Contesting

Hearing through the noise on the low bands

January 22, 2021

To improve the signal-to-noise ratio on 160M and 80M, many radio contesters and DXers use separate low-noise receive antennas. This alone can make the difference between “working them” and not even hearing them.

Real-time competition: online scoreboards

November 1, 2020

For the active contester, seeing your performance moment-by-moment ranked against the performance of other participants can be a real motivator. Welcome to online scoreboards!

FT8/FT4 from a contester’s perspective

October 25, 2020

Why do I compete in the growing number of WSJT-X-friendly contest offerings? Because they are there, and even more important, a LOT of people who are new to contesting have been drawn to radiosport because they enjoy FT8 and FT4 modes.

Solving IC-7610 low TX audio for WSJT-X

June 14, 2020

Noticing that your IC-7610 transmit audio is low when using WSJT-X and the Icom audio CODEC? Here’s one area to check — simple and quick.

BARTG75 and 75-baud MMTTY

April 26, 2020

I’m in the BARTG 75 Sprint today. Why does MMTTY keep reverting to 45-baud when I have told it to use 75-baud? Easy fix here…

Recap: 2020 RTTY Roundup

January 6, 2020

The new decade opened with the annual ARRL RTTY Roundup, and I was excited to get on the air to cap off a wonderful three-week holiday break. Boomer (seen here) and I had one antenna repair to make in the deep snow late at night.

Tracking progress with Athena log analysis

December 1, 2018

View your real-time totals during a contest, and compare them in real-time with previous contests. Athena, created by PC5M (sk), does exactly that.

Adding 7 elements on 6M

October 10, 2018

6M is about to be a whole lot more fun from VA7ST with the addition of an M2 6M7JHV yagi — 7 elements on a 30-foot boom.

ARRL 160M pre- and post-contest

December 8, 2017

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.

CQWW CW 2017 — pre- and post-contest

November 30, 2017

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.