Did it just turn into summer?

Not weather-wise, or at least not the weather at the ground level. I'm talking about a difference in how the ionosphere's E layer is behaving. 

I've written about Sporadic E propagation, often referred to as Es, many times and I've talked about how Sporadic E showing up at 50 MHz (the 6 meter ham band) is more common in summer than winter.  This one is probably the most read introduction. Several times, I've shown screen captures from a site called DXMaps and the density of "red blob" tracks of contacts visibly goes up as summer arrives and gets going. Here's one I took several minutes ago:

I've mentioned several times that I'm somewhat of a paper chaser in ham radio, spending most of my radio time on 6m pursuing the FFMA (Fred Fish Memorial Award); this post (from November of '25) has the most info and I'll borrow some of it for here. 

Along the same line, the only accomplishments I’m actively “chasing” on the VHF six meter band are both in the category of “difficult to practically impossible.” The easier one is probably 6m DXCC (100 recognized countries worked and confirmed). I currently have 90 confirmed with another three “waiting for confirmation.” I’m closer to DXCC on 6m than any of the other major awards. Easy or obvious one first, DXCC is more likely than Worked All States - WAS. 

WAS is practically impossible from my location. I’m pretty sure last November (‘24) was the closest I ever came to even hearing Alaska, and that was hearing other stations in the southeast calling the guy in Alaska. I saw him “spotted” on some of the sites online that report that, but never actually heard him. I was hoping for this year, but it hasn’t been good so far.

The hardest one, the FFMA (Fred Fish Memorial Award – the first person to achieve this award) is for working and confirming all 488 Maidenhead grids in the continental US. "Continental" means I don't need Alaska or Hawaii. I have 345 grids confirmed with another five that I’ve worked but can’t get confirmed. To be brutally honest, the FFMA is practically impossible from here, too. Unsurprisingly, when your goal is to reach every place  in the country, you're most likely to get everyone from the center of the country, and it turns out there has been one issued in Florida, in the northwestern most corner of the state. That's about 500 miles away - near Pensacola.

All of that is to set up that, to some degree, I can look at the map of contacts being reported on DXMaps and have a pretty good idea if areas I need to work are being heard and reported. I don't see any on that display map. 

While that's a bit of a downer, the number of Es openings should be going up with the highest numbers showing up in mid-June through mid-July. It's not coincidental that two of the biggest 6m contests of the year are the in this interval. Contests are good ways to get lots of stations on the air for quick, short contacts. 

Summer is a good time of year around here for staying inside the house. At least I have things to chase on the radio.