[Elecraft] 6 Meters

[David Yarnes]

Hi All,

I seem to be digging myself a bigger and bigger hole called 6 meters!  First 
I just decided to see what could be heard on that band.  Not much--at least 
at first.  But then I got a dose of sporadic E, and things started getting a 
bit more interesting.  Then one of my friends talked me into building a 
moxon antenna.  That was fun, and pretty easy. The antenna seems to do a 
pretty good job.  So, I said to myself, if a simple moxon works that well, a 
4 element beam ought to be almost as easy to build, and work even better!

That was all over the last 12 to 18 months.  Then came the June VHF contest 
(last week), and some very good sporadic E--better than last year! 
Actually, there were a couple of sprints in between, which weren't all that 
productive, but right now 6 meters is humming pretty good!  My K3 does very 
well, and I even use my R7 vertical much of the time (omni-directional) with 
surprisingly good results.

I read some of the archives about 6 meter activity with the K3, and noticed 
a lot of commentary about the K3 being perhaps a bit light on 6 meter 
receive.  Well, a PR6 pre-amp might take care of that!  It does!  I just 
added that little accessory, and the results are impressive.  Not something 
you need for every QSO, but now I'm hearing stuff I couldn't even detect 
previously.  Lots of additional oomph without raising the noise level very 
much at all.  Very nifty product.

Point is, I'm getting a little too intrigued with this for my own good!  Is 
there a 12 step program out there for this?  Fortunately (?) I'm deed 
restricted, so there won't be any towers and stacked arrays going up!  Hi. 
There's even some pretty active CW operation at times--I like that!

Bottom line--if you haven't put your toe in the water on 6 yet, do it!  You 
probably have an antenna that will work fine, and don't realize it.  If you 
have a K3, and like what you hear initially, get a PR6 pre-amp.  Problem is 
that the sporadic E only lasts for a while, then goes away for several 
months.  But there's a lot more going on with 6 meters, even during the down 
times, than I realized.  If you have a radio that will do 6 meters, the rest 
is pretty easy.

Dave W7AQK