A new square on 6 m & some thoughts

Only one QSO today: TA7OM from KN80 providing square #690 on 50 MHz.

Despite this I haven’t done much on 6 m this season yet. Seems I somehow lost interest in the band as almost all activity has shifted to FT8 only. While I use FT8 myself and see it’s advantages for weak signals it doesn’t make much sense when signals are strong. And for working the real DX (despite JO73 being a 6 m blackhole or me just always being impeded when there are condx) my 400 watts and 6 or 8 ele Yagi usually don’t cut it on FT8, there are simply too many stations calling in limited space (and QRMing each other). How much easier is it all on CW where you can make up for less signal strength by good operating practice? Best example has been 7Z1SJ a few days ago: while I called him endlessly on FT8 without success he was an easy catch on CW when he changed mode …

No, I’m not going to buy a bigger PA … at least not for that reason. 😉 I’m rather thinking of taking down the dualband yagi and putting up a (bigger) dedicated 4 m only beam instead. I can still use our 8 ele long-boom yagi for 6 m then but parallel operation (i.e. Uwe on the 8L and me on the 6L from the duo yagi) wouldn’t work anymore. Guess I can live with that …

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