My passion is DXing and I also do a little contesting on CW, SSB and RTTY though I have not been too serious about my contesting efforts. I occasionally get on PSK-31 as well. My current station (2012) consists of the following:

Radios are a Yaesu FTDX5000MP, an Elecraft K1 and K2/100, a TS-480SAT for HF mobile, and my son (K8KXN) uses a Yaesu FT-897D. Amplifiers are a QRO HF-2500DX and a Ten Tec Centurion. I mainly use the QRO amp, but, sometimes I like to see the warm thermionic glow of those big 3-500Z tubes in the Centurion, especially in a darkened shack.  The picture shown on this page is from 2011 and is a bit outdated, but, it's reasonably close to what it looks like now with a few changes in the equipment.

I have two towers, one being 50 feet of 25g house bracketed to the back of the house. On this tower I have the high band antennas with a 2m/440MHz Diamond X300A on the top of the mast, under that a 4 element F12 10m monobander, a Cushcraft 13B2 and a Bencher SkyLark 12m/17m beam. Those antennas are turned by a Yaesu G-800DXA rotor with a Green Heron controller interfaced to the shack computer. The second tower is a US Tower HDX-589 motorized crank up tower that extends to 89 feet. On that tower is a F12 Magnum 520 five element 20m beam, a F12 3 element 15m beam (EF-315) and a F12 Magnum 240 40m beam. Those antennas are turned by a M2 Orion rotor which is also interfaced to the shack PC. In addition to those antennas, I have a HyGain HyTower about 300 feet behind the shack with about 60 radials which are 50 feet long, a vertical dipole for 30m, low dipole for 80m phone and an inverted L for 160m. The inverted L is relatively short because the trees that are nearby for support are only about 50 feet tall. It also shares the radial system with the HyTower.

Switching these antennas, I have a main switch just outside the shack that directs RF either to the 25g, the HDX-589 or the antennas in the woods 300 feet behind my house. I also have remote switches at the 589 and for those antennas in the woods. The remote switches are fed with 50 ohm 7/8" hardline or 1/2" hardline. For antenna selection, I use a MicroHam Station Master which reads frequency data from the rig and decides which predetermined antenna to select. Keying for CW, RTTY, and PSK are done via a MicroHam Microkeyer II or occasionally via a K1EL Winkey USB, particularly if I am using the K1 or K2. The Yaesu FT-897D is interfaced to the shack PC with a MicroHam USB III interface primarily for PSK.

For receiving on 160m and 80m, I use a short receive four square which has some directivity and, most importantly, reduces the noise and improves the S/N ratio. After a few years of trying to keep beverages in service in the woods, I have given up on that idea. Tree branches were constantly falling on them and knocking the wires down or breaking them and trudging out through several feet of snow to find the problem and then free and fix the wire or wires from their frozen demise was a frequent activity. I put up the four square in about 2008 and it has been trouble free since then.

The shack computer is a homebrew model running Windows 7 and dual monitors. I typically keep applications that require input/output on the left monitor.like logging, keying, etc. On the right monitor are informational items that are available at a glance. Both monitors are 20" models. The PC has several hard drives and a couple of 4 port USB cards in addition to the 6 ports on the motherboard for all the interfacing to radio equipment.

QSLing is done primarily via LOTW. I don't really use eQSL, but, do upload my log once in a while for those who do use it.

Hope to work you on the bands.

73,

Tim