[OKDXA] A little bit of great DX

[N5PA]

Guys:

I was able to operate a little bit of the ARRL DX CW Contest this weekend.
One of my neighbors has a heater that is S9 or better when running and it
blanked me out most of the weekend.  But I did manage to operate a few hours
out of the weekend and I made 372 contacts that gave me two new CW countries
and four new band countries.  I had some great runs when the heater was not
blanking me out.  Forty meters was unbelievable.  You would have thought you
were on 20 meters at the peak of the solar cycle.  Stations in the Middle
East, Africa, Europe, and Russia were 40 over S9.  It sounded like they were
down the road from you.  My little Inverted-Vee at 35 feet performed like a
beam.  Everyone had great conditions on 40 and even 80 meters proved to be a
great band.  Wish I could have operated most of the contest and have runs
like I did.  But what little I did operate it was fun.  There was some funny
noise yesterday that was like strong atmospheric noise and it would come and
go.  All in all it was fun when I was able to operate and I worked some
great DX.  I worked Norfolk Island on 15 and 20 but I missed them on the
other bands.  160 meters was not very productive Saturday night.  I worked 8
countries but nothing new.  I did not hear a lot of Europeans even though I
worked deep into Russia.  I hope you guys had as much fun operating the
contest and were able to make a lot more contacts than I did.  The phone
contest is in two weeks and I will be geared up for that one if I am not in
Waco.

73,
Alan, N5PA