AB1OC 6m USA Grids

I’ve been pretty active on the 6m Band the past few years. As you can see from the image above, we’ve worked most of the grid squares in the eastern third of the United States on 6m. I use a mix of modes on 6m, including SSB Phone, CW, JT65, FT8, and MSK144. The addition of the MSK144 mode for Meteor Scatter contacts has been a lot of fun and has added some new grid squares to my total.

Orionid Meteor Shower Forecast

One of the fall Meteor Showers, the Orionids, occurred not too long ago, and I decided to focus on MSK144 during the Orionids to see how many grid squares I could work. The shower was most active over 3 days (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).

MSK144 QSO with WA3LBI Using WSJT-X

The latest WSJT-X software supports a relatively new digital mode for Meteor Scatter contacts – MSK144. A Meteor Scatter contact made using MSK144 is shown above.

Meteor Scatter Pings Detected via MSK144

Meteors create short propagation enhancements when they burn up in the atmosphere. These short propagation bursts enable very brief (approximately 1-5 second) propagation on the 6m Band.

The video above shows an example of an MSK144 Meteor Scatter QSO using WSJT-X.

6m MSK144 QSOs During Orionids

So I bet you may wonder how many 6m QSOs and grid squares I could work during the Orionids? I made 23 Meteor Scatter QSOs using MSK144 during the 2017 Orionids. The image above shows the 16 grids I worked using MSK144 during the three days. A few of these grids were new for me on 6m.

I used our Flex-6700 SDR, our SteppIR Yagis, and about 200w of power to make these contacts. It was a lot of fun making contacts using MSK144 Meteor Scatter on 6m. I am looking forward to future Meteor Shower activity!

Fred, AB1OC