Remote 6-M Station Active in FM13

[Clark L. Stewart]

This was quite a bit of work for these guys to set up an unattended, remote 6-M station in Grid Square FM13.  Check out the photo of this remote station at the bottom of this email.  WOW!

FM13 sticks out on the East Coast of the USA and has been difficult to work on 6-M in the past.  I worked WB8LYJ/R some 5 years ago for this grid.  I have 461 Grids Confirmed out of the 488 Grids in the Continental USA (needing only 27 to get the FFMA Award.)

You can see that FM13 covers only a tiny part of land.






That is part of why it is so difficult to work.


73, Clark, W8TN

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	[FFMA] FM13 Announcement
Date:	Fri, 3 Apr 2026 13:53:34 -0400

Good day everyone. I am very excited to announce that we have a 6M station active from FM13 for the forseeable future!!!

 

In partnership with the North Carolina Historic Sites at Fort Fisher, a team of hams from the Carolinas will be operating a trailer-mounted remotely-operated 6M station located in FM13ax. This has been a 2-year effort to acquire, assemble, test, and position this station in FM13 for our FFMA Community. We have struggled with local restrictions, uncooperative organizations and a nearby large military installation, but we successfully obtained a land-use permit and a quiet location.

 

A little about the station. We are using an Icom IC-7300 (100 watts) and a 6 element M2 6M6LN yagi. The antenna flies at about 18' above sandy soil looking westerly over the intercoastal waterway and Cape Fear River. Our power is generated by two 200watt solar panels through a solar charge controller to two CHINS LAF-12200 batteries (donated by WB8LYJ).  Onboard is also an AirSpy receiver (donated by N9PGG) and an SDR Radio Switch by N2EME so we can monitor multiple 6M frequencies at once.

 

When the station is just monitoring, we will be running SDR-Console software and 4 instances of WSJT-X software on MSK (50.260), Q65 (50.275) and FT8 (50.313/323). We will also be running multiple instances of JTAlert with all ‘Needers’  from the FFMA Leaderboard and Gridzilla.US built as Wanted Call Sign alerts which go directly to N4SIX. If we get an alert, we will do our best to get an operator on quickly. Depending on who is opeating the station, we may close out the software instances that we are not actively using. Not everyone has a 42" TVs at the control point. 

We are very appreciative of the wonderful folks at the North Carolina Historic Sites at Fort Fisher. Without their support I am not sure that we could have made this happen for you. If you want to show some support to them, visit Fort Fisher or Friends of Fort Fisher.

Finally, we are extremely grateful for all the donation that we received from the following supporters. Your donations helped make this possible!   AJ4A, W6ABM, K7PI, WA1LNG, K6ML, K9YC, K6NGN, KQ4NHD and W7TZ. A special thank you to our Top Contributers KB7IJ and  KK4MA!!!

 

Yes, all confirmations will be via LOTW!!!  There will be NO holding your QSLs hostage for a ransom payment,  however donations are always welcome to cover ongoing costs. It's a 2-hour drive each way to service the remote station and we have ongoing monthly service fees. PayPal to N4...@nc.rr.com.

 

We look forward to seeing you on the band!

73,

Chris, N4SIX

Greg, N9PGG

Greg, KQ4NHD

 

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