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When I made my 70MHz posting last night, I expected that was it for the day. Around 2130 local time, I popped up to the shack to have a listen to 50MHz and was surprised to hear some signals from UW2ZM and an LZ. Neither was particularly strong, although I thought it was unusual to hear them at that time. I’d have liked to work UW2ZM as he’s in KN58, but he was pretty weak.

Just before turning in for the night (we had a 04.30 alarm set this morning), I checked 50MHz again and CW was buzzing! Lots of I, SM coming in. But to my enormous surprise, I could hear a number of US stations taking part in their VHF contest. The first station I heard was NN1N, who astonished me by coming straight back to a very tentative call. The other stations I heard had big pileups and I didn’t get involved, but it was particularly good to hear the Mt Greylock Expeditionary Force, W2SZ coming through. There was a very loud K1 who had an enormous pileup.

No doubt for those with a bigger aerial than a vertical, there was some really great DX to be had, but I was quite satisfied with my transatlantic QSO.