[ADXA] My apologies - I broke 6 meters!

[Dennis Schaefer]

I've always been very casual about 6 meters but have paid attention to it
more in the last week or so.  It seems to be open 24 hours a day.  It's
open when I go to bed and it's open when I get up.  If I'm watching FT8, I
get 20-30 decodes per sequence.  Europeans are crazy good and I've worked
several of them with 30-40 watts on FT8 to a 3 element yagi up 14 feet.

The yagi is sandwiched between antennas for 144 and 432 Mhz.  It was put
there as a temporary expedient.  I wondered how much the other antennas
were affecting it so I put up a separate 3 element yagi on another pole all
by itself for comparison.

The band was a little puny when I went out to do this, and now it is pretty
much closed.  It seems weird to turn to 50.313 and not hear a cacophony of
hooting signals!

OK, it has to close occasionally, I know.  We wouldn't want to wear out the
E-layer.  Let's hope this is just temporary and it comes back so I can play
with my antennas :)   Next year - at least 5 elements up 40 feet and a
little power.  Any possibility of F2 this fall and winter?

On the good side, I've worked a handful of East coast stations on 2 meters
on CW, SSB, and FT8. That's with 8 elements up 18 feet and 100 watts, so
things have definitely been lively.

73,
Dennis
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