so i dont usually hang out on 6 meters much but my buddy texted me tuesday saying the band was wide open to europe and i figured id fire up WSJT-X and see what was happening. holy cow. i was working stations in spain, germany, portugal, all over the place on like 100 watts and a simple 3 element yagi that honestly needs some work. ran that for about 3 hours before the opening finally faded out.

also heard there was some decent sporadic-e happening over the weekend too but i missed most of that. anyway if you havent been checking 50.313 lately you might want to keep an eye on it, pskreporter was lit up like crazy. anyone know if the solar flux has been contributing to this or is it just that time of year for Es season to start picking up?

yeah Es season is really starting to kick in, usually late may through july is the peak but ive seen it start earlier some years. the solar flux being up in the 150s hasnt hurt things either for the higher HF bands. i worked a ZB2 on 6m last thursday morning which was a new one for me, caught it almost by accident because i was just running a quick check before work.

if you want a heads up on when things are popping, dxmaps.com is great for seeing real time 6m spots and you can kind of anticipate where the sporadic-e clouds are forming. also worth joining the 6m reflector on groups.io if you havent, people post openings there pretty fast.

i just got my general last month so ive been learning about all this. whats sporadic e exactly, is that different from regular skip? i keep seeing people mention it but im not totally sure i understand the difference from regular ionospheric propagation