Coastal 2m Opening

 I woke up early to an email from Bill, AA2UK, that the band was open. I checked the APRS map:

So I jumped on and mad a bunch of contacts on FT8! I checked SSB, but didn't hear anyone on.

KO4YC, FM17

AA2UK, FM29

KA2BPP, FN30

WB4IUY, FM05

N3ASF, FM27

Things settled down a bit, then out of the blue Bill, VA1WV called me from the back of my beam:

VA1WV, FN75

(at that point I wrote an email to Roger, VE1SKY telling him the bands were open)

KN4SM, FM16

NG4C, FM16

AB4SF, FM17

and then VE1SKY, FN74

N1CLG, FN41

KB1GMX, FN42

W1FKF, FN43

K1RZ, FM19

The final grid map for today on 2m:

Not a bad start for the season!

-Steve

Addendum: It looks like Hepburn got this one right. Here was the prediction map

Big 6m Es opening to Europe

Late this afternoon we had a massive opening to Europe. I worked 79 stations in total, here is the breakdown:

CA (1)

DL (20)

EI (2)

F (1)

G (16)

GD (1)

GI (3)

GM (4)

GU (1)

HA (3)

HB (1)

LX (1)  new DXCC

OE (1)

OK (2)  

OM (1)  new DXCC

ON (5)

OZ (1)  new DXCC

PA (7)

SP (5)

TF (1)   new DXCC

UR (1)

W (1)

Of 79 contacts, 33 were new grids!

This is, by far, the strongest opening I've experienced to EU. At one point I the decodes for a single sequence couldn't be contained on my WSJT-X screen. I made a screen share with audio and posted it on YouTube here.

Here is a view from PSKreporter on what the afternoon looked like.

N1JFU 6m Grids - USA

 Here is a map of my current progress on 6m gridsquares. 

You can see that my 5 Element beam does very well on single hop Es, but not as well on the longer double-hop paths. Hopefully the 2021 season will allow me to fill some of these gaps.