The on-the-air portion of the FT5ZM DXpedition has come to an end, although the trip home remains. That news may be welcome to non-DXers who have been contending with the huge and chaotic pileups that, on occasion, occupied substantial segments of spectrum, but depressing for operators who were unsuccessful in snagging this rare one. The Amsterdam Island DXpedition team logged on the order of 165,000 contacts on SSB, CW and RTTY. Amsterdam Island is the seventh most-wanted DXCC entity, according to the ClubLog DXCC Most Wanted List.

“There is a bad storm heading their way this weekend,” reported Val Hotzfeld, NV9L, one of the FT5ZM pilot stations. “Everything is all packed up and down on the shore waiting to get loaded onto the Braveheart.” Seas were reported too rough to load the boat, however, and the DXpedition team now must wait to finish loading. Hotzfeld said the FT5ZM team “wants to get under way as quickly as possible” to avoid the “nasty storm.”

All FT5ZM logs were expected to be uploaded to Club Log later today (February 12), and the Online QSL Request Service (OQRS) should come on line. AA4SC had the honor of completing the final FT5ZM contact — on February 12 at 0220 UTC.

The budget for the DXpedition was $450,000, which, to date, has not been met. More information on the Amsterdam Island DXpedition budget and on the DXpedition itself is available on the Amsterdam Island FT5DX website. The ARRL made a Colvin Award grant to help support the DXpedition. — Thanks to The Daily DX, FT5ZM