Once again I have encountered six meter magic. On Wednesday, February 18, I was reading (QST, of course) while listening on six meters when PY3PR started sending a loud and clear CQ. He responded to my call and we made a brief QSO, my first to Brazil on six meters. A couple of hours later, now February 19 UTC, the band completely lit up. First, it was a number of Florida stations followed by adding these stations to my log:
- PY2FN
- PY2HN
- PY2RN
- PY2OC
- ZP6CW
- CE2AWW
- ZP5SNA
- PY1ZV
- PY2MC
- XE3N
- LU5FF
The additional new countries were Paraguay and Chile. Argentina I’d put into the log on a previous TEP opening.
This morning checking Logbook of the World, I see that nearly all these stations have confirmed our contact, which brings me to 100 grids for VUCC on LoTW. Of course, I’ve actually worked another 50 grids but still collecting QSL cards outside LoTW.
For these contacts I was running 100 watts from an Elecraft K3 into a Par Electronics Stressed Moxon at about 25 feet. My next projects for the magic band are to replace my attic dipole with a six meter turnstile omnidirectional antenna and the moxon with a four-element quad. I also want to pick up the Elecraft PR-6 preamplifier.
This could get addictive. Oh wait, it already has me hooked.
