[Elecraft] 6 Meters

[Rich - K1HTV]

Hi Sam,
  Welcome to 6 Meters, the 'Magic Band'.  Sounds like you have found out that
plenty on stations can be worked with your K3, even with antennas made for the
HF bands. My K3 has been performing great during the Es (E Skip) openings the
past few days. I've been running the K3 barefoot into a yagi on the deck, only
20 feet above ground since the tower isn't yet up at the new K1HTV VA QTH. In
the past days my 6M grid total of over 850 grids worked on 6M has climbed by
over a dozen. Single and double hop QSOs for the past two nights have produced 3
log pages of QSOs from my northern VA (FM18ap) QTH. This morning the band opened
up to Europe. Starting at 1316Z I worked E7DX in Bosnia-Hertzegovina for country
#149 followed by 9A5CW.  At 1320Z, HA3UU became 6M country #150. Four Italian
stations were also worked followed by another station in Hungary. 

These European DX stations were not only working the U.S. East Coast. They
worked well out into the 'EM' and 'DM' grids out west. A few Italian stations
worked out to the DM and CN grids today. Swedish stations worked into EM, DM &
DN grids this morning.

Much of the DX has been on CW but some were worked on SSB. Having the K3 sub
receiver set for the CW part of the 6M band in one ear and the main receiver
tuning the 6M SSB freqs worked great. After seeing a putout for an HA station in
one of the countries that I still needed, I simply parked one ear on the 'B' VFO
frequency reported on the DX Cluster while tuning around for other stations with
the 'A' VFO. When HA3UU's signal rose above the noise level, I was ready for
him. Boy, this K3 is a great radio!

Just remember, the band may seem dead but can quickly come to life from one part
of the world then just as quickly, the skip will change and another area is
working the DX as it dies for you. Don't let it get you down. Although it will
help, you don't need high power and high antennas to work plenty of DX on 6
meters.  If you haven't already tried it, check out this site as an aid to
chasing VHF DX with your K3:

http://www.vhfdx.info/

Click on the 'DX-Sherlock 1.97' bullet to view current paths reported open on
various VHF bands.

Enjoy your K3 on the Magic Band.

73,
Rich - K1HTV
http://www.k1htv.us

= = =

Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 09:25:33 -0500
From: Sam Morgan <k5oai.sam at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] 6 Meters
Cc: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Message-ID: <4C1E24DD.70503 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

On 6/19/2010 11:18 PM, David Yarnes wrote:

> 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.
 >
I can testify this is true. Last night about 10:15pm cdt, I decided to see what 
I could hear.

With my Elecraft K3 running 100w into my 7' tall Hi-Q 6/160 vertical @ 20' on 
the apartment building roof. http://tinyurl.com/26zd4ub

I tuned the Hi-Q to ~ 11.65mhz so it would be a 5/8 on ~ 50.1mhz
amazingly it tuned up with a flat 1.1:1, didn't even need the ATU
there is about 50'? of RG-213 coax feeding it.
Perhaps losses and the capacitance of the coax run made the match?
MFJ 259B showed it as SWR= 1.2 R=38 X=0

Anyway made 2 contacts with Washinton state stations,
I think I can feel the tug from that 6m bugitus hook being set...
-- 
GB & 73
K5OAI
Sam Morgan