RST Contests and Special Events SIG
The purpose of the RST Contests And Special Events SIG (CASE SIG) is to promote, and coordinate RST member participation in various contests and special events. The purpose of these activities is to help members increase their operating knowledge and gain practical experience in operating in a “contesting” environment.
Upcoming Events
New - RST POTA Palooza Contest
The new RST "POTA Palooza" year-long contest is designed to motivate all amateur radio operators to register with Parks On Air and to actively engage in POTA activity. In addition to normal POTA status and recognition, by submitting your POTA logs to the RST POTA Palooza page, you can compete for a plaque recognizing the top "Hunter" and the top "Activator" for 2026. To add to the excitement, posted contacts are processed in real time and the top 10 contenders are listed on a live leaderboard.
If you've been waiting to join the fun of making POTA contacts, now is the time to get started. Volunteers from RST will be scheduling hands-on events to help hams make their first POTA contact. Watch for future announcements. POTA Palooza is open to all licensed amature radio operators.
2025 CACTUS Special Event, October 9 - October 18
"Prickly Signals from the Sonoran Desert"
See cactus.k7rst.net.
Past Events
2026-08-20 Get-On-The Air HF Antenna Workshop
What: Basic Get-On-The-Air HF Antenna Workshop
Where: Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 9252 E 22nd St, Tucson, AZ 85710
When: Thursday Aug 20, 6pm - 8pm
What to Bring: Yourself and your questions, any gear you want to show-and-tell Donation (for the club): appreciated but not required
This workshop is aimed mainly at those who want to get their first HF antenna up - a Get On The Air antenna. New Generals (or Technicians who want some of that 10m love), VHFers who want to slow down a little, folks who've had a license but never really got on the HF bands - this night is for you! I have a plan to review some very basic antennas but there will be plenty of Q&A. No math (well, ok, one equation, but that's it!), just pragmatic tips. Rather than solve Maxwell's equations, we'll talk about what gauge wire to use. By the time you leave, I want you guys to have an antenna picked out and a plan for putting it up the coming weekend!
Of course, all are welcome. If you're an antenna whiz, or you have tips and tricks for installing and building antennas, or you want to show-and-tell the super cool widget you use to set up your antennas, we'd love your input as well! This will be a very informal session. Even if you just want to sit in the back and heckle about SWR, come on over!
If you've ever unpacked that new $1200 HF rig you bought without really telling your spouse how much it cost, and now you are staring at that empty SO-239 socket labelled "ANT" wondering "What in the world do I plug into there? How do I get on the air??" then this is just the night for you!
2026 Summer Field Day
See k7st.club - RST will be operating Field Day from Camp Lawton on June 27-28, 2026
2026-04-25 Titan Missile On the Air (RST)
We had a great time, with 169 contacts in our W7T log. If you would like a QSL card here is the address:
QSL Card Manager Send your QSL card requests to:
Radio Society of Tucson, Inc.
Attention: QSL card request manager
PO Box 13603
Tucson AZ 85732-3603
The suggested donation is $2.00 with a self addressed, stamped, envelope.
Radio Society of Tucson (club)
Titan Missile National Historic Site (museum info)
Live Link to log (during event and a few days after)
Discord channel (during the event, monitored as time permits)
Special Event Station W7T will be on the air
2026-04-25 1700-2200z (10AM-3PM AZ local time)
14.334, 21.292, 10M-FT8 MHz (all at the same time, through multiplexer, filters, & chokes)
2026-03-07 to 03-08 ARRL International DX competition
Note: K7RST QSL's directly with an attractive QSL card. Please include a Stamped, Self-Addressed Envelope (SASE) with your request. International requests, please include a self-addressed envelope. A two-dollar donation would be appreciated."
Just a brief report regarding the RST entry in the ARRL DX Contest. It was a quick and minimal setup, but complete enough to have some fun. Bill N7DZ, Richard K7NSW, and Matt KC9UHI all invested some hours and effort into the event. We put up the 3 element 10m beam built by Lloyd K7NX (now SK), and for the other bands mostly used Ken's Butternut vertical that has been (semi-)permanently erected north of the barn. It was oh-so-clear what a distinctive advantage the beam is, so we're looking forward to the possibility of a tri-band beam up on a tower (both also donated by Lloyd K7NX) for ongoing big(er) gun performance in contests.
Anyway, we had some fun. Richard and Bill set up on Friday and started operating at 0000z (5pm local) that evening continuing until the good DX bands were gone around 8:30 pm. Our antenna is not adequate to work effectively outside of North America on 80 and 40, and US/CA stations cannot work each other in this contest. We resumed Saturday morning and operated more or less all day, though there was some local AF band rag chew some of the time. We started up again Sunday morning, joined by Matt KC9UHI, and operated until around 3:30pm, quitting early because 10m was pretty much cleaned up and the other bands were just not enough fun. And some of us were tired.
We worked 48 DXCC entities, 65% on 10m, and 6 continents, 40% South America. Some pretty graphs and a map are attached below.
Thanks to Bill, Richard, and Matt for making it happen.
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2026-02-24 to 03-03 RST Support of ARRL WAS250
RST participated in the ARRL Worked All States 250 event, operating as W1AW/7 on an RST Club station at the Yuma Hamfest and also at RST member home QTH locations. We did our part well. 13 ops from RST membership and 5 more from other clubs around the state put a lot of RF in the sky day and night for 7 days. Collectively we logged just under almost 4000 contacts in every state and almost every province, as well as 60 DX entities. We used every HF band on CW, SSB, and FT8, plus a little bit on 2m FM.
Ops from RST: AD6T, AI7AZ, K7GPS, K7NSW, KC9UHI, KK7MBX, KK7VLU, KK7WBH, N7DZ, N7NBV, N7OMI, W7RFL, W7VIX
Ops from other clubs: AA1SQ, N7BBQ, N7VBN, W7JET, W7YBY
Thanks to Bill, N7DZ, for AZ section coordination and Scheduler tool support.
2026-01-24 to 01-25 RST Winter Field Day at Udall Park - Ramada 3
See the k7rst.club post Radio Society of Tucson - Winter Field Day January 24th & 25th, 2026 at Udall Park - Ramada 3
2025-12-12 to 12-14 RST 2025 ARRL 10m Contest
RST hosted a club station, using the call K7RST for the event. A great time was had by all. The final report, with links the statistics and log can be found at: RST 2025 ARRL 10M Contest
2025-11-21 to 11-30 2025 CACTUS Special Event, "Prickly Signals from the Sonoran Desert"
Our inaugural "CACTUS" special event. For more details see the CACTUS main page.
Thanks to all who participated, QSL Card and Certificate requests started being sent on Friday, December 12 2025.
2025-11-01 Radio Society of Tucson K7RST Titan Missile Site Special Event
2025-06-27 to 06-29 ARRL Field Day & RST Monsoon Picnic
RST Website Post: Exciting Waves & Wild Skies: ARRL Field Day & RST Monsoon Picnic, June 27-29!
2025-03-15 Radio Society of Tucson K7RST Titan Missile Site Special Event
The Radio Society of Tucson conducted a special event using callsign K7T from the Titan Missile National Historic Landmark on March 15, 2025 from about 1700z to 2200z. We operated mostly SSB, a little CW, on the 20 and 15 meter bands, using the original Collins Radio Company broadband discone antenna.
Use this link to see if you're in the log. If you're not and you think you should be, contact the CASE helpdesk (helpdesk@k7rst.net) to check for maybe a typo or something on our end that might still confirm your QSO.
Special QSL cards (see below) will be available to stations we confirm contact with during the event. If you want one, please send an SASE to the address listed for K7RST on qrz.com. Including a donation to help support these events and defray costs will be greatly appreciated. The suggested amount is $2. Checks can be made to Radio Society of Tucson.