DX IS!

When 6 metre band is open – it is open. Last year I had heaps of fun working into Japan and North America running 100W into a wire vertical suspended off a tree. The 160m wire worked surprisingly well too. However the 5 el YU7EF yagi erected in January was a game changer. I’ve managed to get into the logbooks of a good number of south Americans and Caribbeans. The highlight was KL7HBK in Alaska, 7Q6M from Malawi as well as a dozen from the US east coast.

But I couldn’t wait for F2 season and European openings. With 6m band it is all about location – in early May, I could see stations 2,000km north of me making it occasionally to Europe. By June, when the season is expected to peak, even VK4s were working the EU almost daily. But I had no luck. “It will happen in July ” experts told me, so I’ve hung around 50.513 patiently. The season came and went without a single decoding.

It became obvious that from Norfolk island, making it to Europe is going to be a serious challenge. Not enough north, too much east. I was contemplating erecting a stack of two yagi antennas, on a longer boom, while accepting the harsh reality; if the band ever opens there will be no pileups, at best, I would probably work only a handful of the largest European stations. Fair enough.

Yesterday, around 5 in the afternoon, all of the sudden, a yellow square popped up on my decoding window. A new DXCC or just a false alert? And there it was: Z32ZM from Macedonia! My friend Mome calling FK8HM. I couldn’t believe my eyes – he was -06! I put out a CQ, and next sequence, we exchanged reports, effortlessly. Then YO7 from Romania popped up. The band opened to Europe, for the first time ever!

The opening lasted an hour or so. I’ve worked five Italian stations as well as one Austrian. Heard 4O6 from Montenegro. All that through the thick wall of Japanese stations calling XU7 and XW4.

As I type this my heart is still racing. The magic happened! Out of all days, on a day when A index hit 70 the highest level of disturbance of the year.

I was a “new one” for my friend Mome, his DXCC number 237 on 6m band, first Norfolk after 30 years of chasing. As Hugh Cassidy use to say: DX IS!