The dipole comes down every summer when we enter thunderstorm season - and at the very last minute as we have strong storms predicted for tomorrow. It's kind of sad to be without the low bands for so long (until October) but I treated my depression with ice cream and the installation of the 6m OA-50.
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| 6m this morning |
Bas PE4BAS doesn't know it, but his recent blog postings have motivated me to pay more attention to the 6-meter band and today's conditions have further sparked my interest.
The OA-50 is mounted atop a 10-foot mast that is attached to my chimney with a mount designed for that purpose. Also on my roof - laying there, unmounted, waiting - is a 3-element Yagi for 6 meters. I don't have a rotator but the Yagi and the OA-50 have each share the mast, taking turns.
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| Transmission in progress |
I debate whether or not to buy a small TV antenna rotator and just leave the Yagi mounted at all times - but today's results on 6m tells me I would have missed some contacts if I'd been using a directional antenna.
Late this morning, 6m was open mostly to my northeast - but several stations from my northwest also called. They would have been off the side of the Yagi if it had been in use and I never would have heard them.
My plan for the season is to have the RSPDuo monitoring 6m FT8 when I am at work. WSJT-X and JTAlert will upload stations I copy to HamSpots and I can look at all the band openings I'm missing while at work.
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Hello John, that's great. And following your blog and the DXcluster I see propagation on 6 is good. Here in the Netherlands is not too good last week. Although I saw that there has been good propagation between southern part of Europe and Asia. Nothing here though. But hope one of these days it will be like last year. Interesting you got a monitoring station, will check it as well to see if you can receive Europe. 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteI worked a few stations in EU last year and in JA as well - all in June. Hopefully the contest will have decent conditions this year.
Delete73 - John