16 Mar 2015

10m - single hop F2 only? Es season coming.

At the moment, it looks like all my 10m reports are from 1-hop F2 propagation e.g. 4X1RF and EA8/LA3JJ. Next month onwards we should see the start of the Es season with plentiful short skip on 10m and 6m into Europe, and occasionally much further. In previous years I have heard (and even rarely worked) some really choice DX with real QRP on 6m. My best 6m DX ever was a W on 6m CW when my ERP was about 1W. This was back in 2007.

This spring and summer I intend to run WSPR on 6m whenever I cannot be on SSB or CW. Last summer, the 6m WSPR activity was low, so I hope this season will be better. JT65 and JT9 are more popular but really need me to be in the shack. With WSPR I can monitor on another PC in a different room, or even when in the garden.

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