Brian,
I feel I should also add my thanks for the heads up. I have just made my first contact on 6m and would have missed this opening like all the others I’ve missed had I not had the reflector open.
73
psi
I now have my 6 metre antenna back up in the air, so if anyone is interested I can try a contact from Bavaria. We can’t use 6 metres portable here - only from the home QTH, only 25w EIRP and only horizontal polarisation.
Ed.
I see that the band is still open to eastern EU this morning, a good day to try the “magic band” on an activation!
Yes, I’d love to but from my side (in Germany) I can’t operate portable, it’s illegal. Perhaps some of our Austrian or Eastern European neighbours will activate on 6 metres?
Ed.
UPDATE: Just checked the band and had a 5-9 both ways QSO with Dave GW4ZAR in North Wales, so the band is certainly open at the moment! Greetings to Tom M1EYP from Dave.
There are some rain showers forecasted for Saturday and Sunday, so I’m going to give 6m a new try this evenning.
I’ll have an HF antenna too, just in case the magic band doesn’t want to play with me…
See you…
The above is the message I wrote with my smartphone this afternoon before leaving to Mt. Erreniega EA2/NV-092, but I have just found now on my laptop that it wasn’t sent and it’s been kept as a work in progress all this time, so you obviously never saw it 
Well, I can tell you that I got to the summit of the mentionned mountain by about 17h35 utc and I installed my home made 5/8 wave antenna for 6m band with 4 wire radials and also my endfed antenna.There were some signals from Ukraine and Russia on the band but I didn’t manage to make my QRP signals copied by anyone.
The interesting part of this evenning test was that, to my surprise, I managed to tune for SWR 1:1 the endfed on the 6m band and it turned out that the endfed resulted today a much better antenna than the 5/8 wave GP, as this last was picking up so much QRN from a nearby storm that the weak signals were buried on QRN and just not copiable on the 5/8 GP, while they were perfectly copiable on the endfed.
Santi EA2BSB in Pamplona came to my rescue again today, as he did the other day, and gave me the only QSO on 6m CW. He also gave me later a CW QSO on 17m and a SSB one on 20m.
Given that the stations I copied CQing on 6m were not copying me and nobody was responding to my CQ SOTA calls, I decided to QSY to 17m.
I believe this was the first time I’ve worked 17m while activating SOTA.
When Ignacio EA2BD home built and gave me the endfed antenna I’ve been using today, he told me that the theory said I should use about 5m long coax up to the rig. So I had and the antenna worked very well on all bands but 17m, where it wasn’t tunable at all with my MFJ-941B tuner.
I had been exchanging some PM with Ed DD5LP on this reflector about this issue and we agreed that, possibly, the 5m length of coax I had wasn’t allowing the tuning on 17m and modifying the coax length might well be the solution.
Well, after some time, I finally tested a much shorter length of coax (65cm) in my garden this week and I found that the antenna was tunable for SWR 1:1 with the MFJ tuner on all bands including 17m!
That 65cm coax got back to its usual position in the shack and I prepared a 95cm legth of 75 Ohm coax for my SOTA kit.
The first chaser I got on 17m today was Jack KB7HH in Arizona and I later was chased by 3 more US stations, so these 4 DX on the log was a very good indicator that the antenna was working fine on 17m.
After 17m CW I went to 40m CW, I raised a selfspot, but I only got one call from Geert PA7ZEE.
Then I went to 20m SSB, another selfspot and just one call from Santi EA2BSB in Pamplona.
After some unresponded CQ calls I QSYed back to 6m. There I could feel the splatter of some strong station on the band. After a quick scanning, I found Oscar EA2KR from very near Pamplona CQing on SSB. I responded to his CQ call and we had what it was my second and last QSO on 6m today.
After scanning the band and not copying any signal this time, I QSYed back to 17m, which was had been the most productive band so far, both in number of QSOs and lengthy distance.
No more DX were worked this time on 17m but four Europeans made it to the log.
This band was definitely the best for me today.
When the Sun was half disappearing behind the mountains, I selfspotted and worked on 20m CW, where four European stations were logged.
By 19h44 the Sun was already off, the wind had increased a bit and the temperature had started to drop, so I went QRT and quickly packed up for descent.
This is the log
Have a nice weekend.
Best 73 from Guru
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Hi Guru,
Interesting comments about your antenna.
On Thursday 26th, I was activating GW/SW-003, and heard a QSO on 2m FM mentioning that 6m was open.
Using my FT817, Elecraft T1 ATU and 40m dipole I heard IK2ABJ calling CQ on 50MHz SSB. I didn’t expect him to hear me, but he came straight back to my call, and we exchanged 59 reports - probably generous, but certainly good copy both ways.
When the band is open, it is worth trying any antenna you have available!
73
Adrian
G4AZS
There was a weaker opening yesterday and it looks as if it is shaping up for something today.
My six metre beam was wrecked by a gale, but I have a 20 metre OCF dipole with the long arm vertical and the short arm horizontal and it seems reasonable on six, it will do me until I get another beam - not that you need beams when the Es is romping in, but the nulls are good for reducing QRM!
Brian
Hopefully by next weekend my 6m set up will be operational from home.
Finally sorted out me 33ft telescopic pole into place in garden.
Just now got to rebuilt me 2 El Moxon to the 3 EL mox for 6m and get the Guy ropes set up and boom will be on 6m from home and set up the hand rotating part of the telescopic pole as well.
Slowly getting there 
karl
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Another good opening to eastern EU, I have UT4O on 50.148 at S9.
Brian
Another strong opening, mainly Italy and southeast Europe here. It looks like it might be a good Es season this year! (Touch wood!)
Brian
Perhaps it’s just me, but after you’ve exchanged 59+ reports with 40 Italians and 40 Slovenians the novelty starts to wear off a bit …
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
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Squares Walt. You need to get the special squares.
As Andy says, square hunting might be the way to go, but if you want to work towards DXCC, well the UKSMG map shows a baker’s dozen of Ukrainian stations on at the moment, plus Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, and the usuals, plus Iceland and the Faroes which don’t make an appearance that often. The trick is to try and get through the wall of single skip Es looking for the weaker double skip, whilst keeping an eye open for the rare transatlantic DX. This is where I miss the beam, nulling out the rock-crushers listening for the weaker stuff hiding underneath! Later, who knows? The band just might open to the Caribbean!
Brian
I got fed up trying work the DX one opening around 1992 or 93 I was getting nowhere with breaking pileups (10W to HB9CV). So I started calling CQ as I thought someone must want a QSO and maybe an EU newbie would want to work G for the first time. Stop laughing in the back, if you are new to the band G stations are exotic 
Well for a few minutes. I called and called and was promptly answered by OY9JD. He said he wanted a change from the world calling him and was out searching for DX. I was quite pleased to be called by something semi-exotic.
I’m getting too old. I’ve worked all the countries you mentioned on 6m. I also worked CN8 and T77 one day last week … neither of them “new” for me, but not very common.
Besides, I’ve never been able to see any more challenge in working DX on 6m rather than doing it on 10m. For me, 6m is no more “magic” than any other HF band. It’s actually more challenging to collect countries on 60 metres.
But 4 metres … now, that’s something else!
73,
Walt
This is true. As soon as there is a smidgeon of Es, 6m SSB is awash with the baying hordes of G6’s running their (il)legal limit amplifiers and stacked yagis.
Try CW. There’s much less competition and it’s far more civilized.
73,
Walt
The “magic” for me is the sheer unpredictability of the band, I could even say “perversity”! Many a time I have heard stations no more than a mile or two from me working DX when for me the band is stubbornly closed, then suddenly the band is chock-a-block with DX! The way the band can be full of Balkan stations then suddenly they vanish and the band is full of Iberian stations. Ever changing, on a timescale of minutes or even seconds, I find it fascinating!
I enjoy 60 metres, too, but it is a different challenge, the hardest bit is staying alert at 0300 when the band opens to NA and the Caribbean!
Brian
PS nearly all my 6 metres work has been with five watts to either a GW0GHF or an HB9CV antenna, and I have had reasonable success breaking pile-ups. I don’t know why G6’s should form baying hordes, but if the band is open you do not need (il)legal limit amplifiers - you have to imagine what it is like at the other end, a wall of G QRM!
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Ouch! 
Now I wish I’d passed my test first time and got a G8xxx
You could have had a G6***/T at the same time!
Brian
(PS perhaps he means M6…)
ROTFL!
Alright … G1’s as well.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard an M6 on 6 metres. Rather paradoxically, though, I have heard one on 60 metres!
73,
Walt (G3NYY)