Six meters has held an interest since I first got into ham radio in the 90s, however in New Zealand (like many countries) the spectrum around 50 MHz was widely used for analogue TV broadcasting which kept most away from the band. There were always stories about the weird and whacky propagation on this band, but if you wanted VHF DX life started at 2m and went up from there.
Around 2009/2010 I made a couple of brief SSB QSOs on 6m using an off center fed dipole over an 800 mile path between the upper North Island of New Zealand and the Otago region in the lower South Island with ZL4. These were on SSB and were very fleeting - enough to exchange callsigns and a signal report, then the band was gone again. This really does leave you wanting more!
Late 2021 I'm on 6m with a three element LFA Yagi at 30 ft height from Seattle (where I now live). During late fall I logged a few QSOs then the antenna on its temporary mast setup got blown down. I had the antenna fixed and back up by March 2022.
I started 2022 E season with 16 grids confirmed from the previous year, mostly up and down the west coast, with one from Florida. As of September I have just over 200 grids confirmed, 42 states including Alaska, and 10 countries including Argentina, Chile, Fiji, Japan, Norway, and a real surprise - Greenland!
I really like this band, it's a bunch of fun with multiple modes of propagation (Tropo, Es, TEP, meteor scatter, EME, and even F2 during solar max), and several digital modes available to take advantage of them (FT8, MSK144, Q65). And the fortune to live somewhere where there are reasonable levels of activity on the band certainly helps.
The Pacific North West is cursed as one of the worst places in the world for 6m Es - on PSK Reporter one can watch the band wide open over Europe, the East Coast, Southern US, South America, around the Pacific and various places in-between while in Seattle absolutely nothing happening. As frustrating as that is we did get some good results!
The last new grid for the season is (most likely) CN76 activated by Barry K7BWH early September.
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| 6m US grids confirmed (green) 2022 |
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| Norway QSO on 6m FT8 with LA8AJA |
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| Greenland QSO on 6m FT8 with OX3LX Upernavik Island activation |
VE3VN did up a nice post on their 6m E season over here.
K5ND publishes a well written eBook on 6m - Capture the Magic of Six Meters.