Fiji on 6M

 

The 2024 season for me started in March with a fairly regular amount of South American openings, mostly late afternoons. March 15th was the first in the log with LU8EX, but also heard a few others including CX4DA. 

This pattern has persisted through most of April, with many days having openings down to South America. Looking through my notes, this is a lot more activity here than last year. Here is a sample of what late April looked like:

April 28:

Worked PY2CC, PY2SRB (new grid)

Worked 4 different CEs including CE2SV

April 29:

Heard 2-3 CE stations

worked LU5FF

worked YV5NEA

worked HI8DAR

also heard CO8LY, 9Y4D, P43A

April 30:

Worked 10 different Brazilian stations a number of new grids

Worked CX7BBR

May 1:

Worked a couple of LUs and CE

Things started to taper off, but I noticed some locals working stations in the mid-west, so turned the beam to 270 degress.......and then.....

For a brief moment I thought this was a bad decode, but then I immediately recognized Tony's callsign. I immediately hit TX and he responded right away with a +11. I completely the QSO super fast, as I always use skip TX1, and I just sat there, nearly shaking in my shoes. FIJI on 6m!!!

Tony was in and out for about 20-30 minutes before the path shifted west. It was quite an exciting afternoon. 

February 6M opening

 

We had a brief EU opening on February 21st. From my location I was hearing some western european stations and some Caribbean stations (Suriname and Dominican Republic). Some of the other guys appear to have worked into the Indian Ocean (Rodriguez?), and I saw a local station calling a 9K2. There was talk that is could have been F2. 

I only ended up with a few EAs and PZ5RA (who I've worked before) in the logbook. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come this season. I had a dreadful DX season last year. 

2022 6M season wrap-up

For me, this season got off to a big start in April with a number of days of TEP into South America, getting me a few new DXCC. The normal Es season, however, seemed to be a bit different than the previous two years. I witnessed a much later start, not seeing my first big domestic opening until the end of May (28th.). There were a number of smaller, fast, openings, but nothing sustained. The first EU opening for me didn't happen until June 1st, and that was just into England a Northern France. Unfortunately for me, the big EU openings all happened while I was away at a conference in Montreal, then again in July when I was busy getting Covid-19 in Nova Scotia. My last regular season contact was on 7/25.

In October we started to hear some TEP again. Early November (as I write this) I had a busted QSO with CE8EIO (he responded back to me, but JTDX refused to xmit) and then a QSO with PY8WW. Meanwhile, WW1L is working into South Africa and other exotic locations :)

Other notes, I had a (7) QSO JA run that got me a few new grids on June 12th.  

VUCC

88 new confirmed grid squares, putting my total at 682.

32 of those squares were new FFMA squares, which puts my total at 326

DXCC

I worked at least 7 new ones, finally getting over the 100 mark with 4X4DK! I was hoping to have Eric, FP/KV1J since he's local and part the local VHF community, but 4X4DK was in and I grabbed him while I could. I've had a few busted contacts with 4X4 stations, so I didn't want to leave anything to chance. 

Here is the (mostly) final list:

#95 CE3SX - Chile

#96 EA9ABC - Ceuta & Melilla

#97 C31CT  - Andorra

#98 UB7K - European Russia

#99 5B4AGN - Cyprus

#100 4X4DK - Israel

#101 FP/KV1J - St. Pierre & Miquelon

93 confirmed in LoTW. Now I either need to find a local card checker, or figure out the process to send my remaining cards to the ARRL for LoTW credits. 

Misses

Even with working seven new DXCC entities this year, there were some very notable misses. 

ZP5 - in South America

KH6 - a couple of times 6-12 (This gives me hope that WAS is achievable at some point)

D44 - Cape Verde (have heard them two years in a row now, yet to work them)

ER5 - Moldova 6-12

D2UY - Angola 6-28

OD5 - Lebanon 7-8

UN7 - Kazakhstan 7-9 (Had a busted QSO with him, will look for again next year)

Final thoughts

My first two years of truly dedicated 6m operation were 2020 and 2021, prime covid years. I wasn't travelling for work and summer vacationing was minimal.  2022 was somewhat of a "back to normal" year with me travelling to my usual June conference then again going to Nova Scotia in mid-July for our normal week in Pubnico. 

That's two weeks of Prime 6m operating dead smack in the middle of the season. I may need to rethink this a bit :)

Mid-season 6m update: DXCC and band conditions

 

DXCC on 6m has been attained!

Now to collect cards and LoTW entries...

On July 6 I worked:

UB7K for #98

5B4AGN for #99 ...and finally

4X4DK for Country #100

I was trying to work it out that Eric, FP/KV1J was in the #100 spot, but the propagation to Israel was there, so I wasn't going to waste the opportunity. 

Other random notes:

- The band has been open to Europe all week, some days more than others, but the lack of propagation in June seems to be made up for in July to this point. 

- Almost completed with UN7LZ in Khazakstan, but didn't quite make it:

- Confirmed LoTW grid count is now up to 668

Mid-season summary: Weird start....

 Comparing this Es season to the previous two seasons, this one has been weird for me. Here's the rough highlights:

- One big EU opening (I was traveling and missed it)

- Only a few big domestic openings

- One decent JA opening on the 12th of June (worked 7 JA and some new grids)

- Lots of TEP this season (Worked a number of new grids plus new DXCC)

Misses so far:

- ZP5 during one of the TEP openings

- KH6 - for state number 49, had half a QSO, but didn't complete

- D44 in Cape Verde

- D2UY in Angola

Somehow I still have managed to work 50+ new grids so far:

Angola on 6m

 

Angola showed up briefly on 6m today:

I turned the amp up to 500W, but they faded after 4 decodes. A few other stations heard him as well, but of the operators that I chatted with, nobody made a contact.

Hawaii on 6M

 

Almost! I heard him for a number of sequences, got a signal report back but couldn't complete.  

More 6M TEP - Quick opening to Brazil

 I snagged a quick QSO with PY1MHZ today on 6M ft8 via TEP propagation. 

 

The bigger stations near me were giving reports of ZP, LU and other PYs being loud. 

6M TEP, the start of a new Sporadic E season

 Timing is everything in life....

I noticed some bigger stations calling CQ SA, so I spun the beam around and just got a few decodes from LW2EDM, so I gave him a call when he finished with the other station. He came right back and boom, was in the log! PSK reporter showed there were a few other LUs that heard me, but I didn't see any decodes from them:

Can't wait for the new Es to begin!

Winter Sporadic E - shack rebuilding

 Last August I had some system integration issues with my station that kept me off the air for a number of months. May last log entry was from August 5th, with N2RJ on 6m FT8. I had a really tremendous 6m season in 2021, but my shack was in an epic wiring nightmare. Halfway through the season I integrated my Larcan 1KW and and also moved to using an Airspy R2 for my main RX. 

The result of both integrations was rats nest of splitters, pre-amps, relays, control boards, and DC wiring. Work and life got busy, I pushed it aside and started dreaming of the 2022 Es season. 

This past week I decided that I really missed having a working station, so I every so slow started to pull all the cables apart. At the same time I started integrating a new station computer, a mini system that has a ton of CPU and memory, but the size of a mac-mini. 

A clean slate. I got the 6M station wired up to the power supply and antenna and audio interface. Simple, nothing fancy. I could heard signals again!

I was somewhat surprised at the level of local 6m FT8 activity, it seemed like much more than last winter. This is a good thing. 

This Saturday evening, around 9pm local, I started to hear some mid-west stations calling and I managed to get a few in the log:

K9WKJ   EN44 
WO0Z   EN34 
K0DAS   EN42 
K9DLI   EN42
AA9JS   EN51
KX9X   EN50
WA8TTM   EM79
N0LWF   EN10
WB8EJN   EM48
K4XXX   EM77
KC9VVX   EN60
W4RXR   EM65
N9FN   EN60
KG5JJ   EM26
XE2X   EL06
WT9J   EM59
K0GU   DN70
NG1H   EL06
KC0MAS   EM28
WB8ZBT   EM55

N3CY   EM74

K0PHP   EM38

K4NO   EM64

N5BO   EM60

Not bad for January!

FN45 completed - 6m and 2m

 

This past saturday I managed to check off FN45 for both 6m and 2m. Peter, KA6U, is on an epic road trip from Floida to Maine, and back, all for the purpose of getting as many states as possible on 222 EME for Worked All States. My 222 system is offline, but luckily for me, he also brought 6m and 2m with him for the non EME times. 

"I plan to be QRV from FN45 Quill Hill in Maine tomorrow morning, Saturday from about 1130UTC until about 2130UTC.  I will be on a 2100 foot hill in a flat open plain in Maine.  I will be running a KW, 3 el 6M M2 Yagi at 30 feet with EME quality preamp.  I may also run my 2M station 7 el M2.  In particular I will look for long haul opportunities to the west and southwest.  I will monitor PJ and Slack assuming I have Internet access which is likely (have not been there before).  There is a possibility I could return to the site again early in the week if there is interest."

2021 CQ VHF WW Wrap Up

 I got back from Vacation on Friday in time for the 2021 CQ VHF WW contest, which ran Saturday and Sunday. I had a few things to do on Saturday so I didn't really put in a big effort, we had some sick family members that needed attention and my contest logging situation needed to be worked on. I ended up putting in a pretty full effort on Sunday 'till the end of the contest at 5pm local. Here are the results:

 Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Grd  Pt/Q

    50  FT8     63      63   36   1.0

    50  USB     25      25   18   1.0

   144  FT8     24      48   13   2.0

   144  USB      2       4    0   2.0

 Total  Both   114     140   67   1.2

Score: 9,380

1 Mult = 1.7 Q's

6M was open most of Saturday, at least for single-hop. Because I spent a bunch of time getting my logging situation worked out, I didn't end up working as many grids as I could have. I did, however, spend a bunch of time calling CQ on SSB. You can get better rates that sticking with FT8. 

The best contact for the whole weekend was a very brief 2M Sporadic E opening to Minnesota! I worked W0VTT in EN33. I was on vacation the previous week, which was apparently one of the best 2m Es opening since the 1980's here in New England. Timing is everything in life, I guess. 

The APRS map was the first indicator 2m was open

The MUF map showed a high spot over IN/OH

Finally, the stations that I heard/heard me in MN

Epic Day on 6m: 7/8/2021

 The day started with a pretty solid opening into Europe, with a very specific reflection off of an E cloud that gave me a bit of a spotlight into G/PA/DL:

There was activity most of the day, but the early buzz was about HV0A, Vatican City. I only ended up getting a single decode, so there is hope that it could happen eventually:

my sole decode from HV0A

lots of folks calling the pope

There was spotty activity for most of the day, but in the late after noon Europe really opened up, and this time it opened in a way that I hadn't seen in a while. At one point both 50.313 and 50.323 had full pages of decodes, 30-40 per page. There weren't any new DXCC entities but I managed to pull in 20-30 new grid squares. There was a more northern skew to the propagation this time, I was working many OH/SM/LA stations, more than ever before, which should have given me the clue for the main event to come!

The big guns on the ON4KST chat page started talking about JAs. When this happens I foolishly point my antenna to 335 degrees and pray. A few days ago I actually heard a station in Japan, but even with my 400W amp on, nobody was hearing me. I have a fairly modest station, so I didn't expect it to ever happen....until it did! As I was working OH/LA stations I zoomed out on the PSK-Reporter map and noticed that there were stations in Japan receiving me, even though I was pointed at Finland!

four stations in JA were decoding me while I was pointed at OH/SM/LA

 I immediately swung the beam around, added a little more power and started calling. It didn't take long before JP1LRT to reply back to me. Without actually breathing, I waited for each 15 second sequence to finish until I saw an RR73 from him! I could have been happy with that, but then I started getting called by more JA stations. 

In the end I worked 7 total: JP1LRT, JL1RUC, JG1TSG, JE1BMJ, JA2CXH, JR1LZK, and finally JK1BPA. Then, as soon as they came in, they faded back out. I would have been happy just to work one, but I ended up with seven

The band stayed open to Europe for quite a while after that. My final contact was with Bert, S57RR, in Slovenia. It was 3am in his time zone, but he was still working guys stateside. 

What a magic band!

Market Reef on 6m!

 I had to spend most of the day away from the radio working on other projects (always a risk during 6m season). I got back in the late afternoon and sat down to see what I missed, which wasn't much thankfully. I managed to time it just right to see an opening into the Baltics, which doesn't happen frequently for me. I managed to work 2 stations in Estonia (ES6RQ, ES5PC) and one Latvian station (YL2CP). I wasn't able to work a few Finnish stations, but we'll get them next time. 

The big news, however, was that as I was working the Estonian stations, the rare DX entity, Market Reef came up and I was able to very quickly work them.

(my color scheme was quickly adjusted after I made this contact, this was a +05 signal report)

Looking at LOTW, it seems there are records from this callsign in 2019, so there is hope they will confirm via LoTW!

The new Q65 protocol is some sort of black magic!

 The N4EME grid expedition to FN57/FN66 is in full swing, this week finishing up their FN57 stint. I worked them on 6m MS shortly after they arrived at that location. Later they got 2m working and we tried doing some MSK meteor scatter, but that didn't end up working. 

I got on the chat page again this morning and tried with them, no luck. K1OR, who was at the keyboard, suggested we try the new Q65 protocol provided by Joe Taylor in WSJT-X. After fumbling around with the radio and setting I finally got it together and successfully worked N4EME! 

There are several things worth notiing, first of which is they are roughly 380 miles to the north. That's a pretty tough path on a good day. Second, I have a fairly modest station, 200W into 12 elements at only about 25-30 ft. 

After a few sequences I noticed I decoded them, but I hadn't entered their info into WSJT-X, so it was not using A Priori decoding. It took me by surprise because I didn't see anything at all on the waterfall display!

But, if you look very closely, you can see a slight disturbance in the noise around 1500hz. If I zoom in you can see it, barely:

Apparently that is enough signal for WSJT-X to decode!

From what I understand (I have a lot more reading to do) the q3 indicates that it's using message re-construction from previous (in the sequence) decodes. 

Thanks to John and Paul for getting me a new, very rare, grid on 2m. With any luck we'll do the same next week when they are in FN66. 

-Steve

6m DX the week of June 7 2021

 6m here in FN42la was somewhat dead for 6 days in a row, which is somewhat unusual for the month of June. The previous big opening here was on June 4, which I talked about in my blog post "Another big US-EU opening 2021 June 4." 

Finally, on June 11th, we started to see some signs of life, including some DX excitement. I was decoding TZ4AM in Mali, but he wasn't hearing me. Still, very exciting:

Next up, as I previously mentioned was S01WS in Western Sahara. I managed to get a single sequence back from him, but never got 73's, so I logged it but didn't expect it to be valid. 

Luckily, I was able to work him again on Sunday June 13th. The propagation path was very specific, it was hitting the Azores and the Canaries, with a little bit of southern Spain, then mainland Africa. 

Meanwhile, in the other direction it was wide open, including some double-hop to the west. 

-Steve

Busy June 2021 contest weekend

 This was a busy radio weekend. First, the N4EME crew set up in rare grid FN57 in Northern Maine. I tried with them on FT8 on Friday night but wasn't successful. The next morning I got on the chat server and saw they were working folk on 6m meteor-scatter, MSK144 on 50.260. I don't have a lot of meteor scatter experience, but I gave it a shot an was decoding them on pretty regular pings. I was able to quickly work them and then focus on getting ready for the ARRL June VHF contest. 

The June Contest is usually dominated by 6m activity, and now with FT8, that can make it somewhat boring. I love operating 6m FT8, but it's not super fun during a contest. I find there are soo many people on that I have a hard time completing contacts. So, off we went and of course, we ended up having a massive opening to the Caribbean, which normally is great, but a lot of times the DX stations aren't running in contest mode, so you have to either switch WSJT-X out of contest mode or run JTDX at the same time (Which is what I did). In the end I worked number of the DX stations, including:

TO11A - Guadalupe

PJ2BR - Curacao

VP9NM - Bermuda

HK3O - Colombia

PJ4NX - Bonaire

HK3W - Colombia

9Y4D - Trinidad and Tobago

8P2K - Barbados

J79WTA - Dominica

PV8DX - Brazil

NP3YL - Puerto Rico

I had recently been complaining that we hadn't had much activity in the Caribbean this season, but this list seems to say otherwise. 

The big DX news for the weekend happened further to the north. I was able to work Bo, OX3LX, who is operating in Greenland. Bo has been there since the previous Tuesday, but I hadn't been able to hear him at all. We finally got the opening during the contest and I was able to grab him before he had a big pileup. 

After that the other DX was Western Sahara in Africa, S01WS. I've been seeing other folks work him on and off for a while, and I've occasionally had a few decodes from him, but again, was finally able to work him. I had a busted QSO earlier in the week, this times I was able to confirm it. 

The contest was a low priority effort for me. My main goal was to get my voice capabilities working again for 6m, which I was successful at doing. Calling CQ on 6m SSB was a lot more fun than operating FT8, and it produced a number of contacts, faster than digital. 

The end result was about 14k points

 Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Grd  Pt/Q
    50  FT4     17      17    8   1.0
    50  FT8     47      47   36   1.0
    50  USB     54      54   31   1.0
   144  FT8     20      20    9   1.0
   144  USB      5       5    3   1.0
   420  USB      7      14    6   2.0
 Total  Both   150     157   93   1.0
Score: 14,601

Middle East on 6m

 

I was up early Saturday morning and was chatting on the ON4KST region 2 chat page. There wasn't much activity for me, but I did see WW1L and K1TOL talking about middle east stations. I couldn't stick around, I had a T-ball game for my 5 year old at 8:30am. 

When I got back from the game around 9:30, I was gobsmacked to find that I had decoded 9K2 on 50.323!

What makes this really special is that I have a very modest station. I have a M2 6M5XX up around 25 feet, no tower, no dual stack!

single story house with the 6M5XX strapped to the chimney

This particular propagation path was really unique since there was ZERO other stations decoded. I would have expected at least some EU stations to be hear, but nothing. The really interesting thing was that XE2X was also decoding the middle-east stations, and I was hearing him call them back!

Soon after I looked up and realized that I was copying OD5KU in Lebanon! WoW! Now, here's where it gets painful. I cranked the amp up to 800W and started calling him back. I must have called at least 10-15 sequences. I looked back at the chat page and VE1SKY told me I was calling him back on 313 not 323 (where he was!). AAAARRGHH!!! By the time I switched the TX over to 323 it was too late. 

Shortly after I copied 4X4DK in Israel calling another OD5. This time I was prepared, but even with the 800w he wasn't hearing me. There's a good chance the OD5 wouldn't hear me as well, but It would have been nice to try!

Hopefully there will be many more days like today!

Another big US-EU opening 2021 June 4

 

Another incredible opening happened on Friday, June 4th. It started early in the AM and lasted 'till just about 8pm local. It slowed down during the day, but picked up full-force around 4pm local. I was able to work a number of new grids, and new DXCC entities. Here is the breakdown:

119Q's in total

By DXCC entity:

9A (1)

9H (1)

DE (14)

EA (5)

EA6 (1)

EI (7)

F (17)

G (9)

GD0  (1)

GI (2)

GW (3)

HB (3)

I (21)

IS (1)

LA (4)  ** New DXCC

LX (1)

OK (1)

ON (3)

OZ (5)

PA (3)

SM (4)

SP (2)

SV (1)  ** New DXCC

TA (1)  ** New DXCC

TK (1)  ** New DXCC

UR (1)

VE (1)

YT (1)

Z3 (1)  ** New DXCC

I haven't figure out how many new grids that was, but at one point I was only working new ones. 

It was a very different opening that I've experienced before. The propagation seemed to be very sharp at times. Where normally I only hear OZ occasionally, this time it was it was many at time! LA was a new one, but I heard 5-10 total, mostly at the same time. It would be all Italians, then all French, etc. 

At times both 313 and 323 were full of stations, and now that I'm using my new SDR setup it's easy for me to switch back and forth. Here is what JTDX looked like:

The next morning I was able to go back and look at PSK Reporter and you can tell where the strongest path was:

(not sure why PSK-R wasn't showing the 21 Italian stations that I worked)

It was really impressive to see full pages of decodes with all of these stations, at one point the docodes were scrolling off of the screen:

The end result was pretty impressive, I hope we get to see many more opening like this one:

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