What a week

 In the last week I missed two 6m openings to Japan and one to the USA. Did that matter?

50MHz contacts at GM4FVM 9 to 15 July 2024

I will leave you to judge that for yourselves.

While I missed several openings, I was present for three fairly good major ones plus several smaller ones.

On 10 July I worked N4TB and later VE9HF in what seemed like "one-offs". Then at 16:15 the band opened and I worked four W stations in 6 minutes.

On 11 July the 6m band opened to the west at 13:52 and I worked 14 North American stations in 32 minutes.

On 12 July the propagation favoured the east in the morning with me contacting JR7VHZ and five others between 08:12 and 08:20.

On the morning of 13 July I was still looking eastwards and netted EX8MEM and UN8GEQ. EX8MEM was a new DXCC and at 5432km quite a nice catch. UN8GEQ is good DX too, and further at 5541km.

By the 14th I was back on evening duty and 6m obliged by opening at 16:29. I contacted 15 North American stations in 29 minutes before an enforced tea break. After tea I fitted in four more before deciding that the Tour de France highlights was more important than radio. Returning as late as 19:53 I reached KP4AJ, KP4SX, PU4DEE and PY2XB. PU4DEE was the best DX of the week at 9790km. 

What type of propagation was PU4DEE? No idea. Too far for multihop Es? Wrong time of year for TEP? F-layer? I am beginning to think that multihop Es can do a lot more than I used to believe.

There was still time to work JA7WSZ on the 15th.

Apart from all that superb activity most of the time nothing much was happening. There were long periods of blank screen. Patience is a virtue and all that stuff. The statistics on the Log Analyser are perhaps a bit misleading. I reckon that my time actually working stations was about three hours at most. Even then I missed three good openings. 

I am not one for being on the bands calling CQ all the time. If that works for others, fine, but my methods are different. I do not call CQ constantly but I do call often. My "Watchdog" on 6m is set for three minutes. That is the length of time my CQ might last, and often it is shorter. I seem to do OK despite what I must miss.

My success on 50MHz is something I could never have imagined ten years ago. I am not doing much different from then, my power is now not much more than before (remember the 500W Gemini amp, now long gone?). My antennas have been 5 element for years. I have been using the same radio for eight years. True, I changed the coax a few years ago, but for some with a slightly lower specification.

It cannot be what I am doing. It has to be conditions, which have been so good I can hardly believe it.

57 contacts (50 of those were beyond 3000km), 41 squares, 11 DXCC, and all in a week on VHF.

Enough of this. Time to get operating again before it all disappears.

73 Jim

GM4FVM