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!