UK Six Metre Group

Funny you should ask that question Mark as the subject of what can be worked with a minimal setup is the theme for our display stand at the Norbrek Rally this week-end. In brief, you should do very well during the sporadic E season which is just starting to get under way. Es signals tend to be very loud, often tens of dB over S9 even with simple antennas such as a loop or a vertical. You should expect to be able to work pretty much all of Europe with the possibility of multi hop Es extending that to Eastern USA and Canada. Your limitation is likely to be due to local QRM or being in competition with much larger stations but your system should be well capable of acheiving these sorts of results.  

Of course its important to be on the band when the openings take place.  Some are fleeting, especially some of the more distant contacts but generally speaking Es on 50MHz tends to last for hours rather than minutes.  You may go a day or so hearing next to nothing then the band will open perhaps every day for a couple of weeks!  Summer Es run roughly from the end of April through to mid August peaking in June/July.

gl, Trev