Oh, did I mention six meters was open?

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