6-Metre Opening
I got back from shopping in London this afternoon to discover a 6-metre opening from our grid square to points south! I had gone into London looking for antenna “fixin’s” - coax, connectors, wire, etc. - but found precious little, I am afraid. I guess I am going to have to shop in Toronto or Buffalo, and I don’t think there is anything going on in Buffalo anymore!
DX Sherlock is an amazing program running on the web that tells you in real time how the various bands are performing. So when I checked it around 4:30 EST and saw all the connections indicated on the real time map, I got excited. The website also offers a service that sends an e-mail if there are openings to your particular grid square. Amazing!
I fired up the MFJ-9406 SSB transceiver, hooked up the antenna tuner feeding the miserable random wire I currently call an antenna, and began listening on and around 50.125 MHz. I couldn’t really hear anything at first, so I tuned up just a little bit and called CQ several times.
I never got anyone to respond to my CQ, but I did hear two distinct stations, one a “good ol’ boy” from somewhere in the American south and the other someone engaged in a normal QSO. Unfortunately I never heard a call sign, and neither station lasted long. The first guy from the South was apparently having a less than friendly conversation with a station I could not hear. But he came in loudly and clearly saying, “Are y’all a 6-metre EXPERT? ‘Cause I never met me no 6-metre EXPERT before!”
I had a good laugh at that one and hoped I would hear more, but either he left the frequency or the band changed. I tried calling CQ for another 15 or 20 minutes, but to no avail.
I was really disappointed that I wasn’t able to make my first contact as a Canadian ham. I would really like to do so on 6-metres. It would be easy enough to do so on 2-metres or 440, or even on the nearby 6 metre repeater, but I would really like to do it the old fashioned way. 40-metre CW is not out of the question either!
Let's hope for more 6-metre openings!
DX Sherlock is an amazing program running on the web that tells you in real time how the various bands are performing. So when I checked it around 4:30 EST and saw all the connections indicated on the real time map, I got excited. The website also offers a service that sends an e-mail if there are openings to your particular grid square. Amazing!
I fired up the MFJ-9406 SSB transceiver, hooked up the antenna tuner feeding the miserable random wire I currently call an antenna, and began listening on and around 50.125 MHz. I couldn’t really hear anything at first, so I tuned up just a little bit and called CQ several times.
I never got anyone to respond to my CQ, but I did hear two distinct stations, one a “good ol’ boy” from somewhere in the American south and the other someone engaged in a normal QSO. Unfortunately I never heard a call sign, and neither station lasted long. The first guy from the South was apparently having a less than friendly conversation with a station I could not hear. But he came in loudly and clearly saying, “Are y’all a 6-metre EXPERT? ‘Cause I never met me no 6-metre EXPERT before!”
I had a good laugh at that one and hoped I would hear more, but either he left the frequency or the band changed. I tried calling CQ for another 15 or 20 minutes, but to no avail.
I was really disappointed that I wasn’t able to make my first contact as a Canadian ham. I would really like to do so on 6-metres. It would be easy enough to do so on 2-metres or 440, or even on the nearby 6 metre repeater, but I would really like to do it the old fashioned way. 40-metre CW is not out of the question either!
Let's hope for more 6-metre openings!