Sunday, July 8, 2018

Finally DX, USA on 6


After almost 24/7 listening after I mounted my 5 element 6m beam in the tower I finally encountered some DX today. K5NA was no doubt the largest distance I received (-16dB) with 8207km (PSK reporter spot). My first USA contact was made with K0TPP from Missouri a distance of 7109km. Propagation was going up&down very fast and one moment there were signals the other moment everything was gone.

Low signals as well, although K0TPP was +7dB at the moment I worked him. By far he was the strongest station heard over the day. Propagation must be at a peak at that moment as seen a screenshot from hamspots.net at time of my QSO.


Even Mexico was received though not displayed in PSK reporter (why not??). It is even a longer distance then TX, USA.

Some stations I received over the day: XE2OR, K0TPP, W0FY, N6EE, NI0G, KB4MRX, AA5AM, WQ0P, W5ZN, W4AS, KB7IJ, WS9V, W5SJ, VQ5Z, W5ADD, NP4BM, WP4G, K4RX, WU1ITU, W1JJ, AC4TO, N5KD (I've seen more but in the heat of the moment didn't write everything down.)

My signal was received by: KG5THG (-18), N3XX (-24), VQ5Z (-24), NP4BM (+4), K5FUV (-24), AA5AM (-15), W5ADD (-14), W5SJ (-21)

Especially VQ5Z (Turks&Caicos Isl.) was interesting but couldn't be worked. You can't have it all!


Thanks for the fast eQSL and LoTW confirmation Larry !

S01WS 6m almost? or in the log?

Saw S01WS calling today. But conditions were fading up and down fast. Even a fast mode like FT8 was too slow for this QSO. First time his signal fades out. Second time EA2ARD made a QSO a few hertz below his frequency so I couldn't get the RRR. For me it doesn't matter if I received his RRR as long as he received my report. I received his. If we both acknowledge I'm in the log. However, logs are not real time so I have to wait. Till then he's at least in my log.

Update 11-7-2018: Given the most recent log updates of S01WS on clublog I'm not in the log. I'll remove S01WS from my log a.s.a.p.

Friday, July 6, 2018

Z68M 6m fox


Unusual late 6m ES propagation. Very late in the evening here Z68M suddenly appeared on my screen. Not one signal but 4 or 5 different signals. Had to be the illustrious fox/hound mode. So I went into the configuration/advanced and switch on the hound mode for the first time. A few transmissions later I was in the log...

Update: Thanks to John AE5X I found out that Z68M is not using fox/hound mode but multi answering mode in software called MSHV. I should have read his QRZ page before. Anyway the QSO was made in hound mode so that works well. I've heard from MSHV but don't know the features implemented, this multi answering mode is new to me!