So ive been watching the 6m band pretty closely the past couple weeks and honestly the activity levels have been something else. Caught a decent Es opening yesterday afternoon, worked a handful of stations up in the northeast and even snagged one guy in Manitoba which was unexpected. The PSKreporter map was absolutely lit up.

Also saw something about Icom supposedly dropping a new HF/VHF combo rig sometime this quarter, cant remember where I read that, maybe on one of the Facebook groups or maybe eHam. Anyone heard anything more concrete about that? Im in the market for something to replace my aging 7300 setup and if theres something new coming id rather wait than pull the trigger now.

Also side note — if you havent checked out the ARRL's updated band plan stuff from earlier this year its worth a look, they quietly tweaked a few things that might matter depending on how you operate. Nothing earth shattering but still.

yeah the 6m opening yesterday was real good, i worked into europe for the first time in like two years. totally caught me off guard, i was just doing some idle monitoring and all of a sudden the waterfall just filled up. ended up running about 45 minutes before it faded. one of those moments that reminds you why you keep the radio on even when conditions seem dead

as for the icom thing i think youre maybe thinking of the IC-905 followup rumors? theres been chatter about that for months but nothing official that ive seen. id probably just buy what works now honestly, waiting on gear rumors is a good way to never buy anything

Hi, pretty new here (got my general back in March) and just wanted to say I had no idea 6 meters could do stuff like that. I thought it was kind of a dead band most of the time? I have an FT-991A that covers it but I've barely touched that part of the dial. Is there a good way to know when an opening is happening so I can actually be there for it? I keep missing things because I don't know what to watch for.