When you read a technical book sometimes you can fall asleep whilst reading the text. This book is far from causing that to occur! The author writes as if we were sitting around, lighthearted writing is great, and wise cracks get you to laugh, waiting to find more. Before you know it 20 more pages are completed! Also the copious amount of color pictures assists us slow learners to understand and then it is always nice to see the goods!!
Worth every penny for the book, and a steal/crime price for the download!

A recent note appeared on some ham reflectors—-informing readers that Dave Robbins, who we perhaps more often know as K1TTT, had for sale a book, titled, Building a Super Station, and available on the self-publishing web company site known as lulu (www.lulu.com).
The accompanying blurb (when you click over to lulu), says, simply: History of the construction of a Ham Radio super contest station. 21+ years of construction, reconstruction, and maintenance at K1TTT with tips for both big and small contest stations.
If you’ve spent any time at all, say within the past 10 years, with an interest in radio contesting, you’ll not only recognize his call, but you may already be familiar with Dave’s own website, known everywhere as a vast technical reference source, to which he’s constantly adding data. So, you’ll probably opt for the download version of this title. At 280 pages, priced at only $5.00, you can rationalize that it’s a bargain. Having done so, and having read it, I can assure the book is just that, indeed!
Dave begins, like Dickens, with his own, earliest beginnings in radio contesting, when he moved to his present QTH, in Peru, Massachusetts, which isn’t, as he explains, “Even listed on some maps.” But K1RQ, who lived just up the road, introduced him to contesting, and Dave was “hooked” in short order. And like those Victorian age stories and characters, Dave’s narrative contains several bleak and saddening episodes (mostly derived from the weather), that might have slowed or saddened someone else, but instead seem to have inspired him to not only persevere, but to somehow strive and improve. So begins the first half of the book. The tales of crumbled 402CDs (they get some snow, and ice, up there in Peru) along with impassable roads and things that failed or otherwise broke, are told with some wit and obvious passion for the sport. A few errors (spelling and grammar) creep in, but unless you’re an English major-type (guilty), you’ll gloss over them, and simply enjoy the story.
There are 280 illustrations included—not bad, considering there are 280 pages of text. An obvious paean to something published and/or distributed electronically (some of the pictures are not as sharp as we might like, for instance).
There is a wealth of technical tips included (making a cheap TDR, using coax stubs, making hardline connectors, and so forth), which will be invaluable. Indeed, pages 245 to 280 are called Technical Miscellany, and are probably worth your $5.00 all by themselves. I especially enjoyed looking through each drawer of his toolboxes, and reading about his approaches to tools, along with using them! Pages 232 to 245 are devoted to the FUN of operating, and also contain lots of helpful radiosporting hints, especially if you’re considering or doing Multi-Multi operations.
In short, Dave’s summer efforts (why the man didn’t work on this when he was blanketed by some of the snowfalls in the illustrations remains a mystery!) to produce a book about the adventures he had (literally) in building what he calls a super station makes for a fun, informative read. The 20 years he’s spent in building his station are chronicled and described in a style and manner that informs, as well as entertains and inspires. It’s obviously been the best of times, the worst of times, at K1TTT, just like Dickens!
--K4ZA