6 Meter Opening to Oceania — 2 New DXCC

Fabulous six meter opening to Oceania yesterday evening using WSJT-X’s FT8. There had been earlier openings during this winter Sporadic E / TEP season into the Pacific. I had seen a few people working Oceania including ZL and VK after Christmas. Plus, over the past couple of days locals here in North Texas were working ZL and VK with a few glimpses of Hawaii. But nothing heard on my setup.

E51WL North Cook Islands

Last night, as I was watching South American soccer, I started to see locals working E51WL in North Cook Islands, about 5,000 miles away. Then for the first time ever I started hearing him. So I started to call.

The early signals were pretty weak and he responded to others. Then I lost him for a bit. Finally I started copying his signal much stronger and lo and behold we completed the exchange quickly. Woo hoo — a new DXCC on 6 meters. Thank you Warwick, E51WL.

KH6CJJ and NH6Y

Then I started to see a few people working Hawaii. Tweaked the antenna a bit and eventually copied KH6U. After a bit of calling, he responded with a signal report but no more decodes. Quite some time later KH6CJJ started coming in strong. We made that QSO, which was followed closely by NH6Y in the log. I also heard KH6TU but no luck there.

This was another new DXCC on 6 meters. I heard Hawaii quite a few years ago on CW. The signal was whispering in here and I was pretty certain of the call sign, while also looking at the DX spots to try to confirm. But no QSO. So making these contacts was pretty satisfying.

These three QSOs rank right up there in my list of Top 10 Six Meter QSOs including ZL1RS on CW in 2014.

FT8 Operating Practices on 6 Meters

I don’t do too much HF operating. Sometimes I get on for a digital contest and this year for Field Day, but not much else. So I was somewhat appalled to see the operating practices. Part of that had to do with some very close stations nearly overwhelming my receiving setup — SDR Console with a RTL-SDR.

But even so, it appeared they were overdriving things to the extent that they covered the entire 3 or 4 kHz in my SDR display. Not only that but at least one station repeatedly called the DX on the wrong sequence. Then there was the time he called himself with a +17 report. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’m not even sure how you do that. Ingenious.

Of course, I saw some of this during last year’s Sporadic E season into Europe. The good news there was the DX Window of 50.323 and the sending protocol that helped with the QRM. We’ll need to make that happen to other parts of the world as well.

Get On Six Meters and Have Fun

I’m on a mission to get more people on six meters. It is such a blast and is pretty simple to do. After my experience last night I’m buoyed with refreshed enthusiasm, even though some operating practices leave a lot to be desired.

But I feel that’s the way of “amateur” radio. Get on the air. Have some fun. Learn new things. And, improve your operating practices and your station while you’re at it.

Good luck and have fun.