Radio Amateurs of Canada

University of BC Amateur Radio Society

Richmond Amateur Radio Club

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You can email me at ve7gl@rac.ca

Welcome to one of Canada's many amateur radio contest stations.  We operate one or more two-way short-wave radio stations on various weekends with the goal of contacting as many other radio stations around the world as possible. It is not unusual for us to contact three to four thousand stations, and well over a hundred countries, during a fourty-eight hour contest weekend.  Contacts are made via voice, Morse code or one of the various digital modes depending on the contest type. Antennas: Stacked TH7-DX yagis at 26M and 13M with a TIC-Ring rotator for the lower array. Phasing done with Array Solutions WX0B Stack Matches.  A 4el HF Quad at 20M on a crank up tower with separate feeders for each band and each station. Two 2el 40M rotary Yagis at 25M and 20M on separate towers.  Full sized elevated 80M ground plane vertical.  Full sized elevated 160M Inverted L with elevated radials.  Various wire antennas.

CONTEST OPERATORS

Nedo VA7OO on the Run station

(clockwise from left)
Regular ops: VA7AO Nedo (ex YU4NW) VA7OO Rade (ex YU4RW) VA7VZZ Zoran VE7GL Dale

Formerly VE7BWK and VE3BWK /4U (United Nations in Syria) /4X (Israel) /OD (Lebanon) 5B4MN (Cyprus). /ZS (South Africa) /G5 (Great Britain) /KL7 (Alaska) /VY1 (Yukon).  Here are some pictures of the VE3BWK/4U station at a UN military base on the Golan Heights in Syria. And pictures of the 5B4MN radio stations on the island of Cyprus.

Gary VA7RR

We use WriteLog for contesting and Logic for regular logging and QSL tracking on wireless networked Windows XP computers. 

Dale - VE7GL sitting on his perch

Here are some more pictures of the station.

Radio contests are sponsored by various amateur radio groups or magazines around the world and there are certificates or trophies to be won.  Some examples are below.

• Oldies but Goodies - Radio Contest Awards

See Contesting.com for most of what you'll ever need to know about radio contesting plus dozens of cool pictures.

As you can see from the pictures, there are many  people who make up this contest station. Some are radio operators, others help with designing and building the many antennas systems, help setup the equipment and computers, keep the generators up and running or do the cooking.  It's a team effort and everyone contributes in some way.

VE7HJJ - Jack and VE7IJH - Joan

VE7HJJ - Jack (Dale's father) became a Ham soon after he retired after 36 years of military service in the RAF, RCAF and Canadian Forces.  He was not completely new to radio or microphone shy, having flown over 5,000 hours in over 20 types of aircraft including open cockpit biplanes, twice the speed of sound fighters and finally helicopters.  Joan keeps tabs on us boys and our toys.

That's Zoran VA7VZZ Putting up one of the 40M monobanders

Last edited: 09/07/09

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