I'm not a big user of 6m but back in June 2013 I was on holiday in a cottage in Suffolk, England. I'd taken my FT-817, Z817 tuner and some wire antennas, vertical and four radials, which I was using on the ground floor with the vertical part up the staircase. I decided to see whether the tuner could match the 17m on 6m - and it could. Within a few minutes I'd worked Budapest on CW.?
Wait until sporadic E season and you'll be surprised.
On Mon, 30 Jan 2023 at 21:00, lbakely <lbakely@...> wrote:
I¡¯ve been a ham ¡°forever¡±, but I¡¯ve never done anything on 6 meters.? My FT-817 is the only radio I have with 6M capability, so I¡¯m eyeing it as a way to try out 6M.
For the past few weeks I¡¯ve been occasionally tuning around looking for CW or SSB signals between 50.0 ¨C 50.3.? Other than a beacon, I¡¯m not hearing anything.? I listen at various times during the day.? Maybe I¡¯m looking in the wrong places, or maybe the band is dead (where are we in the sunspot cycle?).
Anyway, question:? Is anyone using their FT-817 on 6M?? What frequencies are you using?? What modes?? Are you having any success, or is it just unreasonable to expect to work anything on 6M using QRP?
