VA7ST.ca

The Zone Zero podcast featured two episodes devoted to the 2017 ARRL 160M contest. See how I thought I would do in the contest, then listen to how I actually did.

This year, I prepared two special editions of the Zone Zero podcast — one a preview of the CW Worldwide CW contest on Nov. 25 and 26, 2017, and a post-contest report. 

The world came out to play in the 2017 CQWW Phone contest, October 28-29. See a brief analysis of running domestic stations vs. chasing DX in one of the biggest worldwide contests of the year.

The VA7ST station has a new contesting amplifier — the Ameritron AL-80BX joins a pair of SB-221 amplifiers for high-power operation. See how they matched up in the DRCG Worldwide RTTY contest, and general thoughts about both approaches to QRO contesting.

It’s time for a podcast devoted to amateur radio contests. Now we have one. Welcome to Zone Zero.

After two years of “all talk, no action,” the radio room has been rebuilt.

An overview of my SB-221 amplifier repair project — a notebook about what it needed and what I did.

Here’s a homemade, lightweight but full-size triband yagi (with directors and reflectors in V configuration) interlaced on a 32-foot boom. And it works like a dream.

Expand a 40M rotatable dipole into a 2-element yagi with a fixed wire element. Add a relay to the wire and get instant 180-degree rotation, too.

Tired of burned-out bulbs in your CDE rotator meter? Replace the bulb with an LED strip — it’s inexpensive and LEDs will last a very long time.