Six had been wide open all over Europe the whole morning. Except a weak D4C via double-hop ES who provided a new square (had wkd D4 in HK86 before but HK76 was new) there was nothing interesting at all. So I spent some time handing out a few points in the Alpe Adria contest on 2 m but nothing special there, too. Bands went quiet until late afternoon and early evening when 6 m saw some great short skips within Europe and also opened into North America from all over Europe. Wait, from all over Europe? Nope, not from Europe’s 6 m DX blackhole, i.e. JO73. 🙁 There was even a great opening into the U.S. West Coast from certain parts of Europe but nothing overhere at all. One of those days when I’m thinking why I’m doing all that 6 m stuff still … The only DX heard was YV4NN late in the evening but just about 529 with an occasional peak up to 559 at times but as half of Europe was calling I gave up after trying for three quarters of an hour and him getting weaker and weaker …
Contrary to six 4 m was real fun! Had a good opening to the west so worked a bunch of G, GW, EI. Also did a nice crossband QSO with Marcel, F5DQK, in Paris with me transmitting on 4 m and him answering on 6 m as four is not (yet?) allowed in France. Later on MUF increased rapidly and finally allowed for a 2 m ES opening between G and UR. Being too close to these clouds to work on 2 m but with a MUF that high I looked south to maybe work my first Slovenian station on 4 m as geometry should be right. I finally did so 😉 but even better was working south German stations in JN67 and JN68 via ES on 70 MHz – that’s just 500-600 km! Does not happen too often on 6 m and even less so on 4 m. It did not last longer than 4 or 5 minutes but signals were s9+ with QRP power levels. Great stuff! 😎 Also working double-hop into EA8 again does not seem to be too exciting anymore with it happening every second day or so now. 😀
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 09:55 EA1HRR IN83JJ 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1679 10:34 DL2OM JO3ØSN 559 529 4 m. CW TR 542 11:08 DL8LAQ JO43XU 539 319 4 m. CW TR 290 11:49 9H1CG JM75FW 559 599 4 m. CW ES 1918 16:34 GWØEZY IO82HO 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1178 16:36 GW8ASD IO83LB 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1148 16:37 G4VWI IO92LQ 55 59 4 m. SSB ES 1021 16:38 G4FRE IO82UC 59 55 4 m. SSB ES 1117 16:39 GW4RWR IO83HE 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1168 16:43 EI4DQ IO51WU 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1512 16:48 G3TA IO81XS 59 56 4 m. SSB ES 1109 17:23 G7FMC IO91NW 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1027 17:23 GW8JLY IO81JM 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1194 17:39 M5MUF IO92JP 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1033 17:41 G8BFV IO81QE 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1166 17:42 GØWUU IO92SR 55 55 4 m. SSB ES 982 17:46 F5DQK JN18GR 59 55 4/6 m. SSB ES 954 17:55 G8DKK IO91VX 55 57 4 m. SSB ES 981 18:04 EA8DBM IL18OH 579 559 4 m. CW ES 3747 18:06 CT1HZE IM57NH 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 2504 18:20 DG3YEV JN68NL 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 529 18:22 DL3MBG JN67JX 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 587 18:26 S57D JN76GC 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 788 18:29 S51DI JN76VL 569 559 4 m. CW ES 754 18:32 9A6Z JN75SL 559 599 4 m. CW ES 862 18:43 9A6R JN83FM 599 599 4 m. CW ES 1087 18:48 EI8IQ IO62SF 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1391 18:52 EA3FZT JNØ1TE 579 599 4 m. CW ES 1633 19:01 9A6R JN83FM 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1087 19:32 EA1YV IN52OC 59 57 4 m. SSB ES 2102 19:55 EA6SX JM19IK 599 579 4 m. CW ES 1760 20:09 EA8TX IL18QI 55 51 4 m. SSB ES 3734 ------------------------------------------------------------------