ICQ Podcast Episode 258 - Getting Ready for the Six Metre Season

Your not The only one That Is limited To 100, All That I Got Is my ft-847, Won't have a external Amp for a while.

 

QRZ links to N0NBH is not the best place to watch for 6M openings.
DXmaps is more "at the moment" as people are working this band and reporting..even a spotting network is better than what you will find on the solar conditions here.
Es openings may last minutes or hrs.
There are also sites that will send you a text for opening you are interested in.

 

Thanks for the info Brian .That`s a good way to look for dx on 6m+10m plus I`ll note down those 6m Beacons on my notepad. Thanks for sharing that info with us. Good for newcomers to radio...

 

I use this little wire loop that can be made easily. Plenty of information on the net of the same loop for 6m . There is also a small board you can make with two capacitors and a hand made coil inductor to help make the SWR radio a lot better to 1.1.. for higher power I would use a balun (transformer) toi match the antenna better for higher powers than QRP!.

 

While the Solar Weather reports are interesting and sometimes correlate to an opening on the bands, don't get into the midset that "the solar weather report IS the band condition". Rather, use them as a guide, but nothing beats actively LISTENING to the bands to hear sometimes very brief openings on 6 meters!

Gud DX de N5WD

 

Yea I should've put That I use Them as a Guide, Of Course never relying on Them alone Is enough, Ever since I've Gotten Into swl I've alway's checked The time Signal station's and a 10 meter's repeater up In upstate ny That Can be heard This far out when solar flux Is In The 100 some.

 

http://www.k9mu.com/map/ That site show's a listing of 6m beacon's over a map format of most of The usa.

 

PIIIIiinnggg......

 

And actually, sometimes on these channels you would see ghosting, two of the same images stacked on top of each other a millisecond apart, so you knew there was multi-path propagation on 6 meters.

 

Tvs nowadays are digital so you won’t see those kind of symptoms anymore like you did on analog, also, June/July is your best bet for 6 meters, my video I made last summer I showed I had a pileup for hours, and some people said the same thing “I don’t understand how you show everyone all these contacts your making, I haven’t heard anything on 6 meters in 15 years, “ but every summer I always have fun with it... horizontal antenna is best, and 6 meter moxon antennas are easy to build.

 

KA1BSZ & KJ4YZI Now you both are showing your age! I am a relatively young whipper snapper, however I can remember my first days of becoming a DXer on 6 Meters. We would listen for DX TV propagated 48-49 mhz "growler" analog TV signals, as a matter of fact I still have 48.242 Portugal programmed in my #3 Memory. Old fond memories of Summer Es. I guess if I were thinking I would have recorded those signals having known they were going to disappear. Here were some of those frequencies:
48.241.70 Portugal 48.249.60 Madrid, Spain 48.249.95 Annobon Island / Equatorial Guinea 49.739.25 Ukraine & Russia 49.747.30 Moscow 49.749.60 St Petersburg, Hungary & Kiev (depending on beam heading)
49.759.80 Poland & Ukraine. I do believe out of these the Russian , Poland , Ukraine are still in use but you will have to fact check me on this. I can not tell you what a great indicator these old analog signals were and how much DX these signals have helped me and countless others connect with DX. Really miss them!

Now interesting Stateside TV 6 Meter Legacy fact. Locally for your History Pleasure. Good Friend WA3TTS and my local beacon is ran off of Channel 2 Pittsburgh legacy Batwing Turnstile Array (3 Stacked batwings) @ 2000 ft ASL on 50.069 MHZ. It runs at 1W ERP and has been heard world wide WA3TTS/B EN90.

 

I dont think this is meteor scatter. In my experience of monitoring my meteor radar a meteor echo will last a few seconds at the most with lots of down time between subsequent echos. What I hear in your recording (very nice recording by the way) sounds like sporadic E propigation. Meteor propigation tends to be focused more to specific regions according to the angle of reflection against the ionized trail and usually does not allow propigation to wide areas. I'm not an expert on the topic but this is my observation thus far.

 

"Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please."

 

Agree Gary, there is a bit of tropo etc. however no Es. We got our winter solstice E opening more in late Nov early December this year. A great deal of these smaller "rocks" and consistent will create these residual effects that appear to most viewing to be E. Most of my "Elmers" have been doing this years before I ever picked up my Radio Shack Superman Walkie Talkies! Working 600+ mile paths consistently here does take a quiet QTH, large antennas, and QRO power. I do encourage all to listen and participate 50.145 every morning 7:00 EST.

 

Over the last 2 years here in the southeast U.S., of all my DX contacts on 6m (SSB or CW, no digital) 38% have been in May, 36% in June, and 21% in July.