A very long path

The 6m opening on October 12 has been already declared as “the best in a century” by some serious chasers down under. Probably not – but definitely on par with some amazing openings from March and April of this year.

The band opened very early in the morning, literally exploding in all directions: from British Columbia at North, to Florida at East, over the entire Caribbean, all the way south to Chile.

I had to pinch myself, triple checking the band switch, in total disbelief. The FT8 segment was completely covered in signals, many being decoded at +30, with each call yielding dozen of replies from the most exotic destinations. I’ve managed to log seven HI8 stations, six KP4 decent number of Americans, three Brazilian. When the dust finally settled, my DXCC total jumped from 47 to 55! The band remained open to the East until the early afternoon, when the action shifted to Asia. KG6, VR2, BV2, DU, XV9 and about twenty Chinese made their way through the monster Japanese wall. On Sunday, things went back to normal, but there was still more excitement: decent signals from the US Midwest and more South Americans.

It is important to note, that this time of the year, South Americans are coming on the ‘scatter’. The way to point your antenna is to the ionised ‘cloud’ which resides north-east from us, not directly south as one would expect. This is very weird, and feels completely unnatural. The moment you move your antenna even 10 degrees either way, the signals disappear. The scatter is often a ‘one way propagation’ and such signals are weak in strength.

On Sunday, around 8am local time, I started decoding a faint 7Q6M from Malawi coming over the long path. He steadily grew stronger to an amazing +11! The signal path is just crazy – it travels all over the Pacific, then all over the US, crossing the Atlantic ocean, over Canary Island, then across the Africa, all the way to Malawi. This is well over 25,000 kilometres!

He was strong enough for an arm chair phone contact. A true once in a lifetime experience.

Those who follow this newsletter are constantly reminded that the time to get on 6m is now. Cycle 25 is expected to peak sometime next year which means at least three more years of magic. Enough for 100 DXCC even with a modest setup.

By the way, if you are interested to find out who has the most DXCC countries confirmed in the world, here is a link to the ARRL rank list. There are 10 VK stations listed: http://www.arrl.org/system/dxcc/view/DXCC-6M-20240513-USLetter.pdf

DXCC 6 Meters – 13 May 2024