I don’t remember my 1st (ever) QSO on 50 MHz. I guess it was during my DX journey to Baker Island in 2002 (DXpedition K1B). In Tuvalu and later in Baker Islands almost every day we heard strong signals from Hawaii’s CW beacon (and no one else). In Baker Island in one day we got nice 50 MHz “tube” towards Japan and finally got huge pile-up.
Today I worked with Greece. SV2KGA and Italy IK7XLW in SSB. In Germany signals were strong but very unstable. It was my first ever QSO’s on 50 MHz from Europe (!)
Audio Sample of miracle 50 MHz propagation (SV2FLQ):
73 de DL/KL1A Sparky