By James Austin
KG4YVA

I have been working very hard on getting my VUCC and WAS on 6 meters.  I do love the 6-meter band.  It really is a lot of fun.  You have got to be patient.  Listen very hard.  Then maybe, just maybe, you will hear that station in the bacon calling. Then you might be able to make your exchange before the band goes away.

Bacon you ask?  Yes that is right bacon!  Bacon frying in a frying pan.  That is what we call the 6-meter band when all you are doing is listening to the static.  Just waiting for that weak signal to start coming up out of the noise.  I myself have been caught in the middle of the frying pan a time or two.

John (KU4JZ) and myself were up on the Blue Ridge Parkway one cold and beautifully clean January night working the VHF contest.  When we were both just trying to stay awake.  I had the 6-meter band that contest.  John was working 2-meter, 440mhz and 900mhz.  We were having a lot of fun on the radios.  John and I had not heard any station on any band for well over 3 hours.  So I started calling “CQ 6 CQ 6 this is Kilo Uniform 4 Juliet Zulu live from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Listening to the bacon fry”.  All of a sudden VP9GE from Bermuda liked to have blown as out of the van!  Now mind you we are both using headphones.  Ed and I made our exchange.  I give the info to John to put into the log.  John noticed FM72 as the grid square.  John said, “ That can’t be right.  That’s in the middle of the ocean”!   “You had better call him again”.  So I go back to the frequency Ed was working and call again just to find out that FM72 was Bermuda!

Of course I will have to tell you about South Orkney Island sometime.

So remember!  Tune slowly.  Listen closely.  You may just get lucky

Please sent your comments by email to me: james@dbjre.com.

See the previous issue of James' Words.