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[vk3six]

Time to get sorted.
Seperate the men from the boys.
Task one for the summer.

Join the ranks of the exclusive 6.
VK2QF
VK3OT
VK3LK (4BLK)
VK5NC
PY5CC
CT1EEB.

WAC plus 1.

All have worked and confirmed the 7 continents of the world on the 6M band.
North America Asia and Africa yet to bridge the gap.
Only Europe, Soutb America and Oceania have so far made the grade.
6 ops out of 6000 world wide.
Only VK1,2,3,5,7 may have worked VK0 Antarctic Continent. Unsure about VK6.
During this cycle lull the ice would be a soda in the summer Es as it is around 4500km from mainland Australia.
Most bases are manned.
Many have 6M radios.
Why not mentor an ANARE Expeditioner this summer.
Work the ICE on the 6M band.
No small task.
Hell of a buzz when you do ( not from the AU )

[VK4GHZ]

...Join the ranks of the exclusive 6.
VK2QF
VK3OT
VK3LK (4BLK)
VK5NC
PY5CC
CT1EEB.

WAC plus 1.

Ummm, 6?
You should make that 7.

I have worked all 6 mainstream continents from VK, as well as Antarctica.
31/1/95 09:53 VK0IX

[VK4CZ]

Tell me if I'm imagining it, but most of the op's listed above had the ability to be by the radio at appropriate times.... those of us still 'locked' into the 50 - 60 hour working week just don't have a chance

[VK7HDX]

Quote..".separate the men from the boys"
What are you trying to say?

Karl

[VK4WDM]

Hi All - slightly off topic but food for thought.

Interesting to note that the VK0IX contact was on a Vee antenna. This should remind us that yagis are not the only antenna that work on 6m.

I visited a a ham in the USA a few years ago that used four vee beams on 6m (pointing in different directions) and was getting amazing results - in his opinion, almost as good as his 7 element yagi! I am not sure how long the vee beams were, but I think he used the same ones from 160 to 6m.

During my military op days we used a stack of four terminated rhombics on a 33MHZ (or thereabouts) point to point to point link and had the strongest signal on the network. I would like to aim a similar antenna at Europe in the coming cycle and see what happens?

73

Wayne VK4WDM

[ZL1RS]

almost as good as his 7 element yagi!

... that probably says a lot about how good his yagi is ... or isn't

[VK4WDM]

Re vee beams on 6m. The W had an impressive list of dx in his log including Africa and Australia.

We need to remember that a vee beam 8 wavelenghts long has a gain of about 12db. If the vee was cut for 160m there is going to be a hell of a lot of gain on 6m.

As I said in my post, wire antennas: vees, rhombics, even windoms, were commonly used in military coms for the low band VHF range because they were very easy to erect and harder to spot than a yagi.

73

Wayne

[ZL1RS]

Sure, there can be a lot of gain at VHF in "long wire" antennas in certain directions when you include the ground reflection into the gain figure. Wire antennas have their place at VHF as well as HF and can be used to good effect. Some of the biggest signals I saw via 2M EME were on a rhombic I had up at one stage. It was 20WL per leg (which isn't very long, just over 40M per leg), 6M high, and pointed at moonrise. CW EME signals were pushing the bar graph S-Meter up to S2 ... with just a crummy MRF901 preamp on the front of my FT480R (that will give you an idea how many DECADES ago that was However, it was a bit of a bugga to rotate ...

[vk3six]

Tell me if I'm imagining it, but most of the op's listed above had the ability to be by the radio at appropriate times.... those of us still 'locked' into the 50 - 60 hour working week just don't have a chance

The VK0AQ QSO was at 1145 UTC- 1215 UTC at night, and it had nothing to do with being home all day.
I admit to working at home from a workshop CY21 in 1989-1991 but that came to an abrupt halt in Feb 1992.
During the period 1992-1998 I was away at uni to become teacher qualified before going offshore in 1997 to KL7 for 14 months.
As to where the spare time came from to work ham radio and 6M dx from home, between 1992 and 2003 all I can say is "what spare time.
Not to mention giving up any personal time between 1979 and 2003 to activate all those countries for the sole benefit of other 6M dxers.

[vk3six]

However, it was a bit of a bugga to rotate ...

And therein lies the Achilles heal.
I had a vee beam up from Learmonth in 1974 and heard 3D2 and C21.
Had a small yagi up in 1988 and got heard in Europe.
Came to the conclussion I did not have the luxury of time so put up a known high gain yagi and turned the world on its ear from VK3 at least.
Including the world first VK0 and 6M eme contacts.
No one with a rhombic (like VK3ATN) had succeeded ever in a 6M EME qso.
I understand a ZL did and holds the 6M eme record for that qso.
Most of the 6M eme success has to go to the huge arrays at the far end by W6JKV and K6QXY.
And the 1000 watts aerial power of eme permit CW at this end.

I remember the despair of the ZL3 who missed out on the VK0.
I don't like to hear of near misses like that.
I personally would not now experiment with different antenna designs for the coming cycle.
Anything less than 9 elements at this latitude is waste of time for the long haul dx, given I am already at my natural boundary
(The Atlantic Seaboard) in both directions 16,800 and 16,750 KM.
Only gain and rotational directivity will get me past the 17000 km barrier short path.
I need to be able to seek out the ionospheric hot spots.
And you can't easily do that with fixed wire arrays no matter how much gain.