I’m a bit late in posting this, but I was lucky enough to work FT5ZM about 18 hours after they went on the air. Since the path from New England is right through the heart of Europe, breaking through is a challenge. I suspect that working FT5ZM late at night (~0300 UTC) helped me as many Europeans would be sleeping at that time.
I’ve heard FT5ZM on 40-10 meters now, and they have been loudest (3-5 S units above noise level) on 20/17/15 meters. Pileups have been wide (approaching 30 KHz) and unruly/rude (many folks sending all the time without listening, and lots of intentional QRM on the FT5ZM transmit frequency). I will try to break through on a couple of more bands before they stop operation on Feb 12.
The snapshot below shows a 16 KHz wide segment of the 17 meter band. FT5ZM’s xmit frequency is at the green marker on the far left. The red marker is set to the frequency of the station FT5ZM is currently working (up about 4 KHz). S9 is near the top of the display and the noise floor is about S0. All of these signals were recorded while FT5ZM was transmitting another stations’s call and report. The actual pileup was about twice this wide.
A DXpedition like Amsterdam Island is a VERY expensive undertaking. You might want to help sponsor the event, as I have, either directly via their website donation page, or indirectly by supporting the Northern California DX Foundation.
