Yesterday’s six-meter opening to Europe (for some of us) reminded me how magical, or finicky, the band is. I’ve been on the band seriously for about 45 years and I’ve seen a number of anomaly’s I just don’t, and never will, understand.

There are times when the band “should” be open based on the MUF or other propagation information and it is not. There are times when K5EJ and K5UR, both 20 miles north and southwest from me, respectively, can hear (or decode) DX that I can’t. There are other times where I can and they can’t. It’s just simply the nature of the band. Just because a few of us had a great opening and you didn’t is evidence of how unique the band is.

Another factor on six meters is antenna height. Hams have long held to the false assumption that “higher is better”, get that antenna way up there. While there are situations where this is true its not a hard fact, especially for 50 MHz, and any elementary understanding of propagation and antenna modeling will prove that. For several years I have had six-meter antennas at different heights and have switched between them to compare signals. Most times there is very little, if any, detectable difference but other times there is. Yesterday was one of those times. The best reception was with the antenna that is at 115 ft. The lower antennas, or when they were all phased together, provided only marginal copy.

The rule to apply for six-meters, regardless of your station, is to be ready all the time. It didn’t get tabbed as “The Magic Band” on a whim!

Just be ready, then “GET IN THERE AND WORK ‘EM!” During the next opening you may have all the excitement and I may be left out in the cold, although you’ll never hear me admit that!!!  😊

73 Joel W5ZN

p.s. Interestingly, what I do notice consistently when switching among the six-meter antennas at different heights is here at W5ZN the line noise and ground noise increases as I switch to the higher antennas!