Why do we keep so much damn radio crap?

[K5UJ]

I have a question for you guys who have a bunch of receivers and transmitters.  Do you have one or two rigs on your operating table at a time and the rest of the stuff sits off to one side unplugged and disconnected, so when you want to use it you heft it over to the table and swap something else out for it, or do you have all your gear hooked up to power and feedline and do some kind of switching?   I have been thinking about the time when I rebuild the shack and I'd like to have all my gear available for use but when I think about all the feedline and TR switching and so on, I wind up thinking that I'll have to go with a coax patch bay in a rack with the antennas and rigs all connected to it in a matrix of UHF jacks, and switch them in with a bunch of jumpers to have any tx and rx combo I want without having to move rigs in and out of position.

Rob

[WA1GFZ]

put the heavy stuff on the bottom.
I like Bird Coax switches to select rigs/antennas.
I also use a couple 1:4 RF splitters to feed multiple receivers.
I mounted a string of quad outlet boxes under the bench so I have plenty of outlets.

[k4kyv]

This is the workbench when it is clean!

I have shelves.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I have a question for you guys who have a bunch of receivers and transmitters.  Do you have one or two rigs on your operating table at a time and the rest of the stuff sits off to one side unplugged and disconnected, so when you want to use it you heft it over to the table and swap something else out for it, or do you have all your gear hooked up to power and feedline and do some kind of switching?  

When you rebuild your set up Rob, it's great to go with switching and multiple ants if you can swing the space. Set it up so you can use it, if at all possible. This will at least minimize the moving and hauling when you want to swap in a different piece of gear. I have only a couple old HB transmitters that won't be hooked up due to space at this location, but my approach (or excuse for more gear, perhaps) has always been to have dedicated stations covering different bands.

This set up allows some flexibility for break downs, different power levels for conditions, or running multiple stations to help global warming along. Still need to work out the feedline switching and final assembly, but the layout is set. Finding a suitable switch for coax that will handle some real carrier power is the main challenge.

So far the wife is very accommodating and understanding due to the square footage lost in the move. But like the car nuts who have a separate garage decked out with old gas pumps, signs, etc to house their cars, I'm still shooting for a dedicated radio location. Hope springs eternal?

[K5UJ]

Frank, good ideas re splitters for rx.  no need for expensive switch for them.  I have two used Bird coaxwitches.  model 74s I think.   they are great.   I have another switch made by some German company that Maxgain sells that seems like a good manual rotary switch also, but it was kind of expensive. 

Todd, not sure i have room for separate rigs for each band.  I'm trying to find gear that covers at least 160 and 80.  Of course that's only two bands so separates aren't that big a deal I guess.   Feedline switching for QRO AM is in interesting issue.  The stuff made for hams is often sub-par.   Assuming "real carrier power" is within the capabilites of N and UHF jacks and males, the switches I mentioned above are the best I have found.  Anything higher power probably gets us into 7/8 inch DINs and serious bucks (and power).   IIRC the Bird 74 is okay for around 3 KW at around 40 m. (probably more since Bird is usually kind of conservative).   There's a point at which I'd start thinking about a feedline patch bay with the connectors/jumpers of your choice or if you do any OWL do the switching with big knife switches or parallel jumper wires.   Actually the Bird switch is sort of a rotary jumper that uses a short U of what looks like 213 to switch between feedlines.   

[Opcom]

Don, I see those 20-28A powerstats are holding up the bottom shelf!!

Would you care to comment on this large induction-handwheel looking item?

[WA1GFZ]

That is a teflon coax jumper in the bird. Check the specs on RG393 and quality type n connectors.  I put 4 KW pulse through them at over 1 GHz.
Splitters are easy to build or cheap to buy from mini circuits. The noise floor is high enough up to 40 meters most of the time to allow a 1:4 passive splitter

[k4kyv]

Don, I see those 20-28A powerstats are holding up the bottom shelf!!

Would you care to comment on this large induction-handwheel looking item?

It's a 100+ amp 120v powerstat made by Amertran. The two sections are in parallel, with a couple of fixed equalising inductors in the circuit. Some of the wiper brushes were damaged when I got it, but I think they could be easily repaired.  Picked it up at a hamfest near Chicago back in the early 70's.  Weighs about 100 lbs. The guy I bought it from said it was used to dim the lights in a large auditorium in Chicago before it was torn down.

I'll probably never have a use for it, but it's too nice an item to throw out.  Anyone got something to trade?

[ke7trp]

I just put 7000 watts through a bird with the standard HF connectors and cable. No ill effects.

C

[K5UJ]

Okay, that's good to know about the power handling.  This is what I got:


http://birdtechnologies.thomasnet.com/item/components/selector-switches/74?

All I can say is they have handled what I put out with no problem, but it hasn't been more than around 300 w. down on the low bands.  I'd say if you find one for sale grab it, if it isn't an arm and a leg expensive that is.

There are some big massive roller inductors where the pinch roller moves around on the inside of the coil and they could use a big wheel like what's on that powerstat for turning them   

BTW Don, can you give the v. rating and capacitance of that big cap, the gray one with the brown beehives on top?   I just want to be jealous.

tnx

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

That looks like just what I need, Rob. Some of my transmitters came from the factory with N connectors, so compatibility issues will be few.

One just sold on ebay for $45 or so. Was a bit on the scruffy side, but not a bad price. Running a pair back-to-back would allow selecting between 6 stations and 6 aerials. I built a B&W network like that in my SSB DX days, but there's no way I'd trust it to handle any amount of carrier beyond a hundred watts or so.

Don, I like that old mic and floor stand - would go perfectly with one of the old homebrew transmitters here. Also saw that nice open frame rack and what looks like a Collins 26U limiter in the background. Could be RCA or CBS or a mod monitor, hard to tell from that distance.

[WA3VJB]

without having to move rigs in and out of position.

Rob

If you have rigs you can move
you're not trying, Rob.

Actually, in practice, for a given day on the radio I'm usually on just one band. That makes it easy to just lift the coax from the grounding bar and put it to the transmitter.

The Collins 300-G is physically stationery, with a good grip on gravity, and I manually screw-on the right antenna among 160-80-40 incoming coax feeds.

This is screwed onto the transmitter's coaxial T/R relay, and the receiver coax from that relay is manually screwed on to the SP600, R390A or maybe the R390.  All three are in a rack by my elbow as I look at the RCA console, and also has a good grip on gravity.

Audio lines all come through that board to the house amp/speakers, and I can further deliver transmit and receive audio to various recording devices all looking at the board's output through a small distribution amp to maintain level and 600 ohm impedance.

One big stomp-to-talk switch.

[WBear2GCR]

 I started a new thread in the Tech section on that Boid Co-ass sweetch...

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=25081.0

           

                   _-_-bear

[k4kyv]

BTW Don, can you give the v. rating and capacitance of that big cap, the gray one with the brown beehives on top?   I just want to be jealous.

I have two of 'em, each 400 mfd @ 2500 vdc, made by Westinghouse.  Probably PCB.  In series, would give 200 mfd @5KV, with separate bleeders of equal  resistance across each one. In parallel, 800 mfd @ 2500 vdc. Serious step-start circuitry required. 

They were used at Vanderbilt University for some kind of physics research project.  They guy said there were more, but never heard from him again.  Weigh about 50 lbs each.

May never use them, but like the big power stat, might make good trading material some day.

[WQ9E]

Rob,

I am not quite finished yet (and maybe never will be since I keep adding stuff)  but my goal is to have everything switch selectable. 

My vintage gear is split between a room on the main floor of the house (Desk KW, Viking 500, S line, Drake 7 line, and some other gear and receivers); some military and more recent Yaesu gear in one room in the older basement and then the majority of the gear is in the basement under the master bedroom suite added a few years ago.  In the main floor room I have the homebrew antenna tuner and a coax switch which allows selecting the Desk KW side of the main room, the other side with the S line/Drake, the military gear room, the newer basement, or an active multi-coupler for feeding a number of receivers.  The basement room with most of the gear is divided into 5 large table/shelf areas and each of these areas is then selected by another 5 position coax switch in that room.  Finally each table has a 18 position heavy duty ceramic switch to choose individual setups at that table.

It is far from the perfect setup but so far it works for me.   There is certainly some loss with all of the coax and switches but I am not as worried about this issue with the vintage gear.  The more modern stuff I use for more serious/DX is in a room in the barn close to the tower supporting the quad and also the Hy Tower vertical.

Rodger WQ9E

I have a question for you guys who have a bunch of receivers and transmitters.  Do you have one or two rigs on your operating table at a time and the rest of the stuff sits off to one side unplugged and disconnected, so when you want to use it you heft it over to the table and swap something else out for it, or do you have all your gear hooked up to power and feedline and do some kind of switching?   I have been thinking about the time when I rebuild the shack and I'd like to have all my gear available for use but when I think about all the feedline and TR switching and so on, I wind up thinking that I'll have to go with a coax patch bay in a rack with the antennas and rigs all connected to it in a matrix of UHF jacks, and switch them in with a bunch of jumpers to have any tx and rx combo I want without having to move rigs in and out of position.

Rob

[WD8BIL]

WHY ASK WHY?

[The Slab Bacon]

WHY ASK WHY?

WHY? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  BECAUSE WE CAN!!   

[ke7trp]

I spent the evening cleaning in the shack.  I turned on my Hifi R390 and listened to AM on 75 meters while working.  I had a chest of Drawers in the shack that was a dumping ground for small parts for the last 4 years.  5 Drawers FULL.  This had to be done since the thing was collapsing under the weight.  Along the way, I found about 30 tubes, hundreds of connectors for microphones and coax. Hundreds of misc lengths of wire and cable, Manuals, About 30 bucks in coin, thousands of resistors, diodes and caps, and about 30 misc FT101 parts including the factory riser cards.

I sperated all this into stacks on the floor and what was trash I toosed into a Trash bag. The bag is now full.  What to do with all the parts I want to keep??? 

Can I see some ideas for organizing the ham shack?  I am willing to go out to a local store and buy some type of rack, parts drawer system.  The idea is one bin for mics, One for tubes, One for small parts, One for cables and jumpers ect.

I am going to go out in a bit and smash the old chest of Drawers down and throw it out. It was light duty and made of particle board.

This was very inspiring.  I now have alot more room in the shack with that chest out of here. The room really opened up! My plan is to work an hour or so in the evenings listening to the radio. THe next project is to clean off the tech bench again but I cant do that until I have some kind of place to organize all this crap.


C

[W9GT]

Hi Clark,

It is always a challenge to find places to store all of that junk...er, uh all of those priceless bits of radio technology.  I enjoy building stuff and I have collected tons of parts over the years.  There is nothing more frustrating than to just know that you have an item, but are unable to find it....and end up buying another one....then a week later, stumble on to that item you knew you had, but couldn't find when you needed it..

I have found a couple of good ways to store small parts.  One is to go to your local Target or Walmart and buy some of those plastic shoe-box size containers.  The ones with the attached lids work out nicely.  You can store a bunch of parts in each one and they stack nicely on the shelf.  Label them with stick-on labels that you can also find at Walmart.  This makes a nice way to sort and store parts and keeps them in some reasonable order.  They also have several different sizes of these containers, many with snap-on lids that are also nice for storage.  You can pick-up cheap metal shelves that work out nice for storing all the boxes from the same source, or at Home Despot, Lowes, etc.  I also use some of those shelves for storing my iron collection...but only go up 2 shelves from the floor for those.  I previously used some of the molded plastic variety of shelves, and they didn't hold-up too well under all the weight.  

The second nice storage system that I have found is from Harbor Freight.  They have some nice parts bins that hook onto a metal support frame.  These are great for storing nuts and bolts, as well as radio parts.  A couple of racks of those things will handle a lot of hardware and/or parts.

I am a fine one to talk about organizing my stuff!  My wife is always complaining about all the junk.....but,at least it helps to control the mess a little by maintaining some sort of order.  At least you will have a good idea where to look, if you need something.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[ke7trp]

Jack.. Good ideas. Thanks for the post. I am going to head over to Harbor Frieght in a bit and check out what they have. There is one 2 miles from the house.  I got a plastic storage bin with Drawers. Its way to flimsy to hold any of this stuff. Its already sagging.  I need to pull the parts back out of it and put them in something sturdy.  THen maybe use the plastic bin to hold spare tubes.

I am really enjoying the extra space in the shack this morning!  THat chest of Drawers really took up alot of valuable realestate!

C

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Might not be an option for those strapped for space, but I've found that keeping the shop and radio room separate helps a lot. Currently this means walking across the driveway to another garage for tubes or the parts & hardware cabinets, but it's still an improvement. Next thing is to keep excess/unused gear out too, which encourages culling the herd as you've been doing lately.

Many of my parts are sorted only to the cardboard box or recycle bin level, and coarse-sorted at that. Like cables in one box, mics in another, porcelain in another, coils, rheostats, etc. Small parts and hardware are in those bench top cabinets with the small drawers. Tubes are the biggest hurdle still ahead as they currently cover the back wall of the shop.

Once you get a system down that works for you be it boxes, cabinets, or bins, it gets easier from there. Every time you come across a box or drawer of parts, it's easy to sort and store what you choose to keep, and sell or toss the rest. The metal shelving Jack mentioned coupled with clear bins you can label and see through (I think W3GMS uses this method) sounds like a winner.

I wonder if, once everything is sorted and stored, it would be a good idea to get on a regular schedule (once a year, for example) of going through the inventory and moving out unused, unneeded stuff? This assumes more stuff keeps coming in of course, in typical ham tradition.  Have a party, invite your pals over, or a dumpster clean out ala W2ZM.

[ke7trp]

Thats the plan Todd.  I have a radio room, a storage room and a Tech room.  Only radios I am using go in the radio room. This was the first step going through that chest of drawers.

Going to lunch and then to harbor freight.

C

[WD8BIL]

Don, I used to have one of those floor mounted bench grinders too!

[W3GMS]

I have 3 separate area's over the property in order to try and keep things in order.

The first area is for parts.  Its a 12 x 24 foot building on the property.  My first project when I retired was to empty it and re-organize it so it would be useful.  We went to Harbor Freight and bought about a dozen 24 x 40 foot tarps.  We laid the tarps out back and proceed to empty the building which originally was not well organized.  We put all like items on the tarps and also dedicated a few tarps to the GMS give-away hamfest we held on the property.  In addition, I got a very large dumpster in to take away the stuff which nobody wanted.  What was left was my truly good parts which I call my treasures!  At that point I moved the building onto a new foundation about 100 feet away from its original location on the property.  After the move, I renovated the building to bring it back to like new condition.  I then built shelving at right angles to the back 24 foot wall.  The shelving was built out of 2 x 12 framing lumber so it would handle the weight of the items.  The shelving was 6 foot high, 8 foot long and 48 inches deep.  I then bought about 150 large rubber maid containers with snap on lids.  2 of them end to end took up the 48 inch depth of the shelving.   I built 4 of the shelving units with isle space between them to hold the goods.  The only thing that did not go in the bins were the big iron!  The building is nice and dry and I can find anything very quickly.  I used blue painters tape to label the ends of the bins.  I kept the inventory grouped together on the shelving and then made a map up where the particular bin is located on the shelving.  The Iron shelf spans the full width of the end or 12' wall of the building.  The other end of the building has end to end shelving which keeps the parts rigs.  In between are all the parts shelves which are labeled.  Small parts go in those pull out drawers which are located at the end of each isle which was kind of dead space.  Its a work in progress but it has really made finding things and keeping things for projects much more rewarding.  

Retirement project number 2 was to build an electronic lab downstairs.  Raised floors, well insulated, heated, and a well lit space makes it a pleasure to work in.  A 12' wide homebrew shelf supports the test gear along with a nice workbench on the opposite wall with lots of open space in the middle makes it very comfortable.  The only parts that are down in the lab are those that are used often.  Things like, common resistors, caps and hardware.  The stuff that is not used much is out in the separate parts building.  It keeps the clutter out very nicely.  Years ago I had 5 work benches in that space but found I had too many projects all going at the same time and nothing got done!  This time I have one large workbench and one Rubbermaid roller cart which I really like when you have to get all around a large boat anchor!  The scheme works well.

Next is the actual operating shacks / working museum yet to be completed.  I will have desks right angle to the walls and should be able to get about 10 stations going.  The current shack is up in the family room since Martha likes to hear the QSO's while she is working on the computer across the room.  The shack stays clean since it has its own space.  

So far its working out very well.  To cut down on the rig clutter I look to the proper benefactors to donate rigs to.  Even with doing that, its still overwhelming at times dealing with the actual space required for the rigs.  When the large "working museum" room gets done that should help a lot since stuff won't be stacked up in storage.  

Its a lot of work and I had years of not having time to work on it so playing catch up is a really big job!  I am making good progress on it.  I figure another 2 or 3 years and it should be completed.  I sure hope we get lot of visitors when it gets completed!!  

Regards,
Joe, W3GMS                              

[WQ9E]

My new large storage containers are the empty plastic pails that originally hold Tidy Cat scoopable cat litter.  They are rectangular plastic roughly 9.5 x 11 x 10 and the plastic lid is indented so they stack securely on top of each other.  With 4 cats my collection built up in a hurry and they make nice storage units complete with handy carrying handle.  I have found these pails perfect for labeling and storing a group of spares or parts for a specific radio.

I store receiving tubes under the tables in the radio room and small common parts (resistors, caps, common hardware) are near the repair bench but most parts are stored in a parts room in another section of the basement.