Take a look at this video. Quite an amazing signal for eme. This video reminds me of LA8AV Egil's 23CM setup. I visited him once during an eme contest in 2006. I remember he worked LX1DB on CW and then LX1DB asked Egil to go on SSB too. Signals were amazing, but no wonder when LX1DB runs a 10M dish. I added pictures of Egil's old eme setup under photoalbums. Click here to take a look.

For those of you who doesn’t know what GJTracker is, it’s a handy program for those running eme. The moon can be tracked in real-time, or you can check for common moon with the stations you are trying to work.

Get the program here: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj/tracker.htm

When I came home from work on Monday, 6M was active with aurora. I got on quickly and the first station was SM200PAX, this time on aurora. A few minutes later, I worked LA3ANA in JP53 for a new square. I also worked several OH and SM stations and also one ES station called me. I tried to get LA7DFA in JP33 in the log, but he didn’t have aurora at the time he was qrv.

Wednesday morning I noticed aurora when I woke up. LA7DFA was cq’ing and this time I got him. I’ve been hunting JP33 for a long time. The signals this morning was very strong. I called cq and got called be several OH stations. One was OH7UE in KP52, which was a new grid. This brings my total grids on 6M to 566. The aurora was still active when I had to live for work. When I got home, Mick W1JJ was running on eme. When the moon got down to about 15 degrees, I called him. After a few passes I noticed he called me back, and the qso was quickly finished after that. Mick was quite strong with -16. That was my second eme qso with the 6m7jhv yagi.

On Monday, I uploaded my log to LoTW. I got K8MFO, ZC4LI and JM1KNQ confirmed, all worked during the weekend. Later JA5BGA uploaded his log too. All qsoes on 6M. Keep the confirmations coming!

Soundclips:

• 6M CW aurora July 20th – SM200PAX, SM2A, OH3SR, LA3ANA, OH7PI
• 6M CW aurora July 22nd – LA7DFA, OH7RJ

On Friday after work, I noticed EU working lots of USA again. I turned the yagi and checked. The noise was gone but no signals. After listening for a while, suddenly WZ8D popped up. I gave him a call and logged him quickly. Nothing else was heard, so I decided to give a few calls. K8MFO answered my cq, and that was it. Nobody else. WZ8D was still in and stayed in for a few hours. I checked the band again later that evening, and suddenly heard AC4TO, so I gave him a call. I once again tried a few cq’s and were answered by K4MM. After the qso, I continued to call with no luck. I must say this opening was quite spotty.

Saturday didn’t produce any dx at all. I heard some europeans, but nothing I bothered to call. Later in the evening, I noticed Lance W7GJ was working EME. I checked my moon and it was setting, so I turned the yagi and started listening. I had some traces at around 13 degrees, but no decode. At around 7 degrees I got a cq from Lance. I started calling, but no traces until about 26 minutes later. I got the report from Lance and we quickly finished. After our qso, I had several good traces from Lance, and he peaked -15. I had his signal in until the moon went down behind a hill at around 2.5 degrees. Finally I got to test my 6m7jhv for eme work. As it turns out, GM4WJA got my signals via the moon as well. He uses a 7 element yagi, so it seems that I may be able to work single yagi stations via the moon. What an exciting evening. 

When I got up on Sunday, I noticed ZC4LI spotted. I connected the gear and started listening. I heard CN and EA, but no ZC4. I parked the radio on ZC4LI’s qrg and started writing this post. Suddenly he came out of nowhere. After a few calls, I got him for a new one. That makes #118 on 6M. Finally I have ZC4 in the log. I have several 5B4′s, but ZC4 has been quite difficult. Signals were up and down a lot, but he peaked S9 here.

I thought that was it today, but I had to edit this post for the second time I heard F8DBF calling for JA’s. I couldn’t hear anything. Luckily my noise was gone today and I turned the yagi. No JA’s were heard, but since the path from F to JA are over my head, I went to 50104 and called cq dx. I called for a few minutes then suddenly JI2EVL showed up. My heart was pounding quite fast when the first JA was logged. I’ve never worked JA until today. That makes #119 on 6M. Several other stations followed and total number of JA’s worked was 23. The opening seemed to last around 40 minutes and I worked 8 JA grids. Earlier this week, I almost thought the 6M season was over. This weekend surely proved otherwise.

Soundclips:

• 3A2MD 6M CW – I heard the cq, called, then gone
• K4MM 6M CW – Weak but workable
• WZ8D 6M CW – Spotlight propagation
• ZC4LI 6M CW – #118 on 6M
• JI2EVL 6M CW – My 1st JA on 6M, #119 on 6M

The station lies at Finn’s cabin, in the middle of nowhere. There are no regular roads going there, so we parked on a sideroad. We walked for about 15 minutes till we reached the cabin. The antennas can’t be seen until you reach the cabin. As the antennas emerged, we just stood there and gazed. The one thing that came to my mind was; how did he manage to get everything here and build it up? The giant 2M antennas consists of 32 17 element 2M5WL antennas stacked together providing a theoretically gain around 29.5dBd. The losses in the system are only 0.5dB and the feed coax to the entire system is thicker than my arm. This 2M EME array is one of the worlds biggest.

Finn started this project back in 1986, when he bought the cabin. Transporting the material to the cabin, was done with a little tractor. He took a break for a few years around 2000, where he mostly worked 160M. The system was finished a couple of years ago and Finn can hear his own echo with as little as 10W. If you think Finn only works on 2M, you are wrong. About 100M away, he has a tower with a TH6 antenna up at 22M. He also has 3 inv-l antennas for 160M and beverage listening antennas. 

On the wall in his shack he has 2M diplomas for WAC (Worked all Continents) and WAS (Worked all States). Finn currently has about 85 countries worked on 2M. Working new countries are slow with only 6 new ones the last 2 years. We also asked him if he was thinking about going digital, but the answer was no. "I don’t need to go digital when I can work them on CW with my setup".

A lot of pictures were taken, but getting a good shot of the antennas aren’t easy. You can’t get far enough away to get a good shot. The forest is too close to the antennas. I have uploaded all the pictures I have. They can be seen here. As I get pictures from the others who joined, I will upload them as well.

A big thank you goes out to Finn for his hospitality. Oh, almost forgot, Finn had his 80th birthday last weekend, so we gave him a big cognac bottle as a birthday gift. Happy birthday Finn!