A great Six meters DX-Pedition

We receive from Jose an interesting report of last activity from Palestina, we all thank you E4X Crew for the great job done.
You all must know that one of the main targets of this trip by the “Tifariti Gang” was to provide a new one to as many six metre aficionados as possible. Writing this article one week after our return I can’t find a claim from any six metre operator in Europe saying E4X is not in his/her log, excepting ourselves!
Setup started just after our arrival in Bethlehem. 30 metre vertical erected and ready to take off at 19:55Z for the first QSO. While the five stations were mounted other members of the team managed to assemble the HF beams up on the roof, in the dim light of hand torches. Next morning was the 50 MHz Yagi’s turn. Firing up at 08:00 Z May 28th on 50.103 there was Nick, 5B4FL, squatting like a lion for its prey, to be the first to log E4X on the magic band. Costas, SV1DH, followed him.
 As most places in Europe are within one or two Es hop distance, you can guess the size of the pileups, propagation periods permitting, especially during the first three days.

On May 31st evening K4CIA appeared, mixed with EUs. Bill was so loud that I thought it was a hoax. Minutes later the “big” US opening commenced, ending with more than 70 Americans in the log, most in the W1, 2, 3 and 4th call areas.
 Early mornings at 4 UTC the beam was turned to Asia. Noise was the problem in that direction, sometimes worse than others. There were some days of JAs, most of them with faint signals fighting with the QRN. But the best one was on June 6th, more than 160 Japanese stations were logged. Others countries from Asia worked were: 4J, 4L, 5B, A6, A7, A9, BY, EK, EX, EY, JT, JY, UK, UN, XV, and of course 4X.
 Endless pileups on all bands kept us very busy during the whole dxpedition. Fabrizio, IN3ZNR, did a great job composing the daily operating shift tables.
Propagation on 50 MHz was, on average, good during most of the daylight hours. There were the typical ups and downs and small foot-print openings to some parts of Europe.
 We hope all of you enjoyed it, as much as we did from Palestine. Sorry for those who didn’t make it.
We dismantled all stations on the morning of 6th June.
 See you next year from …?
 73José Ramón, EA7KW

 

TOTALS:                    74 Entities DXCC

                  6545 QSOs

                           4500 unique calls

                       

CW       SSB     RTTY

 3408    2882     255

 

 

 

6 el Yagi poited to  EU/NA

 

 E4X Crew

 

Listen to them working an EU pile-up