[en] This paper reports on two recent experiments carried out on the STOR-M tokamak. The first experiment studied the nature of MHD activities based on singular value decomposition algorithm during the improved confinement phase induced by compact torus injection. The typical MHD modes with mode numbers m = 2, 3, and 4 are suppressed during the improved confinement phase. Shortly before the termination of the improved confinement phase, MHD activities reemerge, starting with a gong-mode-like burst followed by oscillations of a rotating m = 2. The second experiment was successful current start-up with a simulated spherical tokamak configuration where the inner Ohmic heating coils surrounding the iron core are deactivated in STOR-M. Current start-up was also achieved with all the vertical equilibrium field coils deactivated. In the latter case, the vertical equilibrium field was provided solely by the image vertical field produced by the magnetization current in the iron core and compensated for by the current through the feedback control vertical field windings. The observed waveforms agree well with numerical simulations