If you are on 6 meters with just a little 5 el yagi, by the end of july you will sick of the band after working a couple of hundred JA'S per several openings from may to august. Even With ft8 and everyone on either 50.313 or 50.323 MHZ, medium power and a small 4 or 5 el antenna, working 6 meter dx to europe, west africa, south america, VK/ZL, FK8 3D2 a hundreds of JA's every season for the past 30 years becomes ho-hum and really boring. Prior to ~2017 when ft8 took off it was fun working only 50 or so dx hams every year on cw/ssb over the 3 or 4 months of the 6 dx season but now with ft8 there is no challenge nor fun to working dx on 6 anymore.
So much for the good old days... when it was somewhat challenging and required some amount of operator effort and skill.
6 meters in the 90’s was spectacular! As a technician the best I could do was 6 meters on a vertical, over 250 QSL cards from over 500 contacts in a 3 year period. Putting up a 3 element 6 meter beam on a 32ft mast with a rotor this spring for the anticipated solar cycle.
Don't believe the extinction myth. Though not quite as spry as we once were, there are still a few of us dinosaurs still walking the planet.
Always activity during June VHF contests. I once worked 150 stations in three countries in one afternoon using 10 watts into a 3 el beam mounted in my attic at no more than 13 feet above ground. 100 watts to a 4 to 6 element beam at 30 feet will do wonders (when the band opens).
1743 contacts on 6, 48 states, 20 countries (England, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, and more). Started with an omni folded dipole then moved to a 3 element. When 6 is open it is amazing. Still need AK and VT for my other 2 missing states. Looking for an opening...
Someone forcing you to run FT8 and not SSB or CW still? Or just no one else to make QSOs with on SSB or CW? I really am not interested in FT8. If that's all that's on 6 I'm not going to bother with an antenna for it.
I used to be really active on 6m, not so much lately. I downsized my VHF station a lot over the decades. In the 1980's I had four stacked 5L 6m yagis at 75 feet and often ran legal-limit power to them to work random meteors on SSB. A pic of that antenna is below (taken at night with film and long exposure, painting the antennas with a flashlight from the ground -- that actually works). In the June 1987 VHF contest, my station worked all 50 states on 6m in 33 hours; some DX also, but we were later advised that was the first time any VHF contest station achieved "WAS" in a single weekend (up to that point -- it's probably been repeated since).
SSB and CW is still alive and well here in VK. I worked plenty of stations this last summer. Just need everyone to pickup a mic more!
It worked pretty well. Frequently I'd get calls from locals asking "Who the hell are you working? I don't hear anybody..." and I'd invite them to call me on the telephone so they could hear the "other end" of the QSO.
You don't need a big antenna for 6 meters. During January 10-12, I was working the East Coast and Florida. I was very surprised any one was on FT-8. Late at night I made contact with Wyoming and Colorado from my QTH in Indianapolis. The antenna I was using was a 40meter inverted Vee feed by a 600 ohm ladder line about 35 feet off the ground. Of course I was using a match box. One thing about 6 meters is that most QSO's are verified within a couple hours, nice. Since then the band is silent. Rule One, Check 6 and 10 meters when you first get on, you might be in for a surprise.
FT8 does take the fun out if a bit but makes life much easier for the weaker stations, though despite calling CQ USA with a bit of power on 6 & 10, JA's just swamp you......LOL
