It's been a day shy of a week since my last post... this is telling, it shows that there's not much to report propagation wise!

Besides the consistent occurrence a few DX indicators (both ZL 45 and 55MHz videos, and the usual R1 and CCTV 1 videos, and JS2IR trunk link), the occasional beacon (either ZL2WHO/B or ZL3SIX), and odd JA station, the 6m band has been quiet this week.

And whilst during the last few years this would have been seen as a great result, it's been obvious by the cluster rants and posts that there's a general level of 'withdrawal' from the highs of early January.

If it wasn't for a 'stuck' keyer that seemed to have emanated from a location to the south west of Brisbane (believed to close to QG62ei) last Sunday, the band wouldn't have been too interesting at all.

With the resulting condx I've tried to focus some attention to the few DXpeditions operational at present. And this has been with some success. However with the relatively poor propagation it has been below expectations. HK0NA has been completed in 8 slots (SSB/CW) - unfortunately 6m hasn't been one of them. The VP6 and C21 operations have been focusing towards EU and the opportunities have been few and far between resulting in few completed Qs.

Today also marked the end of the E51EME operation. Bob's attention to 6m DXing from the South Cook Islands during his 'holiday' over the last month has provided some great insight into what is possible on Es, a lot like the last couple of summers with Paul A35A activity from Tonga... we missed Paul's activity this summer and will do so even more now he's returned to the USA.

Local conditions continue to be consistent, with the past images taken from the IC-7600 Spectrum Scope remaining very consistent (I still don't understand the need to 'drop' carriers every 25KHz daily). This influx of 'new' stations over this summer has shown that they continue to focus on the 'allure' of domestic Es propagation paths and seem to not be aware of the longer haul openings. Let's hope this continues into the coming equinox!