Most of the year 6 meters is a local band — you talk to the next county and that is it. The ionosphere does not normally bend 50 MHz.
Most of the year 6 meters is a local band — you talk to the next county and that is it. The ionosphere does not normally bend 50 MHz.
Then sporadic E happens. Intense patches of ionisation form in the E-layer, mostly May through August, and for an hour you are working someone 1,200 miles away on ten watts. Nobody can predict it more than an hour out. That is the magic.
It also does meteor scatter — bouncing off ionised trails during a shower — and aurora scatter when a geomagnetic storm lights the northern sky.
| FREQUENCY (MHz) | MODE | LICENSE CLASS |
|---|---|---|
| 50.000–50.100 | CW | Technician and above, General, Advanced, Extra |
| 50.100–50.300 | SSB & weak signal | Technician and above, General, Advanced, Extra |
| 50.300–51.000 | Digital / all modes | Technician and above, General, Advanced, Extra |
| 51.000–54.000 | FM & repeaters | Technician and above, General, Advanced, Extra |