Let's talk about 6m FM

[k9wkj]

was talking on our semi local 6m machine today with a couple guys in the area
using my Maratrac in my van (gotta love 110 watts and great moto audio)
i run a Austin Spectrum 42-50mhz shortened quarter wave that i pulled the loading out of to get it up to 6m (its a Moto branded antenna)
i keep pushin and pulling guys to get their stuff on the air, this 2m repeater stuff is BORING!

 

[prcguy]

I've always enjoyed 6m SSB, especially using military manpack rigs and I used to have a weekly sched where I hiked to a local park with my 20w manpack and talked to a friend 60mi away on his military manpack. Unfortunately my friend moved and my 6m time and associated exercise has dwindled.

As for coverage from a handheld, I've had great success from local hilltops using a couple of watts and a 3ft loaded antenna getting 60-75mi simplex and one contact was well over 100mi. And this is in AM mode! We have a weekly 6m AM net in So Cal and sometimes its a real eye opener on how far you can go on 6m.

There is also a new 6m repeater in So Cal on Catalina Island about 26mi offshore. Just last week I was using a 5w military handheld with a very lossy antenna about 20" long and was full quieting into the repeater while hiking along the mainland coast. So it is possible to use handhelds on 6m at reasonable distance.
prcguy

 

[SCPD]

Rethinking my dour assessment of Six, I have to modify my comments a bit. I forgot that I am writing this in a time of minimal solar activity, for when (if??... ) the sunspots return, all my gloom and doom flies out the window. Anyone who been on Six during F-skip knows just what the band is capable of- and how suddenly popular it becomes.
(Smiling in recollection) <--- A few years ago I had a hand at trying to get the ionosphere to cooperate, though I say that very tongue-in-cheek . Anyone familar with HIPAS ? *
.
So I am sorry if I was sticking a fork into six metre's, and calling it 'done'- remembering a favorite cliche'd saying from childhood....."save your Confederate money boys, for the South (six) will rise again."
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.............................................CF
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*RIP.... 2007

 

[nd5y]

Anyone who been on Six during F-skip knows just what the band is capable of- and how suddenly popular it becomes.

Back in 2000-2001 I had a HF/6 m radio and non-resonant wire antenna in the attic. This was at the solar cycle peak. My antenna was useless for local 6 meter work (and not very good on HF either) but a few times i caught 6 meter F layer openings and it sounded like 20 meters during a contest. Two times 6 meters was opened to Europe and I worked several Europeans with only 5 or 10 watts.

 

[AC2OY]

Back in 2000-2001 I had a HF/6 m radio and non-resonant wire antenna in the attic. This was at the solar cycle peak. My antenna was useless for local 6 meter work (and not very good on HF either) but a few times i caught 6 meter F layer openings and it sounded like 20 meters during a contest. Two times 6 meters was opened to Europe and I worked several Europeans with only 5 or 10 watts.

That's very cool I hope that happens for me someday.

 

[bill4long]

6m is generally dead as nails, except for any local repeaters, which will be vertically polarized, and probably not used much if at all.

However, during June and July, E skip is common. In my area, midwest, this year (2016) we had four such E clouds that opened up 6m and 10m very nicely, approximately 600 miles diameter range. I made several USB and JT-65 (digital) mode contacts and it was quite enjoyable. Is it worth putting up a resonant antenna? That's up to you. I haven't done it. I simply load up my 40m dipole with the tuner. Works just fine for me.

Rest of the year, dead as nails.

Hope that helps.

 

[prc117f]

Another band that will probably get taken.

 

[k9wkj]

Rest of the year, dead as nails.

not so fast there QwikStraw, we get a nice Es opening every year from around Xmas till just after New Years time
and this summers last Es was pretty good here for me in EN44
poked out 1200 miles to a couple Canadian stations in EN35 and 65 in the end of july and start of August as well as hearing everywhere else in country
i was running 10 watts or so into a inverted inverted V (so a V ) at 20ft next to the steel building i live in

and here are the 6m spots on MSK144 from 18:00 to 19:00UT today 11/12/16
(edit: thats a Ms mode but is it Ms ?)

the band is doing something everyday

 

[SCPD]

Hi PRC117
.
I wouldn't worry too much about Six- no one wants it- neither commercial or government. 30 to 70, 75 to FM is a waste land- for all the reasons already mentioned... antenna lengths, skip interference (my "Somali Pirates" ) ... fill in the blanks... Its been bypassed years ago.... great for ham radio, but of no practical value save for a few very special users. My work uses low band, but we are a very Quixotic group..... no one ever bothers us except the infrequent foreign skip. Actually, it would be nice some day to see another ham segment in the 30-50 or 54-70Mhz's.... but don't hold your breathe.....
.
........................................CF

 

[prc117f]

Hi PRC117
.
I wouldn't worry too much about Six- no one wants it- neither commercial or government. 30 to 70, 75 to FM is a waste land- for all the reasons already mentioned... antenna lengths, skip interference (my "Somali Pirates" ) ... fill in the blanks... Its been bypassed years ago.... great for ham radio, but of no practical value save for a few very special users. My work uses low band, but we are a very Quixotic group..... no one ever bothers us except the infrequent foreign skip. Actually, it would be nice some day to see another ham segment in the 30-50 or 54-70Mhz's.... but don't hold your breathe.....
.
........................................CF

yeah your right about that. It is a pretty quiet band all across from 30-50.

 

[bill4long]

Another band that will probably get taken.

Doubtful. The band isn't a hot prospect for any other interests.

 

[bill4long]

the band is doing something everyday

Thanks for the info. Maybe if I had a decent antenna I could do more with it.

 

[SCPD]

Hey Bill4 ! (and others)
.
Six isn't called the Magic Band for nothing- during the optimum periods of a cooperative ionosphere, the saying has always been- "you can work the world on 6 with a piece of wet string (for an antenna)"
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As one who has been, quite literally, immersed in Six since the day she drew her first breathe- I can a-test to the Magic of the band. My suggestion- like Mass-Man said: dedicate a frequency to listen to- "guard' it (I like that term)- 125 if you're into SSB, 40 if its AM (that used to be 'the' AM frequency) or 525 if its FM... and as for an antenna?... very simple works fine, if its skip or local stuff you are after.... save those big antennas for the serious tropo/moonbounce/meteor guys- you will talk to plenty of stations with a simple quarter wave vertical and 10 watts - provided the band is 'open'... if not?... then maybe your neighbor 20 miles away-- if you have a 6 metre ham neighbor that close--otherwise, what does it matter ? (I am excluding you kilowatt's-to-stack'd 8 element'rs at 100'-- you know how ridiculous a misely 20 miles sounds... )
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Personally, from my home in Colorado I have an old ICOM 575. Its a 10 watts all-mode XCVR to an Ringo 5/8 wave at 15 feet, fed with Belden something-or-other (RG11 equivalent-- yes you read that right- a 72 Ohm cable-- its what we had at the time, years ago- 1.2:1 SWR all the same---and only 15 feet high; because at a +9900 foot elevation I don't want Zeus to send one of his lightning bolts down it ) - I get 'home' infrequently now, it seems- and turn that radio on even less, but it is a lot of fun to occasionally talk summer skip to the K6's.
Several years ago my friend Ana and I operated it during a spring VHF contest-- we 'worked' well over 100 stations- the band was 'hot'--opening in rotation, according to the time of day-- from the entire west coast, to everything either side of the Mississippi River- up into Canada, and deep into Mexico and the Caribbean - Draw a circle around us and we covered 600-1100 mile radius-- on 10 watts-- and we 'landed' +90% of the stations the first time we/they called them/us.. ( YL voices may have help'd... )
.
I got a little long wind'd into the subject -- sorry,-- but I am a firm believer that anecdotal stuff is the best way to encourage an interest.... and, oh am I full of radio anecdotes!
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OK, a Summary?
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The nice thing about Six, to me, that just about anything you do, if the ionospheric gods are smiling, will work just fine......you have to be there, though, to appreciate it............
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........................................CF

 

[k9wkj]

setup a simple antenna and grab a old scanner set it to 52.525 squeeze the squelch closed
and wait for it to start squawking
heck setup one on 29.6 and one on 6m, could run them off the same antenna fed with tv coax (im cheap and easy)

i truly am a dullard

its a scanner set it to scan those 2 frequencies

can somebody please reach around back and turn on my brain !!!

 

[jbantennaman]

So let me digress and give you some feedback about some actual 6 meter projects. Back years ago, there were some fine radios called Motorola Micor base stations. If you found one in the high split, they could be moved onto 6 meters with some effort. Change a few caps, retune the receiver and change the turns on the PA output coils to work on 6 meters.

I did notice the repeater audio had a good trend toward the highs and few lows. Looked around and changed a couple of the audio coupling caps to 1.0 mfd. That took care of the missing lows and the audio now sounded more normal.

For antennas, we used the folded dipole antennas that were shortened to work on 6 meters. There is a couple of tech documents on the Internet to show you how to modify the antennas. Work great when your done. You just need to knock on the doors of the radio shops to find some of those low band folded dipoles that were used by paging companies and some of the old public safety agencies on low band.

Back about 15 years ago, there was a number of 6 meter repeaters that were active all over the place. even up in Canada. I use to be able to drive over the Causeway bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. that bridge is 24 miles long coming out of Metairie, Louisiana. Would have some good conversations with Canadian stations on my way home almost every day during the summer.

Problem is there are not many active 6 meter repeaters active today. Not sure why they have gone by the wayside. But the activity is just not there anymore. It's a great band that provides some interesting propagation.

I have found that the Motorola Syntor X9000 low band radio works very well on 6 meters with no work at all. It takes more effort to program the radio that any work you have to do with the radio. It uses the same control head that the Spectra radios use. The control cables and power cables are a little scarce, but they can be obtained.

Programming the Syntor X9000 radio is not that hard, but it does take some effort. You do need to make a spread sheet to keep track of the channels (modes) to keep a fixed scan list. Long story between the operator selectable scan and the fixed scan lists. The big thing to remember is the operator scan list goes away when you power down the radio.

Anyway, I have been on my soap box long enough. Time for someone else to chime in.

Jim

Micor - don't you mean MY CHORE..
Anyone that had to install one in an AMBulance will tell you the control head cable was A CHORE to splice.

Spectra is the way to go.....

The reason why 6 meters lost favor - probably because someone came along and told NEW HAMS - you don't have to own an actual radio / or put up an antenna - to be a REAL HAM!
When the world went to 2 meters FM, 6 meters lost out because to do it right you need a good antenna to work 6 meters - something you aren't going to do with a 2 watt handheld and a rubber duck antenna.

 

[902]

That's very cool I hope that happens for me someday.

In 1980, I remember speaking with someone on 2 meters who went out the parking lot in North Bergen to have lunch, pulled up the whip antenna on his Icom IC-502 portable, and was working California using the whip antenna from it to speak with hams in California.

6 meters was wildly popular then, and you could tell the band was about to open by listening to the skip starting to come in - first on 33 MHz fire channels, then 35 MHz paging, then CHP and 43 MHz paging, then 46 MHz fire channels, and finally up to 6 meters. I had a Bearcat 210 set up just like that and could hear various fire departments from across the country coming in and the MUF rising to 6 meters.

I'm hoping that 6 meters will still be popular enough to have good activity for the next solar cycle. I started with 6 meter AM back in the late 70s/early 80s and wanted so bad to buy an IC-551D back then, but couldn't afford it. The best I ever did was from NJ in 1988. I found a 7 element homebrew yagi at a hamfest, then bought a Yaesu FT-620B which was a little deaf. I put an Ameco preamplifier on it (and later a GaAs FET preamp with a step attenuator), and eventually found a Clegg Apollo 6 400 W amplifier! I was getting into Europe, the Caribbean, and all kinds of western grid squares at the time. It was wild.

My station for 6 right now is an IC-751A with a Down East Microwave transverter, a "brick" amplifier, and a 3 element M2 antenna. After I moved, I though it would scream over the water to the Caribbean, but I don't hear any activity unless there's a contest.

One of the local guys here uses WSJT and is a "ping jockey" for meteor burst and EME. I can't seem to get the hang of that. There is also an etiquette for it.

 

[902]

Micor - don't you mean MY CHORE..
Anyone that had to install one in an AMBulance will tell you the control head cable was A CHORE to splice.

Spectra is the way to go.....

The reason why 6 meters lost favor - probably because someone came along and told NEW HAMS - you don't have to own an actual radio / or put up an antenna - to be a REAL HAM!
When the world went to 2 meters FM, 6 meters lost out because to do it right you need a good antenna to work 6 meters - something you aren't going to do with a 2 watt handheld and a rubber duck antenna.

They didn't make a low band Spectra, and the original Spectra radios circa 1990 were deliberately designed to not work in the amateur bands. It wasn't until later that the federal users began to demand 136 - 174 and 406 - 470 MHz performance that those ranges came native to the radios.

My friend used to work all over with an MT500 on 52.525. When the band is open, the band is open. Even SSB with an IC-502 - 3 watts into a whip, all powered by C-cells.

I loved working on low band Micors on the bench. They were straightforward.

My very first exposure was an RCL LD "waffle iron" radio in like 1978.

In 1988, Pennsylvania DOT (PennDOT) dumped a bunch of 4 channel RCA-1000 mobiles and a bunch of upright base stations for Syntor X mobiles and probably Micor bases. A friend and I took my Blazer from Bergen County, NJ to Harrisburg, PA, loaded up with maybe 20 mobiles and 6 foot rack base station. I promptly ordered 52.525 crystals and went to work modifying the transmitter to output on frequency. Those radios were very narrow and did not do well with a repeater split for TX and the simplex TX frequency. But I put a ball-and-spring antenna on the Blazer and it worked great. I had lots of local QSOs on 525 with it.

After a while, I changed vehicles to a newer Blazer and put a 4 channel 60W Regency in it with W2GEZ's (and later WB2MAZ's) Garden State Parkway repeater. In the days before all this connectivity, it was possible for a guy to disappear going "down the shore" in NJ and STILL keep in touch with unfortunate friends who were stuck in North Jersey while he played around in Seaside, LBI, or Cape May. That changed to a Syntor-X after a while, and then to an X-9000. Hey Michael, is that repeater even still up anymore?

I even built a TenTec 6 meter mobile (stay away from them!). It would have been nifty had it worked, but the power level was too low (they must've been afraid people would convert them to CB radios), and I also had an early Alinco 6 meter mobile (also too weak for serious local mobiling). In the days after, I upgraded to 100 W Maratracs. They worked well.

These days, I have a Kenwood TK-6110-2 high split mobile that I hex-edited to get to 52.525. Lots of instructions out there on how to do it if you search (yeah, I shoulda wrote it down...). I've driven across the country and haven't heard a soul on 52.525 or 146.52.

 

[k9wkj]

I even built a TenTec 6 meter mobile (stay away from them!)

ive worked 28 countries with a ten-tec transverter that puts out like 10 watts

I upgraded to 100 W Maratracs. They worked well.

was yelling on my Maratrac with the C9 head (with squelch knob) this morning on the way to and back from the range...... didnt hear anybody but the repeater talking back to me

These days, I have a Kenwood TK-6110-2.

i have a tk-6110-1 that i got on 6m okay (i think its a bit deaf yet) but i cant get it to play on 10m like other folks have

are you me??

 

[SCPD]

Ah !, Neat- the topic swings to the exotic... Moon Bounce, meteors... and one not yet mentioned- I'll introduce- Aurora....
.
Of the three, Moon Bounce, or EME, fascinates me the most. Truly, if you are the ham that can assemble and master a station capable of communicating via EME on 50Mhz you are in a League Unique... I stand with bow'd head in your presence. At amateur power levels, things have to be so cutting edge techy that its borders on the obsessive- but then I should not talk.
.
In university days I had the opportunity to operate a government station that boasted a lot (!) more power output than ham radio-- high power into a large dish... this was not on low band vhf (and to this topic, 50Mhz,) but in the near microwaves... During off-hours, unrelated to what we were supposed to be doing with that station, we students would steer the dish at the moon and 'ping it' ('kerchunk" it?-- smiling; after all, the moon is a repeater, albeit a huge passive one.) The +2 second round trip delay was haunting. No one doubts the speed of light, and in our terrestrial environment we just assume everything is instantaneous-- to this day, this remains for me,- the most poignant example in physics of light speed.
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We had the capability of modulating our beam with analog voice. The return signals sounded very eerie-- for consider that big round reflector that returns them.... the difference in distance between the lunar poles and its equator induce a distortion in the completed signal's path.... echoey voices return, delayed by seconds, coming from outer space. (Now visualize a small group of grad students with their cylinder-of-helium-of- a-radio station, making like the Munchkins singing 'Follow the yellow brick road' in the Wizard of Oz.... your tax dollars hard at work!)
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I admire anyone who will devote their energy's and resources to their hobby to achieve something like this on Six..... Its what makes ham radio very special.
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I have some more about Six, aurora and meteors, but later ....
'
..................................CF

 

[902]

ive worked 28 countries with a ten-tec transverter that puts out like 10 watts

was yelling on my Maratrac with the C9 head (with squelch knob) this morning on the way to and back from the range...... didnt hear anybody but the repeater talking back to me

i have a tk-6110-1 that i got on 6m okay (i think its a bit deaf yet) but i cant get it to play on 10m like other folks have

are you me??

In my view, at least, the TenTec 1260 is a moneywaster. I know people who swear by TenTec and I see their other stuff is really good, especially for CW ops, but that particular item (okay, their regen receiver, too) were "buggy." I built and use the DEMI 6 meter transverter. It's very nice. But now I hang a Mirage brick on it.

Never had a Maratrac with the squelch knob. I've seen them mostly in Red Cross vehicles, but mine were clamshell heads. I like the very simple stuff because I have 4 drivers, each hams, each with different skills. None of us (including me) wants to figure out who's on what frequency, so it's either channel numbers or an alpha display. I did have an A9 head for the X-9000, but that's glitched up because of the siren that was hooked up to it. Too much junk in the trunk for newer vehicles.

I've got a few channels in the Kenwood. 525, a "private" simplex channel, the Parkway repeater if I ever find myself in my home state of NJ again, a 43 MHz business channel, and some fire channels, really. I do have 29.6 programmed, but don't think the sensitivity is very good there. My IFR was showing about 0.35 uV for 12 dB SINAD for 525. Not the best, but not terrible, either. I usually have a 33 MHz antenna and a 52.525 MHz antenna I toss in the trunk to fit on the NMO mount. My old fire department used to be on 33.86 and I guess those frequencies imprinted on me at a young age. I still love to monitor them... even if 99.99% of the time I hear absolutely nothing from where I currently live. It's a big treat when I do hear something. The 33 MHz channels come alive as I drive through the Northeast, between Ohio to Mass. Once upon a time, you could program a scanner with all the 33 and 46 MHz channels and get just about every Pennsylvania county fire dispatch on them. No more, though.

Am I you? Woe! Maybe! I need to look at the nameplate outside my office!