6m AM and 2m AM Activity

[Peter A Markavage]

The 6 meter openings you refer to actually started mid October and lasted
to about the second week in January. In NJ the band was open almost every
day. In the mornings to Europe and points East and by noon swung around
to the West Coast and Hawaii. Later in the afternoon, it swung up to the
Northwest for Alaska and Northwest Territories of Canada. Sometimes there
was overlap in areas that popped in. Nothing like telling a CA station to
stand by while you work a Denmark station on 6 meters. During this time
frame mentioned above, with an Icom IC-706 MK IIG and a 7 element beam, I
worked 49 states and 93 countries all on SSB. Also worked a number of
stations on AM all across the country (even checked in twice to an AM net
in CA) and also worked several AM stations in Europe. This anomaly was
attributed to a second peak in the sunspot cycle. I don't expect to see
any of this kind of activity for several more years. We haven't yet
reached sunspot minimum according to the "experts".

There's always going to be some type of opening on 6 meters, somewhere,
some time, but unless you get a lot of good F2 ionization (which are
attributed to an active and consistent high sunspot numbers), great and
long duration multi-hop openings can only be dreamed about for several
more years.

But, it's better to the rigs ready before all this happens rather than
waiting until they arrive.

Pete, wa2cwa

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