[Elecraft] 6 Meters

[Lance Collister, W7GJ]

Hello Dave,

Well, I sure hope you were on this morning for the biggest Es opening ever from North 
America to Eastern and Northern EU!  Watch the ON4KST 6m chat pages and maps for 
signs that things are starting to open.  It went from the northeast USA all the way 
across to the Pacific Northwest!  Even blocked here by mountains toward EU, I weakly 
copied OH and HA - the first time I have ever heard EU from here on terrestrial 
propagation.  Of course, those with less than 13 degree horizons toward EU worked 
dozens of EU stations!

Even though I got skunked on the Es opening to EU today, I can't complain TOO much - 
I did work two new ones last week... VP2EMR on 4 hop Es, and SV9GPV on EME during his 
moonset ;-) Good luck on the Magic Band - especially over the next 3 weeks!

VY 73, Lance


On 6/20/2010 4:18 AM, David Yarnes wrote:
> 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
>
>
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-- 
Lance Collister, W7GJ (ex: WN3GPL, WA3GPL, WA1JXN, WA1JXN/C6A, ZF2OC/ZF8, E51SIX)
P.O. Box 73
Frenchtown, MT  59834  USA
QTH: DN27UB
TEL: (406) 626-5728
URL: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj
2m DXCC #11/6m DXCC #815

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