Well, no real DX tonight, but it was still an interesting, albeit noisy, evening on the bands.

I attempted to work a weak Italian station on 20 meters, but my call went unanswered. Just when conditions seemed to improve, I completely lost him.

I heard AD5WB from Galveston, TX, calling CQ further down 20 and I responded, receiving a 59 signal report.

I worked three stations after dinner: NP2/N0TG on 60 meters (!) operating from St. Croix (very loud static crashes); C6AAJ on 40 meters, operating from the Bahamas; and WB2OHN, also on 40, from upstate New York.

There was plenty of local action on 80 meters and 40 seemed remarkably quiet compared to every other band. I assume the band conditions were poor tonight thanks to the X5-class solar eruption this week.

In other news, I welcomed my uncle, KG4ITV, onto HF this week. He upgraded to General a few weeks back and jumped head-first into the hobby with a nice new FT-950. He sounded good on a local ragchew on 80 meters last night. It’s nice to know another ham is in the family!