17m open to Japan - JH1MDJ

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I awoke this morning to a great start as I got straight into Japan working 5x5 signals both ways with japanese station JH1MDJ up on 17 m just now.
 The exact frequency was 18.156 and my Cushcraft beam heading was at 30 degrees.
I was running 400 watts from my Russian amplifier.
Let's hope this is a sign of improving conditions. It's been a long time since I heard Japan at least 2 years. This week radio conditions have been interesting, I worked Liberia and Belize taking my DXCC total up to 133 DXCC as M0YKS (last 5 years).

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