divided into a total of 40 Zones. The Bands used during the contest are all bands, from 1.8MHz through to 28MHz, except for WARC bands.
I enjoy this Contest very much as it coincides with the anniversary of when Louise (M3TLL) and I first dated, Louise lets me play radio every year during our special weekend, as long as I pamper to her every need in between which is easily achievable hi hi.
During this year’s CQ WW Contest, I don’t believe that radio conditions were as good as previous years. I did not hear the volume of regular DX stations that I am used to hearing. I also noticed the higher end of the HF bands closing down completely in the early evening.
Despite poor conditions I was able to work some nice DX such as, Canada, USA , Kazakstan, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Senegal, U.S. Virgin Is and lots of Europe.
Despite my hard efforts which comprised of an FT1000mp MK-V and a CW160 & Hustler vertical antenna, I only managed 13 out of the 40 Zones before The Dog nearly left home. At this point, Louise was also considering chatting to the milk man. So with that in mind hi, I decided to call it a day a couple of hours shy of the finishing line which was 12 midnight local time.
Before I did, I managed to catch some Stations up and down the Bands on video (seen below) during the CQ WW Contest. Hope you enjoy watching the CQ WW video from my shack. 73
The main objective of the CQ WW Contest is for radio amateurs around the world to contact other amateurs in as many zones and countries as possible within 48 hrs. The World is divided into a total of 40 Zones. The Bands used during the contest are all bands, from 1.8MHz through to 28MHz, except for WARC bands.
I enjoy this Contest very much as it coincides with the anniversary of when Louise (M3TLL) and I first dated, Louise lets me play radio every year during our special weekend, as long as I pamper to her every need in between which is easily achievable hi hi.
During this year’s CQ WW Contest, I don’t believe that radio conditions were as good as previous years. I did not hear the volume of regular DX stations that I am used to hearing. I also noticed the higher end of the HF bands closing down completely in the early evening.
Despite poor conditions I was able to work some nice DX such as, Canada, USA , Kazakstan, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Senegal, U.S. Virgin Is and lots of Europe.
Despite my hard efforts which comprised of an FT1000mp MK-V and a CW160 & Hustler vertical antenna, I only managed 13 out of the 40 Zones before The Dog nearly left home. At this point, Louise was also considering chatting to the milk man. So with that in mind hi, I decided to call it a day a couple of hours shy of the finishing line which was 12 midnight local time.
Before I did, I managed to catch some Stations up and down the Bands on video (seen below) during the CQ WW Contest. Hope you enjoy watching the CQ WW video from my shack. 73
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Todays NOAA 19 WX Satellite Image of N.Africa - Europe - Arctic Circle
Image received at 12.30 utc
Below is a screen shot of my computer screen as signals are received from the NOAA -19 Satellite on 137.100 MHz(fm)
To do this I use my IO-10 Satellite beam coupled to the Yaesu FT-847. The signal is fed to my P.C via a soundblaster sound card to be decoded into the image seen above.
Below is a screen shot of my computer screen as signals are received from the NOAA -19 Satellite on 137.100 MHz(fm)To do this I use my IO-10 Satellite beam coupled to the Yaesu FT-847. The signal is fed to my P.C via a soundblaster sound card to be decoded into the image seen above.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Shack to Shack
I recently received the provisional Results from the IOTA 2010 Contest which took place back in July. I took part in this years IOTA Contest for the very first time really enjoying the whole experience and to my recent surprise doing quite well considering my low output power. I entered the Fixed, Single Operator, Unassisted, Single Sideband, 24hr, Low Power Section of the contest (a bit of a tongue twister to say the least). The shortened abbreviated version can be seen below with my score and position.
11 - 2E0HTS - EU005 - Great Britain - IOTA FIX SOU SSB 24H LP - 143 - 57 - 68913
Follow this link to see the full IOTA 2010 Provisional Results .
Other recent activity has been mainly on the HF bands especially 40M, 20M, 17M and 15M. Over the past week I have worked some nice DX using the FT1000mp MKV and recent CW160 antenna, the good propagation has provided some excellent openings on the higher end of the HF bands. On 15M, I have worked into Brazil - PY2DN & New Zealand - ZL4LP, On 20M I worked several stations from the USA, including - WX3B. On 40M Saudi Arabia - HZ1BL and the USA - N9NC as well as other USA stations were worked throughout the week. I picked a few of the stations out of the log, many thanks to all other Stations from near and far also worked throughout the week.
I have also been active via the HO-68 and VO-52 Satellites, where I managed a couple of nice little pile ups as I worked a few Stations out of Europe during one of the many passes. I also got into AO-7 for the first time which is another Satellite I am going to have to find more time to play around with.
The past three evenings has rekindled the fire for the 2M band as I have heard spectacular openings all over the band both on SSB and FM. I was able to work into Germany on 2M FM making QSO with DL1EBQ due to the Tropospheric Ducting that has been taking place. I have also made plenty of QSOs down into the South of the UK on both FM as well as SSB. The band has remained open this evening and looks like it will stay open until tomorrow. Check out theforecast and see for yourself.
And Finally The Big Story
2E0HTS is proud to announce that he is a Father to be, as Baby "hts" will be arriving early next year around the 25th of Feb. My lovely YL - M3TLL is doing a brilliant job so far and I will be starting He or She off with Ham radio as soon as there is a voice hi hi, watch out for an up and coming new baby ham. 73 from a happy 2E0HTS.
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