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Radio has been kinda slow here. No HF has been worked in a while, and not too many contacts since the big aurora in early August. I have however managed to work several new gridsquares on 6M. If you look at the map, you see the new ones I've worked. Thank you very much to all the people that activated these squares!

• OH9KL was worked July 31st in KP26 on JT6M.
• OH5LID was worked August 4th in KP45 on JT6M.
• OH5LID was worked August 5th in KP47 on JT6M.
• SM6CMU/2 was worked August 5th in JP95 on JT6M
• LA/SM6CMU was worked on August 7th in JP78 on JT6M
• OH5LID was worked on August 11th in KP51 on JT6M
• SM6CMU/2 was worked on August 11th in JP86 on JT6M
• EI9E/p was worked on August 12th in IO42 on JT6M
• LY/OH5LID was worked on August 15th in KO05 on JT6M
• YL/OH5LID was worked on August 17th in KO07 on JT6M
• LA6Q was worked on August 20th in JP30 on SSB

I did get another proof on August 11th that the 6M season still wasn't over. I noticed TY1KS being spotted further down in Europe. I turned the yagi and to my surprise, I could hear him. I could however not make myself heard. I think I copied him for around 15 minutes before he faded. Listen to the soundclip below.

Soundclip:

• TY1KS 6M CW

I heard the sad news this weekend that LA8YB Finn had past away after being ill for a long time. Finn turned 82 in July this year. Last time I saw and spoke to him, was during the Hammeeting back in April. I'm glad I got the chance to see his lifelong 2M project back in 2009. Finn had a 32 x 17el array on 2M. Read about it in my post here. My condolences to the family. RIP Finn.

I got these two confirmations last week. I knew VU4PB eventually would come on LoTW. I didn't expect UA2FL to be a new one on LoTW though. Those unexpected ones are always nice to get. 6 to go for my LoTW goal of 300. Other interesting confirmations lately has been 5Z4/UA4WHX, FP/VE9MY and R1MVA. Thanks once again to all LoTW users. Keep 'em coming.

What a nice surprise this was. VP6BR Jukka (OH2BR) was on Pitcairn back in 2000. He stayed there for 3 month celebrating his 40 year hamradio career. Jukka is the only station I have worked from Pitcairn and I worked him from 30M-10M. Thank you very much Jukka. That was #292 on LoTW. Only 8 more to go for 300. 

This was an aurora out of the ordinary. I knew there had been a cme on the sun, so one might say it was expected. I noticed a few OH stations were spotting aurora, but I couldn't hear anything here. After maybe 20 minutes, the aurora increased. Since all the LA/SM tv-transmitter are qrt, I watch 49750 +- for aurora signals. I started calling and got an answer fairly quickly. The aurora didn't seem that good, but signal strength on the stations I worked, increased after a little while. I I worked SM/OH/LA stations at first, then I tried a bit north-west and worked several GM stations. An EI station called in, and at that time, I knew the aurora was really good. I don't work EI stations often on aurora.

All of a sudden, YU2MMA spots me on aurora. That's kinda strange, since the nature of the aurora makes contacts to the south over 1000km extremely rare, if not impossible. This was over 1900km. I heard YU2MMA calling me and answered him. It was an aurora signal and we completed the contact. I worked a few more contacts and YU7EF called in. He wasn't too strong either. I was beaming around 40 degrees at the time. After our contact, I turned to around 315 degrees. YU7EF came back much stronger this time. I worked a few G stations and then YU1FE also called in on aurora. After 3 more contacts, YU1SV called me on aurora as well. This was quite exciting and very rare indeed. YU2MMA made a recording of me where you hear my aurora signal, and after our contact, an LA station calls me with pure tone.

The mechanism behind these 4 contacts with YU on aurora, was clearly sporadic-e from YU into the aurora.

Another contact worth mentioning was EI4DQ in IO51. This was a 1506km contact on aurora and one of the longest I have made.

This was clearly one of the better aurora openings I have ever experienced on 6M. I have had strong openings in the past, but the aurora went too far south for me, that I couldn't work it. I was happy that it didn't do it this time. I worked around 50 contacts in this opening with LA/SM/OH/SP/YL/LY/DL/PA/G/GM/EI/ES/OY and YU.

Soundclips:

• YU2MMA recording LA8AJA on 6M aurora
• LA8AJA recording YU2MMA on 6M aurora