Does anyone actually use 6 meters?

[AK9R]

Each year, the Purdue Outing Club hosts a 2-day orienteering event in state or national forests in Southern Indiana. Teams are given a list of checkpoints that they have to visit, while hiking through the forest, and all they can use for navigation is a topo map, compass, rulers, and pedometer. No cell phones, no GPS receivers. The clock starts at 10:00am Saturday and teams have until 10:00am Monday to finish.

Amateur radio supports the event by providing communications between start/finish and the "fire/water" stations where teams can warm up and fill their water bottles. Oh, did I say that this event is always held on Martin Luther King Day in January? I've seen temps as low as 0 deg F during the event along with snow or ice or rain if the temps are warm enough. This year, the event was held in Morgan-Monroe State Forest, a 24,000 acre property between Indianapolis and Bloomington.

Since the events are usually conducted in areas that don't have good repeater coverage (maybe at the tops of the ridges, but iffy in the ravines), the hams figured out many years ago that 6m FM simplex was the tool to use. Antennas are easy and gear is relatively easy to find. 6m signals seems to propagate pretty well in the hills and valleys.

 

[K6GBW]

Okay, first of all...I got a little PTSD when we start talking about orienteering in freezing conditions! The Army STAR courses were a PITA! Second, yes low band is great for stuff like that and yeah, the antennas aren't hard...unless you're putting quarter waves on cars. Then it gets challenging. Still, I like low band for what it is. When I was on the border in Germany we used it to great effect. We used the PRC-77 in a vehicle mounted AN/VTR-64 mount that gave us 70 watts going to a huge Shakespeare antenna with an auto tuner built into the base. Those things got out! If we had trouble making contact, we'd just move a hundred meters and try again, and it almost always worked.

 

[nd5y]

Oklahoma Amateur Radio Repeaters

This may be better than repeaterbook.

Open Operational Repeaters | Oklahoma Repeater Society Inc

www.oklahomarepeatersociety.org

 

[RichardKramer]

In my area of Reading, PA we have a lot of guys using surplus mil gear. We usually ragchew on 51.0; I have an FT8900 and the guys that only have 2m I can cross band 2m to 6m; works great and everybody has a good time!

 

[OkieBoyKJ5JFG]

Oklahoma Amateur Radio Repeaters

I stand corrected. I used RepeaterBook and didn't find any. I must have done something wrong.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I programmed up a bunch of nationwide 6M repeaters into a Syntor X 9000 and there is absolutely little consistency to the repeater offsets used state by state. There is an ARRL plan but seems to be ignored by all the repeater councils/owners.

 

[tweiss3]

I programmed up a bunch of nationwide 6M repeaters into a Syntor X 9000 and there is absolutely little consistency to the repeater offsets used state by state. There is an ARRL plan but seems to be ignored by all the repeater councils/owners.

There isn't consistency in each state. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with the FT891, you have to set a "standard" offset, and cannot deviate from it.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

There isn't consistency in each state. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with the FT891, you have to set a "standard" offset, and cannot deviate from it.

At least with the x9000 I was able to use the direct and repeat TX slots to accommodate two different offsets. Still it means that there were one or more other offsets that I could not use without taking up another channel mode.

 

[merlin]

I am surroundd with 6 meter repeaters but the closest is 180 miles away, never a peep out of one.
A number of local hams have beams/radios for 6, never heard them using 6, I don't know why short of TV interference.
I listen for band openings from the east coast, but rarely a signal, and that is short lived FT8.
All my 6 meter gear just collects dust.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I am surroundd with 6 meter repeaters but the closest is 180 miles away, never a peep out of one.
A number of local hams have beams/radios for 6, never heard them using 6, I don't know why short of TV interference.
I listen for band openings from the east coast, but rarely a signal, and that is short lived FT8.
All my 6 meter gear just collects dust.

When I got into ham radio I wondered which VHF bands had most activity. The ARRL QST "above 30 MHz" contest pages at the time showed 2M SSB activity as the most contacts. 6M is always called the "magic band" because it goes crazy with sporadic E and ducting on random occasions. As far as 6M my own results were not as good. I was told you need to keep the radio turned on 24/7/365. On 2M I worked some very good DX from Tallahassee (90 feet tower) to Clingmans Dome. Kuwohi (Cherokee) in the Smoky Mountains. (342 miles) The operator there was blasting in for several hours that day. I worked a lot of DX on 2M and I attribute that to there being more operators there.

 

[mmckenna]

I played around on 6 meters SSB back in the 1990's and had a lot of fun with it. Unfortunately the guy who loaned me the radio wanted it back and I never got around to purchasing my own.

But, one thing I've noticed:
The sure way to rile up a bunch of hams is to suggest "no one uses #meter band". They'll come out of the woodwork to prove you wrong.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

6 meters is not dead, it just smells bad!

 

[AK9R]

Unfortunately the guy who loaned me the radio wanted it back and I never got around to purchasing my own.

Luckily, just about every Japanese HF radio made these days covers 160 through 6 meters.

 

[GlobalNorth]

Is there a decent manufactured 6 meter antenna that is very low profile? A vertical ringo is not going to work for my circumstances.

 

[mikepdx]

I was recently talking to a local ham about his nearby 10M FM repeater on 29.68.

He informed me that:
"The 29.680 MHz repeater is linked to 9 other 6 meter repeaters throughout Oregon and Western Washington.
The 6 meter network will be adding 2 more 6 meter repeaters later this year. It's taken almost 25 years to put all this together."

So YES indeed. Absolutely there IS life on 6M FM (at least around here).
Maybe we're just lucky in my region.
Nice coverage into the heavily forested hinterlands of the Pacific Northwest, I must say.

I LOVE my 10M & 6M (ever so slightly modified) Commercial FM Equipment - HIGH QUALITY GEAR!

 

[nd5y]

Is there a decent manufactured 6 meter antenna that is very low profile?

Define very low profile.
A 1/4 wave at 50 MHz is over 4 1/2 ft. Anything smaller than that won't be very good or have much bandwidth.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Is there a decent manufactured 6 meter antenna that is very low profile? A vertical ringo is not going to work for my circumstances.

Decent? A 6M5 horizontal Yagi from M^2 if you have room to swing it. A 6M3 a bit cheaper and smaller boom. Low profile? 6M Squaloops from M^2 and others but those are gonna be low performance. These are for SSB operations.

 

[GlobalNorth]

I need something that isn't going to trigger an HOA inspector. 40 meters? No problem, but 6 meters? It's almost like either make your own due to the low numbers of people using 50 MHz or buy a 1973 Ford Hi-Boy and put a big whip with a double motorcycle chain mount on the 6 inch iron pipe rear bumper and operate it from that vehicle.

 

[bill4long]

I was recently talking to a local ham about his nearby 10M FM repeater on 29.68.

He informed me that:
"The 29.680 MHz repeater is linked to 9 other 6 meter repeaters throughout Oregon and Western Washington.
The 6 meter network will be adding 2 more 6 meter repeaters later this year. It's taken almost 25 years to put all this together."

So YES indeed. Absolutely there IS life on 6M FM (at least around here).
Maybe we're just lucky in my region.
Nice coverage into the heavily forested hinterlands of the Pacific Northwest, I must say.

I LOVE my 10M & 6M (ever so slightly modified) Commercial FM Equipment - HIGH QUALITY GEAR!

OK

 

[mmckenna]

Luckily, just about every Japanese HF radio made these days covers 160 through 6 meters.

This was a long time ago.

Right now, playing with radios is pretty low on the list of things I want to do when I get home from work. When I retire, absolutely.