Hi friends,
It’s like a summer Friday afternoon here today.
Now waiting to pick up my kids from school.
Planning to take them home, change my clothing, grab my SOTA kit and head to the closest local drive-on summit for a 6m activation.
How do you feel about it?
Will there be any chances to make some QSOs on the magic band this time?
Any advise welcome.
Best 73 from Guru
Hi Guru,
Well spot the frequency and I will listen but not hopeful but life is full of suprises 
Good luck
Mike
Thanks, Mike, for being there QRV.
Unfortunatelly, propagation didn’t fancy to shake it’s magic wand for 6m band to open this afternoon-evenning.
I installed the same 5/8 wave home made vertical which had given me so much satisfaction a few years back when I lived in Aranjuez-Madrid, and I first called on SSB at about 17h utc but I only was replied by Jorge EA2LU, who was a local antenna to antenna direct contact. I couldn’t hear any station anywhere across the band.
Later I tried again on CW at about 18h utc with zero replies. Again, I couldn’t hear any singe signal across the whole band.
The magic band wasn’t definitely open at all today.
We’ll have to keep trying. It’s the good time for 6m band so we should be able to catch some good opening some of these days.
Best 73 from Guru
Right now the band is full of signals from much of EU - except for EA!
Brian
EDITTED to correct my mistake of confusing 6m with 60m 
Since we exchanged comments recently on another thread about the 60m and the possibility to work in split to overcome the issue of different authorised frequencies for different countries, I wrongly interpretted you were talking about 60m and my comment of the EA4 and the EA1 stations boomin in was for 60m, as you can see because I wrote the frequency of 5.356.
Sorry for the mistake.
I don’t have 6m rig/antenna at home.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the info.
I’m copying an EA4 station from Madrid on 5356 USB speaking with an EA1 booming here.
Cheers,
Guru
Tuesday evening from 1900z Guru?
Hi Tom,
I can’t say now what I’ll be doing Tuesday at 1900z but probably having dinner and taking care of sending the kids to bed.
I don’t have a 6m rig and antenna at home and it’s very difficult for me to activate SOTA in a weekday.
Thanks for asking anyway.
Cheers,
Guru
OK Guru.
The last Tuesday of the month is a 50MHz UK Activity Contest, and hopefully with favourable condx, will attract activity on 6m CW and SSB from all across Europe.
I will be activating from The Cloud G/SP-015, and it will be a lengthy activation until 10.30pm BST (2130z), so you may still have opportunity to get to the shack - if you can rig something up for 6m that is.
I’m looking forward to it; just hope the the currently forecast window of dry weather remains in place for Tuesday evening!
It sounds very tempting, Tom.
At home I could hook up my FT-817 to the broadband folded dipole I have hanging from an arm in the tower at about 13rm a.g.l.
I may otherwise arrange things to drive up to one of the local summits and get the home made 5/8 wave vertical on the ground with 4 layed down radials, but this will be weather, wife, kids and other personnal stuff dependant, so highly unlikely, as it is inversely proportional to the number of dependencies 
Will think about it though…
Best 73 from Guru
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Hi Tom,
The Coluds we had yesterday and this morning have gone off and we’re having a warm sunny afternoon right now.
I’m seriously thinking about going to Mt. Erreniega EA2/NV-092 (4 points) or Mt. St. Martín EA2/NV-151 (1 point) to give 6m a new try.
What time will the UK Activity Contest start?
What’s the Exchange? RST serial number and Locator?
Thanks,
Guru
It starts at 1900 UTC.
Exchange is indeed RST + SN + Maidenhead locator.
Hope to work you later on SSB or CW (or both).
Now CQing on 50.098 and nada…
Hi Tom and all,
I had the help of my XYL partner and despite the weather was very cloudy again and even some little drops of rain fell on my car windscreen while I was driving the 12 Km from my QTH to Mt. San Martín EA2/NV-151, I managed to go out and complete a new SOTA activation, although propagation conditions on 6m were just inexistent.
I didn’t hear a single signal neither on CW nor SSB except the one from my local friend Santi EA2BSB in Pamplona, who saw the spot on Sotawatch and came to my rescue giving me the first and only QSO on the magic band today.
After some time CQing to the universe, nothing was copied at my side and I decided to QSY to HF.
I looked to Sotawatch and found a spot of George KX0R activating on 17m. I was excited with the idea of making a S2S QSO with him as it would be our first S2S after he has become my top chased activator:
When I went to the frequency, I found that, even with the 5/8 wave antenna for 6m band, I was having a S9++ noise on the spotted 17m band frequency and several KHz wide both sides, so I decided to QSY to 20m and try to tune the 5/8 wave antenna for 6m into the 20m band.
Theoretically, this shouldn’t work, as 5/8 wave of 6m (50.100 MHz) is 3.555 m long, but it did and I easily tuned the antenna to 1:1 SWR on 14.061
RBNHole spotted me and I soon got chased with several stations making it to the log.
Except for the first QSO, which was on 6m band, this is the log of a 20m band activation with a 5/8 wave vertical antenna for 6m with 2 horizontal wire radials up about 1m above the ground. Not too bad, is it?
After the last QSO on 20m, I QSYed back to 6m and found the same silence all over the band, so I went QRT.
Shame that I couldn’t hear anything on 6m, but it deserved a try and I’m sure we’ll be rewarded one of these days sooner or later with lots of QSOs.
I hope you, Tom, had a better luck.
Let us know, please, when you get a chance.
Best 73 from Guru
Hi Guru,
The furthest DX I heard was Belgium ON! The furthest DX I worked will have been Cornwall or Kent!!
74 QSOs, all 6m SSB. Last hour was very cold - brrrr!
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Wow!
Very well done!
Ha ha! Yes, this is why I recommend Tuesday nights to anyone wanting good levels of VHF/6m SSB activity for their activations.
Ha! Guess what? Six is wide open now to most of EU and crowded with S9+ signals!
Cheers for the heads up Brian. Just worked a whole batch of Central Europeans on 6m CW, now onto SSB.
Thanks Brian for the info.
I just got home a while ago after a trip into SouthWest France and Jorge EA2LU just sent a message through whatsapp telling about the 6m openning.
I don’t feel like going up to a summit again today, but I have hooked my FT-817 to the broadband folded dipole I have at home and I have been able to copy a couple of stations and a beacon all on CW.
I’ve responded to an IT9 station CQing. He was copied here about 429 with QSB and he couldn’t copy me, as expected…
I’ll have to home build a yagi if I get some time and motivation…
Enjoy the magic band.
73 from Guru
Thanks for the heads up, Brian.
Very nice. Worked 9 countries between 1830 and 1930 UTC, including ES, LY and YL.
I just use my 30m dipole, which works as 5 half-waves on 6m.
Hope this is the start of a good Es season!
73,
Walt (G3NYY)