Wake Atoll and San Andres logged - two new ones in one day

It has been a great day on the bands here in the shack of EI2KC at IO63TQ. I nabbed 5J0R, the San Andres dxpedition, on no fewer than five band slots today, including two RTTY slots, an SSB slot and two CW slots. That was beyond my wildest expectations. Although they are only in the Caribbean and therefore relatively easy to work from EI, it was the first day of their activity and pile-ups were significant. That was DXCC #296 (official DXCC designation HK0-S).

I really didn't expect to even hear K9W on Wake Atoll, but I got a tip-off from Don EI6IL at tea time that they were weak but workable on 20m SSB and sure enough, I actually logged them with one call. I think it was because they were weak that most Europeans were not hearing them; hence it was easy to get through. I was beaming north, so right across the pole.

It's all water and ice between here and there. I was really, really chuffed, and somewhat relieved, to get them so quickly. That was DXCC #297 (official DXCC designation KH9). I've actually worked 303 DXCC entities, but six of these are deleted so the current DXCC tally stands at 297. Just three more and I will be at the magic 300 worked.

Below is a video showing 5J0R's signal on 10m CW just immediately after I worked them. Sorry about the volume level. It was a bit high for the recording.