Winter is here!

While we are still a month to winter, radio winter has already arrived.

If you are running a modest station, then for you, the bands are open during the daylight hours, and are dead after an hour or two post sunset. Which is pretty much how it is – and as to be expected.

Practically, this is the season where retirees are having all the fun. And it will stay this way until mid August.

There is no doubt that a small but active group of 50 chasers competing for the prestigious title “DXer of the Year” are doing it tough. Finding ‘new ones’ has become incredibly difficult. We tune and listen, monitor and watch, but not snatching a new contact; it feels we’ve worked them all! The only joy comes from chasing DXpeditions. And May 2024 is kind of dry: the only highlights being 3G0YA from Easter Island,  A52P and A52CI from Bhutan and OJ0T Market reef. The big one we are all waiting for: FT4GL, expected to hit the waves on May 24. Of course, Glorioso is going to be total madness! It is ranked 7 on the most wanted list so pileups are gong to be thick and wide. Unlike the rest of us, VK6 are going to have it easy. Not jealous, just saying.

And what to say about the magic of the magic band during the month of April? What a firework of records. The 6m band was open to Japan every day, with no exception, and almost every day to North and Central America. There were at least a dozen openings to Brazil and Argentina. If you’ve missed it, well, make sure not to miss the next season. We are hopeful that 6m will open to Europe with the same intensity in June. Get your 6m beam up!