6m F2. 1979 - 2024. Update. F2 to North America.

Today I made my first two-way QSO on 6m by F2- propagation ... from my station in Denmark.

Why not before? You may ask.

My very first experience on 6m was in November 1979. At that time 6m operation was not permitted in Denmark, as there were still TV stations operating in that band in many places of the world.

Yes, it would be listening only. I had been chatting with a local ham about building a converter, and he had done that.

One Saturday afternoon he re-transmitted a ton of strong 6m signals on the local 2m FM frequency. I thought, now is the time, so I found a crystal in my drawer. Normally I would have used a 22MHz crystal to convert to 28MHz, the closest I had was one on 21.4MHz. 

That would work, so I found the components from the junk box and that Saturday evening and Sunday morning I finished the converter, built according to the ARRL Handbook.

Sunday afternoon came, and the US and Canadian stations were booming in, but all I could do was listen and make RX log entries.

That was OK for the first day. I contacted a friend who had borrowed my HF receiver and asked him to return it. He did, and now the crossband fun could begin.

The next days I was working many QSOs, transmitting on or near 28.885MHz, listening on 50MHz, and I followed that up for the rest of (solar) Cycle 21, and had a lot of fun with that. Later the UK and Irish stations started getting permits and I could continue the crossband fun with them.

Then, in 1989 I moved to the Netherlands for 25 years, and did not have the opportunity to work much ham radio in Denmark. At that time there were still no 50MHz permits in Denmark (or the Netherlands for that matter) In those 25 years we had 2 pretty good solar cycles with 50MHz openings, and I worked a bit from apartments in the Netherlands. when it was finally allowed there.

I can say a bit more about this, and maybe I will do that later.

Moving back to Denmark in 2015, it was at the decline of the weakest solar maximum in memory, with no 50MHz F2 propagation, so this year, with the prospect of a much better cycle 25, I could hope for some F2 propagation. 

Come November 1st. the wait payed off.

Yesterday, October 31st, I did hear some transatlantic propagation, after having some indications of openings into Australia and Asia. All with a very poor antenna located between lots of trees, and just monitoring.

Yesterday I got my 6m radio connected to a V-2000 antenna (6m-2m-70cm vertical) and got it working with WSJT-X. Still no QSOs, and I got it working a bit too late.

Today I got up at about 8 local time, and there were signals coming in from several areas of Kazakhstan UN..., and some EX, and more in that area.

I managed to work two stations with this setup: UN3G and UN7GW. It was not that easy to get through the European callers, and I received reports about 20B worse S/N than I sent. I am guessing it's because of Eu-QRM and maybe a high noise level at the UN stations. yes, OK, I worked "only" 75W to protect the transceiver and the antenna and I am guessing that a minimum of 10dB difference in transmit power is not unreasonable.

Finally I made it! F2 propagation on 6m from my modes station at OZ9QV.

I do hope that the solar activity will continue high in November and over the winter. It could give some excellent QSOs on 6m, even with such a small station.

Update Saturday afternoon, 2nd November, in the afternoon:

After trying in the morning with stations in UN, EX etc, Finally some success in the afternoon.

I worked Two stations in North America: N1BUG with CW, and VO1SIX with SSB.

I tried a lot with FT8 on 50.313, but no luck. I guess my signal was mostly drowning in European QRM from stations much bigger and much more well situated than mine.

If we get another opening like this, I might try to use the secondary frequency, 50.323 with FT8, and possibly trying out with FT4. I need to look up the frequencies used for FT4, though.

I did see a lot of reports of my signals being received, in the East Coast, from VO1 in the North to Southern Mexican stations.

I will regard this as a very successful day with my modest station. Excellent propagation.