Well, here I go 6-meter Addiction here!
LAST 48 hours...
Central Indiana Location...
Ohio/ Tennesse /Missouri /Michigan / Minnesota / Colorada /Texas /Kentucky / Florida /Lousiana / Pennsylvania
I work 6 meters every morning +/- one hour before Sunrise during peak Meteor Scatter time. Not uncommon to work 4-7 states in the 100 -1000 miles range, but it takes effort and patience plus!
Last couple weeks you can add Nebraska / Arkansas / Canada VA2, VE9 and VE3 call areas on Winter E skip. I just received back a card from contacts a couple of weeks ago from Maine another from New Hampshire.
The band is OPEN far more than most op's give it credit for.
Ground wave conditions are pretty good in the range of up to 3-400 miles range at some time every day in the Sunrise to Sunset timeframe.
Ground wave in the 50 to 200-mile range almost constantly.
Yes presently the band is a little FLAT, but that does not mean there are not opportunities to work stations.
I have a modest set-up ... 6 elements on 25 ft boom @40 ft and a KW.
I, however, have worked a Mobile in Arkansas an op in Texas on an Attic 80-meter OCF.
Add several stations running Squalo's from as low as 20 ft.
One must be willing to watch the band, check the clusters and listen for beacons to know when the openings occur.
Rag chew or Voodo audio AIN'T going to cut it.
You need the sharp, crisp highs and midrange and narrowband audio no wider than 2.4 kc wide. Bassey audio is a waste of time for frequencies above 14 Mhz.
Hence I laugh at some trying to achieve this broadcast type, so-called loud audio and running a mile wide.
That crowd is missing more DX than they are working
I like Sixshooter have worked many in Europe, Africa, Every Country in South America and most in Central America. Islands in the Caribbean that you must blow the map 3 or 4x up to even know they exist.
Greenland, Iceland, etc..etc..
When I first got on 6 meters about 6-7 years ago, I had 100 watts and rotatable Dipole at 45 ft. that antenna worked Portugal /Canary Islands /the Azores /Madiera and Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa plus many S. America and Caribbean Islands plus all over the US and Canada during Summer Eskip.
Personally, I think a rotatable Horizontal Dipole is a better antenna than a squalo, but squalo's are easy and don't take much effort to make work.
I always stress to new ops,
put in the effort first and the results will be reaped.
The op that wants a throw and go antenna system and never monitors the band, listens for beacons or never watches the cluster. Then Tunes across the band for 5 minutes, and never wants to call CQ more than twice...Yep, the band is dead.
Then 6 meters of radio fun you will miss out on!
All the Best
Gary