Turning on the radio this morning I was surprised to hear Puerto Rico coming in loud and clear on 50.125MHz. Once I had KP4EIT and HI3TEJ (Dominican Republic) in the logs I checked the DX Cluster to check the activity. There appeared to be many other stations from the Southeastern United States working towards the Caribbean. A few hours later the Sporatic-E opening moved towards the west and soon I was working into the Midwest and into Eastern Canada.
I did check two-meters but never heard any activity.
Image represents contacts made from FM18rq. Station locations represent grid locator (grid square) center. C=CW, S=SSB, J=J65A or J9
The twenty-three contacts, representing twenty-one grids, I put in the log were made using mostly CW with SSB, JT65A, and JT9 rounding out the rest of the modes.
Beacons
During a lull in activity I rolled down to the bottom of the band to check for beacons:
| DX de WG3K: 50007.7 VA2ZFN/B FM18<EM92 1845Z | 2016-07-12 18:45:00 |
| DX de WG3K: 50059.0 VE3UBL/B FM18<FN03 1839Z | 2016-07-12 18:39:00 |
| DX de WG3K: 50067.5 N8PUM/B FM18<EN66 1827Z | 2016-07-12 18:27:00 |
| DX de WG3K: 50073.0 K0KP/B FM18<EN36 1825Z | 2016-07-12 18:25:00 |
Reverse Beacons
I also took a look at the Reverse Beacon Network and found that I had been heard a few times:
| DX de K9IMM-#: 50098.0 WG3K CW 25 dB 16 WPM CQ 1717Z | 2016-07-12 17:17:42 |
| DX de WE7L-#: 50097.90 WG3K CW 16 dB 16 WPM CQ 1707Z | 2016-07-12 17:07:47 |