4m in the USA

Although the prospects of an amateur 4m band in the USA remains a distant dream - the FCC seem very very slow allocating 137kHz and 472kHz - Southgate News reports that the 3kW ERP 4m beacon in the USA, in FM07 square, has been granted clearance to continue for another 2 years. 6m openings to the USA occur by Es most summers, but 4m is much harder. This is a useful propagation indicator.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2017/march/4-metres-and-wg2xpn.htm#.WLgpUoXXJMs

4m is a band I have hardly tried. I do recall working ZB2VHF with a few watts of AM by Es back in my university days as G3OUL from Liverpool - 1969? These days there are lots of European countries on the band and I would think it a decent band for inter-G QSOs. I recall doing one 4m contest in my early days at Pye Telecom. It was April 1971 and we were in the back of a Land Rover. It was freezing! We used a converted Pye AM Cambridge and a 3 el I seem to recall.