[Elecraft] 6 meter openings and how to catch them

[Wayne Burdick]

For most of the year 6 meters seems catatonic, at least to those of us with mortal-scale antennas. But then there are times, like right now, where a magic mirror appears in the sky, capriciously reflecting signals all other place. It’s called “sporadic-E.” 

When the magic is happening, even those with modest antennas, tuned for 6 meters or not, can get in on the fun. What I do is park my K3S or KX3 at 50.125 USB with the squelch turned on, in case someone starts calling CQ above the noise. 

With both rigs, you can turn on “CW-in-SSB” mode in the CW WGHT menu entry, allowing you to either use SSB or CW as required. (A lot of cross-mode happens on this band since QSB--fading--can come up without warning, leading some ops to switch from SSB to CW to finish a QSO.) 

A great tool that has been mentioned here before is dxmaps.com, which gives you a snapshot of activity on any band of your choice, or all bands, or certain subsets. You can sign up to get alerts emailed to you when a band of interest gets interesting. 

I’ve had multiple alerts each of the past several days -- ’tis the season.

73,
Wayne
N6KR