At about 2200Z yesterday, one of my work friends reported hearing Cuban
stations on TV channels 2 through 6, plus Florida FM stations.  Using my
triband beam (which loads up on 6) I worked Martinique on CW and Virgin
Islands on SSB on six meters.  The signals from Florida and some of Georgia
were quite loud, although the DX faded out after a time.  There were loud
video carriers on 55.240, 55.250 and 55.260 MHz, but I have no idea where
all those Channel 2's are located.  I don't know what a digital TV signal
would sound like, but don't think that it would have the loud carrier of an
analog video transmission.  I think that these openings are early sporadic E
and not the F2 layer.  If you have been following the VHF column in QST, it
is apparent that triple-hop sporadic E can be frequent on six, and
well-equipped stations using CW have worked each other over even longer
distances not involving the F layer.

Today I was listening to 55.240 with a bandwidth of about 1 KHz, and could
hear 3 or 4 TV video carriers pinging (meteor scatter).  It's a good source
of random sounds, but I don't know where the transmitters are located.

Last summer, the night before I went into the hospital with my congestive
heart failure condition, I worked EA8 (Canary Islands) on SSB on a short
6-meter opening at about 2330Z.  He subsequently worked out to W5, but the
whole opening (this was July 26) may not have lasted more than 15 minutes.

And my congestive heart failure is a lot better, though not quite up to
normal ejection fraction.
73,
Lloyd Rasmussen, W3IUU, Kensington, Maryland
Home:  http://lras.home.sprynet.com
Work:  http://www.loc.gov/nls
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Phil Scovell
> Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 5:47 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Openings on 10 and 6
> 
> Last evening, I worked w6 and w7 on 6 SSB and was hearing signals on the
> 50.125 MHz calling freq until 11 PM when I went to bed.  Some western
> Colorado friends were hearing Central America and I heard California
> working
> TG9 and XE1 but I couldn't hear either DX station.  Around 8 PM last
> night,
> I called CQ on 29.600 MHz 10 FM and worked Arizona simplex.  So things are
> looking up for the higher bands.
> 
> Phil.
> [log in to unmask]
> WWW.RedWhiteAndBlue.ORG