6m DX adventures last week

Too much happened here to report about and I didn't want to report on 6m DX only every day. Although I worked a few new DXCC it was very hard since signals had a lot of QSB fading in and out too fast at times. Well, just a overview:

-- The only DX station that was really easy this week was 5T5PA from Mauretania. Johannes was smart and used F/H FT8 exclusively on 50.323MHz resulting in a good pile-up for him.

-- Difficult was GD0TEP Isl. of Man, took me a lot of effort to get into the log.

-- UK9AA Uzbekistan was unworkable earlier this week but
suddenly popped up with a good signal a few days later. A QSO was easily made this time.


-- After receiving VR2XYL Hong Kong and BA7IO China I'd thought about another title for this post "Asian 6m fading waves" since it faded in very fast and signals were gone in just a few minutes. Receiving, even with signals as high as -6dB doesn't always mean you can make a QSO...

-- Into the other direction, transatlantic....I saw Canada and USA, nice....but already got them in the log. But the opening was there. More interesting was the opening to the west-indies, FG8OJ and TO1T from Guadeloupe, in the end I hope I'm in the log from TO1T. CO8LY Cuba could be worked as well, managed with just on the edge signals....


-- Then at Saturday morning, well regular readers do know....I worked Japan on 6m. For me it was the holy grail of 6m DX. If you manage to work Japan from Europe on 50MHz you are a real DXer in my eyes. It takes effort even with FT8. You need to be on the radio at the right moment. Propagation will only last for about 10-15 minutes max. and you need to stay cool and quiet because it will be a mess on the frequency and everyone is calling over each other to get the DX. My first with Japan was with JI4UEN.

Above the log from JI4UEN on his QRZ.com page. I've been staring to that for 5 minutes and actually find it hard to believe I was the last from his 3 european contacts. He probabely is just as happy with the QSO as I am :-)

Overall I think this is not bad considering time of year. If we are lucky propagation might be even better next month. Unfortunately I can't monitor every day but try to as much as possible. Hopefully I will not miss any of the magic from this magic band.