My brother, Gudmi TF3SG, sent a email to the local amateur group that he heard a beacon on the 6m band. I have not been very interested in this band before, but decided to jump to 6m on the TS-570. My antenna is a short G5RV dipole strung from a tree to a scaffolding. I started scanning the band and heard a faint beacon on 50.093, I tuned slowly up band and fond a very strong signal, S9+. My first thought was that this had to be a local station close by, but it was David, MM5DWW. I decided just for fun to try the auto tuner in the Kenwood, thinking even if I could get around 5W into the antenna I should make it work. To my surprise, the SWR was low, 1,5 so I just went for full power and responded to the CQ. I took 3 QSO’s that night (1 june at 23:44 GMT), then my wife yelled as she was trying to get to sleep.
Now I must be ready for any opening and started building a yagi for the 6M band.
So here is some pictures of the ruggedly built 6m yagi, I went to google for design ideas and after spending to many hours reading and looking at different designs, I had transferred a yagi I found in the ARRL handbook over to metric measurements, but I decided in the end to use a optimized design from a German webpage – but when put in EzNEC, I could not make it work. Then I found out that the diameter from the ARRL is quite big, 20mm – to 16mm that is a total overkill for a 3m span, but I had to change the scale of the antenna. So – I’m going to test the antenna – works perfectly in EzNEC – but let’s see how it fairs in real world.
I also should state that I have a special connection to the 6M band, my father TF3T – formerly TF3SG was the first amateur in Iceland to get the permit on 6M and make the first contact, I think he was one of the first in EU actually, need to ask him about that. But somehow I have always been uninterested in the 6M band – that changed after my first QSO’s.
- TF3CY
