[Unedited] Having a Ham Shack has its Advantages
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- Опубліковано 31 тра 2023
- Just a quick update video on me operating from home.
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#thetechprepper #hamradio #hamshack - Розваги
Listening/scanning is a huge part of my radio world. Theres always someone out there with something to say! Might be interesting or not, but people are out there.
Any pro-tips? I will be setting my RTL-SDR and two receive only antennas: a Discone and a Beverage antenna.
I started with a base station, but moved everything into a hybrid go box. Its all mounted in a 6U flight case on server equipment. Works fine at home, but everything can quickly be tucked in the box to move somewhere else for semi-portable operation. Serves as a nice compromise between a base station and full blown bugout setup. Hope your injury is healing fine. I had a bad back injury last year and it kept me down a few months. I still won't ever be able to ruck like I used too. Hurts my pride some, but we keep moving.
I like your modular approach and nearly went that path myself, but I am run my gear in manpacks. we have a couple of locals that run the same hybrid approach as you do. They spend a lot of time supporting public service events and really enjoy transitioning their gear from the shack to the field.This setup still works with the manpack approach. I just need to plug into power and coax at the shack. I am healing up, thanks. I hope that at least you're not experiencing any pain. Take care, man.
Great looking setup, less is best. 73 and thanks for posting.
I'm a fan of KISS. The trick is not to go nuts. I can see how that would be easy to do.
Thanks for the video from this first time visitor. It is always interesting to see what others have for a shack and layout.
You're welcome, Norm. I'm glad that you liked the tour and ad-hoc video format. You may enjoy the field videos that I linked at this end of this video. That's typically my operating style.
Digging your setup! Hope you have a speedy recovery.
Thanks. This is the longest I've gone in 35 years without running. At least it forced me to build a shack. It's basic, but it works. Stay tune for the next video. I'll show the coax install with a custom SO-239 wall plate I fabricated. 73's
I enjoy these short videos on how you do things, thanks.
That's great to know. I'm getting dinged by YT and have almost no time these days, so I'll try to share these quick updates when there's something worth sharing. They take no time to make. Just point, shoot and talk. Happy Friday!
Nice setup!
I'm digging the shelf addition, Gaston! Nicely done! I think I might have to steal that idea from ya! I'm starting to look at options for remotely operating my FT-991A from the office during my work day! Take care, my friend! 🤠
Steal away. That approach was out of practically and time savings. I had zero interest in getting the saw horses out. For the record, these 12" legs are better than the 10" arrived today. I went back to what was shown in this video.
Love the simplicity
Cheers to KISS.
Dude! I completely agree. Having a radio at my office desk is awesome. Scanning while working is awesome! Even better when you mix hf with vhf/uhf.
BTW I get why you want to decrease the height of the shelf, but if you keep at that height (which I like), it becomes scalable for future interests. At the same time if you save the current legs then what I'm saying means nothing.
Well, you were right. I installed the 8" legs and did not like it. I'm back to the 10" ones as shown here. It open some future mounting options on the under side. Cheers to more listening and less talking. I was experimenting with CW decoder in fldigi. AmRRON had a practice net 40m about an hour back. 73's
I hope you're healed up by now and that your ebike is helping you get further out to explore the Tonto.
I have found that knowing when the HF and loca nets are running is helpful too, especially if you might need or want information from other areas near or far.
This is very cool! I'm glad you got the shack moved into the house so it's cooler. Listening is very fun. Hope you heal up and are able to enjoy both portable and shack radio in he near future. 73
What a difference 15 to 20 degrees makes. I'm anxious to hit the trail again, but this turned into a happy detour. Trust me, I'll be going portable. This is more of a listening post and a way for me to check JS8Call, Winlink, and APRS several times per week. Have a good weekend.
Good stuff
Nice n clean. I like it.
Thanks. It's really all I need. I have a couple of meters in the drawers, but it's basically done.
That is super cool! Perfect shack and great looking too. Hope to see more of it. Good luck with your Anytone. I HATED that radio! Could not get the code plugs to work and after four months and several people helping me, I sold it. Ham is supposed to be fun and it was NOT. Love the channel... been a subscriber for a few years now. GL.
I appreciate all the support, Ron. Thanks for joining the live stream. I watched all 2 hours again and read every comment. It is incredibly difficult to handle ~100 viewers and the all live comments coming in. As for the AnyTone 878, that's why it's been in the box for 6 months. I am not that bright, so analog suits me. DMR, CPS and the code plugs are going to be one heck of a hurdle to get over. I'm going to do my thing and make it simple to understand. Have a great weekend.
@@TheTechPrepper I have the same radio, so if you happen to get stuck or have a weird problem shoot me a message and I've probably seen it. Code plugs can be frustrating but I recommend upgrading the firmware first then saving a blank code plug and then after that making your changes. It's really a good radio for both digital and analog!
Will do. Thanks for the offer. I be sure to let you know if I run into issues when I take this on.
Nice and clean looking shack! 📻👍🏽
Thank you!
Speedy Recovery!
Thanks. It's an exercise in being patient. The shack setup was a good distraction during the recovery.
@The Tech Prepper indeed. I've been there myself over the years. I am sure you will make the best of your recovery time.
Interesting video. Could you please provide a pointer for the furniture legs ? They would be exactly what I need....
I also monitor 146.52 all day while working. All sorts of traffic pop up, including a good number of SOTA, and POTA.
Its amazing what's on the air if you're there to hear. I'm monitoring 144.410 now...our local SOTA frequency.
Cool. Now if you add SDR you can expand your listening capacity.
Exactly. I did a small mini series on the RTL-SDR last year, but now it's time to revisit that and add some receive-only antennas. I plan to install a Discone and a Beverage antenna.
SDR(s) plus Virtual Audio Cables to receive into each digital application so you can decode all modes… for science of course. Not ideal for the off grid concept, but could be great for scouting to figure out what’s working. 🤷🏻♂️
@@dustinmeier9753 That's a good point. I plan to experiment with Pulse Audio for this. I'm starting with dual monitoring of JS8Call and Fldigi. Great suggestion.
3:00 - The down side of being able to monitor the 2m repeaters is you quickly tire of hearing about ingrown toenails, tonight's fried catfish dinner, and yes, even the new antenna that someone just bought. It's sad, but I'm too anti-social even for ham radio. 🙂
Because I don't do a lot of rag chewing and my primary interest is personal emcomm, I have a small and simple shack. I have a three glass shelf entertainment center mounted to the wall behind and to the side of my computer. The top two 15" wide shelves have my FT857D and LDG YT-100 tuner on the top shelf and the FTM-100D, constantly charging FT-70DR and Raspberry Pi on the second shelf. The bottom shelf is a DVD player, at least until I buy more ham gear. :-)
I use my PC for JS8, or I can use my monitor with the Raspberry Pi. I have several of the better Baofeng HTs and lots of other miscellaneous ham stuff stored in large 20mm ammo cans under the desk. On the other side of the wall is a 24 foot mast and a Comet GP-6 antenna for 2m and 70cm, and an end fed 85 foot non-resonant antenna strung over the house for HF. My entire shack is powered by a 30 watt solar panel on the roof that charges a LiFePO4 battery under the desk via a DC-DC converter adjusted to 14.2 volts, functioning as a solar charge controller. The small DC-DC converter limits the charging current to a safe level, and even if it didn't, the small solar panel would. The very inexpensive charging system is voltage limited and inherently current limited to avoid over charging. If I played radio more often, I'd scale up the solar panel to two 100 watt panels that I'm not using, a 100+ amp hour LiFePO4 battery, and a 5 amp DC-DC converter.
The same can be said for HF. It's nice having a sense for who is on, when they are on, what they're discussing. You'll never know when you need this "RF map".
So funny to see your 2m call log. I talk to those guys often. Maybe I'll catch you on 520 some time.
It's a good group. I was just testing my station, and it turned into a nice round table. I might even give POTA a try and light up 40m for this group. I'm a SOTA guy. What's your call? 73 de KT7RUN
Congratulations, looks good! ‘73
Thanks! It's a work in progress... 73 de KT7RUN
I can see you making a slide in rack mount to go under the shelf. Before you know it you'll have a power meter and everything all in one tidy spot. I look forward to seeing how this ends up. 🤙🏽
I like your idea. Great suggestion. Thank you.
Nice Little ham Shack, !
KISS for the win. It's checking all the must have checkboxes.
😎Looking good! Sometimes there’s a silver lining when you get sidetracked with an injury, Very interested in hearing more about Anti Field Day 2023....could become an annual event for the Anti Hams to come together!!!
I prefer the "I didn't go to Dayton" event. Everyone who didn't go to Dayton talks to each other and ignores Dayton.
You have that right. Remember, you heard "Anti Field Day" here first. I'm partially poking fun, but I have an actual emcomm reason. What do you do if the bands are packed and you're running low power and need to get a message out?
@@TheTechPrepper - I'm usually disgusted by contest days. I tune into JS8 on 40m and the band is blasted out by high wattage stations each quickly reporting "You're 5 9 73 Good luck". It's odd how everyone is 5 9 on contest days. There's a 40m voice band from 7.075 to 7.100 MHz for some operators and they use that to avoid pileups when the band is full of contest activity. Guess I'll play radio another day... when there isn't contest QRM.
@@Liberty4Ever I am with you. I'm going out, but I am hitting the WARC bands. I hate being stomped on during Field Day, so I skipped both ARRL and Winter Field the last time around. I'll be sharing my commo plan on JS8Call for 12m, 17m and 30m. I am more interested in hitting the backcountry for an over night trip.
@@TheTechPrepper - I just missed an opportunity for an overnight camping trip (ADV motorcycle to the Daniel Boone National Forest) to practice some emcomm skills this week. Maybe next week. Maybe I'll have my QDX built so I can use the Maestro notebook to use JS8.
I hope you recover soon and get back to your active lifestyle.
Ouch. Hope the calf is healing! Got a PT in your area that can dry needle? Had to get that done recently. It does wonders. Nice station set-up.
I'll have to look into it. I've been doing all the PT myself daily for 5 weeks, but I am up for anything gets me on the trail faster. Thanks.
@@TheTechPrepper It can speed things along. My PT has been doing it for awhile, but he's noticed that it's starting to gain traction since it forces the muscles to react, leading to faster healing times. I can vouch as I've had it done many times on muscles that were not responding to first line treatments like myofascial release, rolling, TENS unit, ice, heat, etc.
Would be great to see an Anytone 878 video. I picked a couple up and haven't figured them all out just yet.
We'll figure them out together in a few months. Full series coming, starting from first principles as I need to learn DMR myself.
Hope for a speedy recovery!
I’ve been mostly a portable operator as well. This year I’ve started building a home QTH and a permanent mobile setup.
Nice simple setup. Mine is similar, but usually with a bit of clutter.
Could you share what antennas are feeding your shack?
It will be in the next video. I am running the CHA LEFS 8010 for HF and an Arrow II Yagi (4-element) for VHF. There are four more antennas that will be added as part of the permanent installation this year. These two antennas were just my old semi-permanent antenna setup.
Very cool 😎
Thanks. It's a pretty modest setup, but it'll do the job. Have a good night!
@@TheTechPrepper modest is a good thing, most hams with big stations don’t use what they have.
You are doing a great job!
@@kb6lcw99 It works. No complaints here. I have less than $1,000.00 USD between the FT-897D (bought used for $400.00) and the FT-2980R (picked up new for $129.00 ad HRO early last year).
Getting familiar with Fldigi is a good thing, read up on how it’s used in NBEMS. It’s kind of similar to some of the things you’ve shown 3:23 .
It's a great tool. I actually did a mini series on NBEMS last year. We had a series of field exercises using 8PSK1000F and MT63-2KL over FM on 2m and 440. We had good luck on simplex, on a standalone repeater and even through a linked repeater system. Heck, we even did acoustic coupling. Search "NBEMS" on my channel page if you're interested in the exercises.
Not directly radio related but I'm in the process of redoing my shack. I just acquired a Yaesu world map like yours. How did you mount and frame yours? I would like to do the same. Thanks
Do you have an automatic power switch of any kind? Something like a West Mountain Radio EpicPWRGate? That would be perfect! Auto switch to battery if you lose mains and also has a built in pwm solar charge controller! I want one for my shack badly
Not yet, but that exact model has been on my gear list since I started this little build. I will be installing (2) 100 watt solar panels on the roof along with a 40A MPPT solar charge controller to top off my 100Ah BattleBorn LiFePO4 that is currently parked on a hand dolly with 3,000 watt inverter. I did a video a few years back on that portable battery setup. We used it in the house when the power goes out.
You know need a noaa antenna and weather system via rf haha. It’s only gonna get bigger
I'm getting NOAA on FM on the FT-2890. However, I'll be deploying four more antennas this year: 1) a vertical for GMRS, 2) terminated folded dipole; 3) a Discone, and 4) a Beverage antenna or delta loop.
AmRRON runs Contessia 4/250.
Yep. I usually grab their AIB's with Flmsg on Tuesday's and have made a few QSO's on their 20m and 40m persistent nets with Contestia 4/250.
Hello Gaston! I see you have a at-d878uv in your shack. I have a 878 my self. I also noticed that you didn't use windows. The CPS software for the 878 is windows only. How do you figure that? Are you using Wine etc, or do you have a windows PC "in the dark"? 73 de LB4EG Helge
Believe it or not, it's still not programmed. It's been on my todo list since last December, but I'm planning on tackling DMR before the end of the year. I plan to dual boot Windows 10 and just use it for the CPS software for the AnyTone 878 and Motorola XTS-5000.
Where did you get that map from?
It's the Yaesu map that came with my FT-818ND.
I love it . I wonder if they sell them buy themselves. Trying to get some shack ideas when I do build my shack one day
Anti-FD...bring it! Caffeinated cheers!
That's the plan. I'll be on the WARC bands (12m, 17m and 30m). Should be fun. I'll be distributing the commo plan via JS8Call later this month.
2:30 256bit encryption? I thought encryption on amateur bands was not permitted?
I'm putting in for my business license.
@@TheTechPrepper Well that changes everything! Thanks for the clarification. And keep up the great work on the videos. I enjoy the content you produce!
Put up some local map .
It's on the other wall.
I’m curious why 14.2 volts Everything I read calls for 13.8 volts? My power supply has a detent at 13.8v for instance.
Amps or Volts?
He's referring to the voltage.
@@RandomGene ha ha, thanks. I edited/fixed that. Volts for sure. Question still stands.
@@TheTechPrepper yep, musta been tired. Still curious about 14.2v instead of 13.8v
@@forgetyourlife I actually do not know the answer, so my hope is that someone else will jump in here. All my LiFePO4's run at 13.8v nominal. In general, all my Yaesu base station rigs will work with a range of voltages including 14.2V.
That’s not a ham shack! At least not like mine - it’s covered in old radios, home brew projects, valuable radio gear, soldering irons, meters, cable etc etc. ;)
I can't handle messy workstations as it's bad for my OCD. ;-)
Nice setup ,order a gaming chair for your shack, de WK6LE 73
I'm not that cool. Any recommendations a chair to look at? My gaming days or stuck in the past. I still have my original NES and Windows 95 gaming PC (Packard Bell, Pentium I 233 MHz).