In the last couple of days 80 and 160 has been a bit better. Night before last (Tuesday evening) I was finally able to get a single ft8 decode from RI1FJZ at our evening gray line. I think EJ ended up working him and maybe Jussie. My recieve seemed to be about 3 db down from Jussie with my RX antenna pointed NE.
On Wednesday it crossed my mind to shift the pennant a bit further north to favor Franz Josef Land but due to prepping for a big fish cook on Sunday that idea was put on the back burner. As it turns out things worked out pretty good anyway.
Wednesday night we got in late due to fish fry prep. I needed to go to bed, but decided to check the bands before retiring. From the recliner, I remoted into the shack and found Mike KB5WBH on 80 and AA6KJ Jussie on 160 lighting it up into Europe.
I decided to make a trip out to the shack to retune the antenna for 160 and try to work some DX there. Of course whenever you are in a bit of a hurry the laptop will take a vacation and need a reboot After that was done and all was working properly a couple of NBCs (Lichtenstein and Bosnia) were found and worked on 160. No confirmation has been received yet, but both of the NBCs have uploaded to LOTW in the last few days, so I expect a QSL to happen. A bit more DX was worked, just for fun, on 160 as well as Namibia V51 on 80. Overall it was a pretty good band opening for here and I hope it is an indication of things to come on 160.
Have a great day!