Foundations of Amateur Radio

If you have the opportunity to build your shack, it might start off as a table in the corner where you plonk down a radio, plug into nearby power and run coax to. That's pretty much how most shacks start, mine included.

For me the step of running coax was an activity that took weeks of planning and procrastination and days of climbing on the roof. After actually completing that and getting two runs of coax to my planned shack, one for HF and one for UHF and VHF, the shack building itself was pretty simple.

I had to get power to the location, but an extension lead took care of that. In the interest of space I put the power supply on the floor, a wooden floor that ensured good circulation, unlike carpet, perhaps a topic for another day, I plugged my coax into the radio, plugged in the 12 Volt power and was up and running.

Over time that space continued to grow. Looking at it right now, it has two computer monitors, a laptop, three radios, two coax switches, a keyboard, mouse, digital interface, two speakers, and a fan to cool the radio when I'm calling CQ on FT8.

I'm not a messy person, but I do like to have my tools convenient. It's not a pristine environment by any stretch, but it's orderly as shacks go. An hour ago it wasn't, actually, looking at the clock, that was four hours ago. Time flies when you're having fun.

My shack is the centre of my radio activities. I might receive a gadget from a friend to test and I'll put it on my desk ready to go. The same is true for a foot pedal that I found when looking for something else, as is the audio adaptor that I used in the desk mixer that I'm experimenting with.

Over time each of these bits and pieces accumulate on the surface.

When I noticed that my radio was running hot, or in my mind uncomfortably warm, given that I'm using 5 Watts, I decided to invest in a fan, clipped to the edge of the desk requiring yet another wire.

It's not limited to small bits. I'm testing a new radio, that comes with removable head, a microphone, cables to join those to the main body, two antenna port cables, a coax switch and a power lead with two cables.

Over time you have coax mixed with 12 Volt DC and 240 Volt AC, audio leads, USB leads, video leads, grounding wire, remote control switches, microphone leads, CAT leads and more, all running all over the place.

Making a minor change can become a big hassle, making it hard to determine what goes where, not to mention that each cable generates it's own little slice of RF, wanted or not.

The four hours I've just spent consisted of taking everything except the bolted on computer monitors off the desk and starting from scratch.

I also did this when I first added a second radio, but that was so long ago that the "system" I implemented then was unrecognisable. Doing it again today I made better use of the environment and changed some things around. I started with the 240 Volts requirements, then the coax, then 12 Volts, then audio and finally USB, using cable ties for semi-permanent things like power boards and hook and loop straps for things that move more frequently like audio wiring and video cables.

It's not perfect. I'm looking for some flexible coax patch leads, there's USB cables going every which way, the laptop keyboard isn't used, so why use a laptop, no doubt I'll discover more.

My point is that this is dynamic and every now and then it pays to spend a little while putting things back together.

My next project is to use an audio mixer to bring all the audio together in one place so I can use one headset for everything and give me the opportunity to plug in a tape recorder as my regulator suggests for monitoring emergency communications, though I might have to come up with something a little less 1980 for the actual recording.

If you're going to do this, move the desk at least a meter from the wall so you can get at the back of your shack, you can thank me later.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB