#DX ?....the incredible 60m band

Little did I know that 60m would be my main DX band in 2019 when we just were allowed on this band on 3-dec-2015. Actually in the first years there were not many stations, most DX traffic was on SSB/CW and all digital traffic was on JT65, JT9 and RTTY. Imagine sometimes there were no stations at all on 5357KHz digital. I remember I did a QSO QRP 5W JT65 to A45XR Oman in 2016 when I was busy with my QRP challenge. But over the years more and more countries are allowed to transmit on 60m. And these days the digital mode frequency is getting overcrowded with FT8. It also seems that DXpeditions are seriously interested to gain access to 60m because there is a lot of interest for that. There are even DXpeditions in countries that don't normally have 60m access but do make exceptions. It also revealed surprise propagation paths that no one would ever think of. Like hearing the pacific till late in the morning (daylight), longpath contacts to New Zealand almost every day and hearing Asia late in the afternoon (daylight). If you want to DX, the 60m band is a good choice if you're allowed to transmit there. The only problem is the limitation on output power. 15W is not a lot, but with a good antenna and good propagation everything is possible.

At the start of 2019 I worked about 80 DXCC on 60m. I thought it would be great if I would be able to get that number at 100 but doubt it would be possible. I created a list for 6m and 60m at the right side of my blog, just for fun. That way I was able to count towards that 100 and others could see my efforts. However, things went crazy....I worked far more as expected. I had never thought that 60m would be this suitable for DX.

We are almost at the end of 2019 and the list is still growing...
 I gathered all worked stations on 60m in 2019 (till today) to display it at the world map.

Total number of DXCC worked in 2019 only is 58. Total DXCC worked at this date is 132. I never dreamed I would get this far on the 60m band.

Time for a little research. We have a small DXCC league on clublog. Unfortunately not every DXer is participating. I miss PE5T and PG0DX, I know both worked many DXCC, certainly more compared to what I managed to work. PA2S is at top with 166 DXCC, I think he does a good job considering he suffers a lot of QRM at his QTH. PA3FQA is a well known DXer in the Netherlands. Surprisingly I'm on 3rd place, but I know that's only because at least 2 top DXers are not in the list. As far as I know PG0DX Henry has worked over 140-145 DXCC, not exactly shure of that number. I don't know how many PE5T Kees has worked. Kees has been on top of the overall DXCC league for years, but that tells nothing about the 60m of course since everyone started at zero in 2015. It would be interesting to know what countries they worked. I know that between the 166 DXCC Henk PA2S worked are a lot of DXCC that are officially not alowed on 60m. Unfortunately this happens to me as well. I'm not shure how many DXCC are illigally on 60m but I guess I worked at least 5.

Well, I know.....many radioamateurs do collect DXCC as a hobby. It is nice to compare numbers to see if you do well. But DXCC is not the most important thing in the hobby. Everything in the hobby is important, some prefer this and some prefer that. It is just wat you're attracted to. Personally I like to experiment, but I like to make contacts to DX  as well. 2019 was really a "DX" year for me and on 60m it was a blast.

Below some nice cards received from some of the DX I worked (Click on it for larger versions).

HC2AO Ecuador 06-Mar-2019 60m FT8

K5EK USA 15-Nov-2017 60m FT8

MJ/OQ7A/P Jersey C.I. 27-May-2019 60m CW

TA4AEI Turkey 17-Mar-2019 60m FT8

TK/DB4BJ Corsica 07-May-2019 60m FT8 (probabely illigal!)

VE1YX Canada 5-Dec-2015 60m SSB

5B4ALX Cyprus 06-Juli-2017 60m JT65