Today (04/04/14) brought some nice surprises…

On 2m I worked a couple of new ones on random EME at moonrise: YL2AJ (KO16) for a new initial, and ER5GB (KN45) for a new DXCC which I was very happy about!

On 6m we had some interesting F2 propagation into Africa with, once again, the 6V7SIX beacon paving the way. For a change, today there was another signal in the form of Fernando, TZ6BB (IK62). I was hearing Fernando hovering above the noise for some time, working into central and southern Europe before propagation finally shifted more in our direction. I finally worked him on CW with excellent 599+ signals (at 15:48z). A little later Fernando moved up to SSB, and at 16:!3z we had another nice contact.

By the way, TZ6BB uses a G5RV antenna on 6m! I was only using the FT857D barefoot (100 Watts), so it just goes to show how good the band can be when one is in the propagation zone – and it can be equally as frustrating when not… The 6V7 beacon was in for several hours until quite late, but nothing else was heard here.