The AM Forum

Why cant we throw it out?  I looked around last week and was just shocked at what I have here at the house. This week in my spare time I went through each room one by one.  Tonight was the big haul trip.  I got two friends over and we spent 2 hours hauling out stuff that I wont use, We filled a truck bed to the TOP with useless junk.  I have a room full of transmitters and receivers STILL. 

4!!!  Valiants... WHY???
2 BWs!!!
2 Rangers!  Why!!
over 20 Recievers!!! 
4!!!  SP600s!!!! what the hell will I do with 4 SP600s???
2 complete FT101 stations!
6 antenna tuners... All SSB hammy hambone types.
must be 5 or 6 Amplifiers. 

Its all going. Little by little. I can see my work bench now.. Tomorrow I organize it so I can work on gear again. Its really a sickness. No matter how much room you have, after one year, It just piles up!  BOXES and BOXES of tubes, , caps, resistors and parts! 

I for one am making a real effort to NOT have this happen again.  one more good truck load out of here and I will be in decent shape. Anyone else have this happen?  I bet most of you!!!

C

If you saw my shack right now, it would scare the hell out of you. It's got so out of hand, I can't do anything with it. Big 'fest coming up in a couple weekends and I'm loading up the truck... NO MORE PROJECTS! All I'll be bringing back will be parts to complete what I have going right now.

You're right, it is a sickness; but it could be something much worse. It does keep one home and out of trouble.

Phil

I think all Hams are cut from the same mold.  I've been trying to clean up my shops for 30 years with little success.  Right now,  I can no longer even get into my garages.  The mice have moved out complaining about a lack of space ;D 

Every workbench (about 10) I have is covered with 6 to 10 inches of stuff.   The basement is well organized with tons of metal shelving units and dozens of heavy metal draw (parts) cabinets and still there are parts and pieces all over the floor.

My shops are a work in progress.

Fred, KA2DZT

Same here!! Do I really need 19 receivers and 17 transmitters ???  ???

Hell No! ! !

Why do we do it  ???  ???


BECAUSE WE CAN! ! ! ! ! ! !    ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D

I tore the meniscus in my left knee on Monday jumping off my truck tailgate and am waiting to get it scoped.

Last night I hobbled out to the garage looking for a transformer amongst the junk. My knee let go and down I went across a pile of radios and other junk. There was so much junk there was no place to fall. I probably wouldn't have fallen if there wasn't so much junk that there was no walking path. I was lucky I didn't kill myself.

I'll bet my work bench is the worst in the country and the floor around it is worse than ridiculous.

Yes, and I thought I was the only one who had so much junk!  ;D  I recently got rid of most of my Heathkit collection, which was nice, but mostly became "shelf queens" and just sat there for years.  Lots of other gear fills every possible nook and cranny in the shack and the workshop.

I really enjoy collecting parts and "stuff" for projects, but I probably have more than I will ever use in my lifetime.  The one project that never seems to get completed is cleaning up the shack (just ask the XYL!).

73,  Jack, W9GT

It creeps up on ya, Clark. As someone who had between 300-400 rigs in recent years and also visited and survived Slab's basement a few times, I think it's a somewhat universal thing for many AMers and hands-on hams in general.

For me, it started decades ago when I was the dumb kid in the radio club who'd haul home home anything with tubes in it. Got a lot of cool free stuff that way, still have some of it. The first culling of the herd resulted in a number of my nice pre-war sets hitting the road in favor of newer, 'better' gear.

Then in 1994 I bought my first house, a 19 room 3000+ sq ft Victorian fixer-upper with a 2 story carriage house. A single guy with a good paying job and all that space, well.....HUZman has pics from some of the BBQs we had there, I'm sure they're quite frightening. Between work, travel, women, house repairs, whatever else, the 'accumulating' aspect ended up filling in for actual use and operation. Especially when the internet came along making it sooooo easy for find more cool stuff.

You've made the big leap! You've realized that it comes to a point where you have so much of it, it becomes increasingly difficult to enjoy any of it. No need to throw it away, though. Sell some and get other things you need or have wanted to try. Give stuff to friends, it's good for your karma and there's no packing or shipping involved.

So it's all good. I'm down to around 150 rigs now (that includes things like ARC-5 sets, wooden broadcast receivers, anything radio), and as tough as it once was to even think of parting with any of them, the weight lifted from your shoulders literally and figuratively when you finally do is amazing. I still get a radio now and then, but the interest is much more focused, and the rule of 'one out for one in' has run closer to 4:1 in favor of things leaving. Have to admit - having a wife and a smaller house provides some incentive, too.  ;D

Welcome to the enlightened packrats. No doubt some kind of a 10 step program. Don't be surprised if you fall off the wagon a few times before you succeed in clearing out all of the excess. It took a while to accumulate, after all.

I hope you are not throwing "stuff" in the dump unless it really is useless junk (weak tubes, leaky capacitors, broken tube sockets, etc).  If it is perfectly good equipment, parts and components that you simply don't have a use for, for God's sake give someone else the opportunity to take it off your hands.  Don't just throw it away. Some of this stuff can be pure unobtanium when needed for a project if one doesn't already have it in the junk collection, and less and less of it shows up at hamfests each year.  Why not list it on the net and invite others to come pick through it free for the taking? Too much useful but "out of production" radio material has already needlessly gone to the dump.

Inevitably, whenever I get rid of something, not even a fortnight passes before I discover that I have a need for it. I often do building projects that I could never have completed if I hadn't held onto odds and ends acquired decades earlier, and it continuously amazes me how often things I had always thought of as common items are no longer available at any price.

My current construction project is a complete  rebuild of my antenna tuner system.  So far, I have made use of insulated shaft couplings, worm drive mechanisms, 90° drive mechanisms, variable capacitors, ceramic insulators, brass spacers, a couple of small transformers, some circuit board scrap, several jumbo ceramic switches, metal shafts, a large industrial grade wirewound pot, as well as a couple of oddball meters, and the  project still isn't finished.  All stuff that has been here for at least a decade or two or three, stuff that I would have had no idea what I might ever use it for as recently as five years ago. This even includes a pile of sheet metal scrap that I have held onto; I could never have built the mounting hardware for the major components without it.

I can usually build about anything I want from scratch without having to beg, borrow, buy or steal anything, or at most, maybe one or two items, since I essentially have my own private radio parts warehouse. Whenever something leaves here for the dump, it is guaranteed to be junk (crapped out tubes, resistors, capacitors, transformers, scraps of hookup wire, broken insulators, etc). I do sometimes load visitors up with goodies that I know I'll never use.  Derb took away quite a haul last summer when he visited here.

Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

I think it is because a) you might need it and b) it is so KEWL!! :D

I mean, you can not go out and buy most of this stuff from a distributor...

I have the same problem, although it is not all quite such "cream of the crop" sort of stuff.
No way can I keep it all clean or properly organized. SPACE is the evil twin, lack of that is.
You need more space than things by a % in order to maintain clean.

So, I feel for everyone.
What is good is that I am prepared to HELP anyone out that really needs help.
Feel free to ship excess SP600 or similar gear here.
If ur close enough I can rent a U-Haul and come over to re-establish your open space!!
Anywhere in the NE within about 200mi, I'm there! :D
...well probably...

Although actually, I too am thinning the herd here... the bottom of the "food chain" is going bye-bye. My new philosophy is that if you can't find it or get to it, it "isn't there" and has no value. So, out with the marginal crap. Like that pile of computers that were good more than 5 years ago, and I might want to pull the supplies and extract the parts like the HV filter caps... Nope, out. Out with the nice 17" flat screen Trinitron monitors too... out.

Geez it is a struggle, eh?

                    _-_-bear

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, nature abhors a flat surface.

Welp.......
I just saved OVER 1200 POUNDS of boat ancher electronics and reloading equipment from a dumpster over the past 2 days.
My Half ton truck needs a hernia belt.
I feel nauseous over the sudden injection of crap into my life but I couldn't let it go to landfill and the newly single mom of 3 needed the cash.
I will organize the mess and bring 90% to a fester when I can.
I'm numb from all this crap.
                                              DJ
PS There are a dozen or so phil and aud. xfmrs in there, a commercial Collins mod deck and a couple dozen monster and medium mil & comm caps. I'm at a loss to ID quite a few. i'll post pics of the tags soon. Some neat stuff.

I am not throwing good stuff out,  Only Trash and total scrap heaps. I just want to try to get all the radio crap out of the house.  I am looking into having a shack built out back or having an office storage container put in.  It seems never ending. I just want some nice gear and the rest, I want it gone.

T3 and R390
304TL by 4-400 with perfect SP600
Icom and one SSB amp
King 500 and SX28
Globe champ 300 and SP600
ranger/tbolt and NC300


THATS IT!!!!!!  The rest is off to ebay or ham fests! Get it out of here!  Today after work, I have to stack endless caps, resistors and parts into a slide out Drawer cabinet I got. Then my work table is back.  This weekend, I have to go through about 2000 tubes and put them all in boxes and stack in a closet.  Alot of this gear is my brothers.  He is comming by today to get about 8 Stereo speakers and a waste high stack of audio gear to take to auction.  There is hope!!!


C

Every five years or so we all need to go thru the piles and pull out the stuff we don't need anymore. (That is hard to predict, of course)  Then sell it off or put the word out it's free for the taking. Someone will take it for free. But SOME carcasses are so useless they must be sent to the recycler or dump. (like old computer stuff, chassis that have 1000 holes, etc)

I did that 5 years ago - netted about $6 grand and never regretted it. It leaves lots of gaps for new stuff too... ;D  I still saved enuff parts to maintain all my rigs, however.

Another rule I have is if something is not used or not working in the shack, it gets put downstairs into cellar storage. Everything in the shack must work perfectly or be USED from time to time, otherwise out it goes..

We need to cultivate an attitude of having no mercy when it comes to cleaning out the junk pile.  I realize we may need something later, but it's the only way to keep reasonable control.

Has anyone seen the "American Pickers" show on TV where two guys drive around the country looking for old stuff to buy and resell? Well, some of those junk piles they come across are legendary. Some hoarders have four or five buildings stuffed with  the most useless, rusted old crap you can imagine - and a few won't part with any of it!!   Some guys got it baaaad...

T

 

Tom.  I just realized that show pickers must have made an impact on me.  That is why I have been "Gestapo" cleaning mode :)  I dont want to end up like that.

I have the exact same rule here.. If it is not working and being used on a daily or weekly basis, its NOT in my shack!  Its in the store room. 

Have NO MERCY.  I realized I have about a dozen "american 5" type radios I recapped and cleaned up a few years back. It was a neat project to keep me busy when alot of crap was going on in my life.  NOW THEY MUST GO!  What the hell will I ever do with those? NOTHING.

C

Yea, but............................

How many times have all of us thrown something away or given it away figgering we'll never need or use it.

then low and behold we need one for a project and had to buy it again for an exorbetant price just to finish something up!  ;D  ;D  ;D

Been there, done that!!

I'll let the YL worry about it when I'm gone, she at least has a feel for what it is worth.

Maybe she'll use some of it for door prizes at my funeral   ;)  ;D  ;D

Hej !

Well, why do we collect stuff? A good question!

I have...

2 SP600 JX-21
2 51J-4
1 R-390A
1 T47/ART13
1 Set No 19
300+ BC radios from 1924 up to mid 50's
A large number o vacuum tubes.
1 Russian torpedo boat engine (please see my avatar)
2 tank engines (1 RR Meteor and 1 Russian from the T55 tank)
1 Dodge D400 Fire engine
2 Rolls Royce B80 engines (inline 8 )
PLUS a few more things...

So, why do I collect stuff?

a) Because I can
b) I'm interested in technical stuff

Collecting to me is something different then the situation alot of us are in.  If you are interested in things like that and restore them great. But this is very different that Crap and JUNK that ends up all over the place to the point you cant move around a room or garage.

C

GOOD MAN.

Why do we keep so much ?

BECAUSE WE CAN !

Tom,
I watched American Pickers when I was in LA. Man some people think their crap is gold.
A friend just cleaned out his basement and made $7K He bought a 75A4 in a junk store for $100 and sent it to W3HM years ago and it was part of the haul that went down the road.
I think we collect this stuff because we couldn't afford it when we were kids so buy it now to feel good. 

Ya need at least 5 of anything. (Xyl's excepted).

More to follow.



klc

HMMM 5 XYLs  HMMMMM
better to burn out than fade away

5 XYLs would guarantee me a suite at the rubber room!! One is DEFINATELY enough to drive a man crazy.

Now, this is a man after my own heart!!!

Lets see, I collect antique broadcash receivers, boatanchor ham gear, antique gas and steam engines, Old MoPar stuff, and cactus.

Hmmmmm............. did I forget anything??

Oh yea, motorcycles, Harley-Davidson stuff, tools, and Lawn Boy mowers.

I'm on the other side of the spectrum... I need to actually BUY junk to get projects done. I'm sad to say I don't have a proper junk box. Variable caps? Sleaze-Pay. Inductors? Sleaze-Pay. Transformers? Sleaze-Pay and huge shipping costs. Ahhh well... :-\

Oh yea, my wife collects stuffed-jointed teddy bears, costume jewelery, and any kind of Harley-Davidson memorabilia.

But NONE of us have ANYTHING on Vortex Joe!! He collects EVERYTHING!!

Thatz what they have hamfests (and this forum) for!!

On a bad day:  K 5 Useless Junk
On a good day:  K 5 Unique Junk

One  thing that I am fanatical about is saving every piece of hardware (screws, nuts, bolts, washers) that I can easily remove before I toss anything.  I now have several bins of hardware, and some of the stuff is actually sorted by size, and even by ferrous and non-ferrous.  I have found that 90% of the little pieces of hardware used in radio/electronic construction is not available at the local hardware store.  They have mostly zinc plated steel and maybe a little unplated brass, only in the most common sizes.  I have a large heavy gauge aluminium cookie sheet (think it came from an Army mess hall) that I pulled out of a dumptster.  That is my sorting tray.  I dump a pile of hardware into the tray, spread it out, and usually can find exactly what I want after a few minutes of picking.

After picking through junk and hardware and scooping it back up out of the sorting tray, there is always a mysterious grey powdery and flaky residue left behind. I have never figured out exactly what it is, but it always looks the same no matter where it came from.  I have never quite thought of an appropriate name for it, but I am sure most readers of this forum know exactly what I am talking about.

So far, I have accumulated very few pieces of metric hardware. What I have has come from old TVs, stereos and other consumer junk I have stripped down before tossing, and it all fills up a couple of small plastic drawers.  I have got to the point that I don't even bother with old TVs any more.  Usually not enough of salvageable value to make it worth cracking open the plastic case.  I still do strip out the power supply from "modern" stuff, particularly things like stereo power amplifiers, if it has a transformer in it.  I have never bothered to accumulate junked computer hardware, and have refused when someone offered it to me. I have seen enough of that stuff sitting around unbought at hamfests.

Yep - Ebay, Email Reflectors, Newsgroups (are any of those active these days?), plenty of places to find or peddle stuff. If it's specific to the group. I list it here. Like the RA-1000, BC-610, Wilcox 99 etc. They all went to list members or local AMers.

I just sold a bunch of basically junk on ebay and cleared $325. Not garbage, but junk in the sense that it was nothing I needed, it was just taking up space, much of it was probably once labeled as 'in case I need one someday' or wtf ever. Now it's in the hands of someone who needed it. Example: 5 of the regular skirted knobs off the SX-42: $51. Waters Hybrid coupler: $47 and change. 2 reproduction Leviton end caps for the Lumiline bulbs and one chipped socket which where 'given' to me (aside from $15 shipping for 1.5 ounces charged to me afterwards): $31 and change. Some of this stuff had been laying around for years. Best of all, it was small stuff. Easy to pack up and ship in free Priority mail boxes.

After a while it gets to be a bit much. Unless it's something I'm not likely to come across again (and I do have plenty of that) like pre-war parts, gear, books, etc, I figure it's easier to sell or give it away now and replace it later IF (and that's a really big IF) I ever need it, decide I want one, and so on.

Same goes for equipment. I recently picked up an early Super Pro 10 which needs a fair amount of work, but only because they're pretty scarce. There are enough projects waiting, so I'd rather pay a little more for something that doesn't need open heart surgery. My time is more valuable by the day, and word came down a while back that we're not getting any more.

I bet I have a pickup load up north still that will go, too. An old Meissner Signal Drifter, CE 20A, BC-191, Gonset Gooney Bird (the long white one) etc etc. Gotta dig out those NOS 845s too, while the audiophools are still grabbing them up.

Let's not forget that old white refrigerator with the glass doors Todd  ;D Have you moved it south yet?

Mike

Considering how much stuff some guys have and how often they get on the air, annuitized over a lifetime, I wonder how much $ per air hour it presently costs them to operate? Shall we add in a wage for time spent too?

I'm guilty. When I look back at all the stuff I've bought since 1964.... parts, tools, rigs, test gear, antenna hardware, etc etc, I'll bet it's way more than $5/hour to operate now, considering my total air time...   The more you're on, the less it costs per hour.

In contrast, I could call Pascal in Yugoslavia on the cell phone for free these days.   They're right - we never get our money back in ANY hobby... ;D

Make those on-air hours count, guys.

T

That's sure true of this and probably any hobby, Tom. One of the primary reasons I never got into the so-called 'investment' end of old radios but stuck with whatever caught my eye for whatever reason. If you're in it for the fun, ya can't go wrong.  ;D Of course, you probably use $5 an hour just in electricity.

Then again, the guys who did 'buy low' (translation: picked up or hauled crap home when nobody wanted it) and sold high during the feeding frenzy of the late 90s early 00s might be playing radio for free now if they were in it for the fun and aren't off collecting stamps now.

A couple years back during a flurry of discussion over some KW-1 that was for sale for big $, I ran the numbers and figured out that even if you'd bought one new in 1952 and sealed it in a room somewhere to resell today, it would still be in the current $25K ballpark. No real profit, just breaking even. We're all just nuts, that's all. Just look at some of the big corntester stations online.


Well, yeah but.....home appliances don't count. ;) It came down in the first truckload, Mike. We picked it up at the store where we had to remove the plate glass window to get it out, loaded into the truck, transferred it to another box truck and unloaded it down here. Had to build the two dollies to move it through the store, it's still sitting on them because I can't get it into this crackerbox of a 1980s house. So it's in the garage behind the 21E now along with the Garland gas range that won't fit in the door and my wife's 'little' retro fridge. We're looking at an old brick schoolhouse with high ceilings and 11,000 sq ft where it will fit nicely, if the VT house ever sells. It's one of the keepers.

I love that old thing It looks great just sitting in the garage. I can see it right now sitting near the restored Garland range. What a kitchen that will be. Have fun!

Mike

Aside from parts, my rule is if I THINK I might want to get rid of it, I put it in the attic. If after 3 months or so, if I don't miss it, it goes up for sale.
Lot of stuff has gone painlessly down the road
Carl

I have things I never use but I hang on to them because they are so much better than what is currently made for hams now.  I have a Bird Coaxwitch I'm not using but if I ever need a manual coax switch I have a hell of a switch.  I even just like to look at good parts.  I can get enjoyment out of a big glass vac. variable by simply looking at it--I don't have to be using it.  If I ever get a BC-939 I may never use it but it is so beautifully made I would put it in my house some place where I could see it.  Funny thing with me though, that does not extend to rigs, VFOs, and other gear--all that has to be useable.

I also have the same attitude about house appliances.  I have an old GE refrigerator that I refuse to get rid of, even though it does not defrost itself simply because it is built so much better than the new ones.  I use a big 55 year old Luxaire furnace that's built like a 57 Chevy--not very efficient but keep replacing the parts and it will go forever.  My range and oven is a Norge that looks like it dates back to the 1940s.  If I ever move, it's moving with me.  It will out-last me and I hope it doesn't fall into the hands of some moron who trashes it.  All my sinks are Case cast iron with Chicago faucets.   My microwave oven is a 30 year old Kenmore...weighs about 100 lbs.  New appliances are crap with microchips.

Well the new ER came in the mail today.  C U all later  :D

That's an interesting approach, Carl. Out of sight/out of mind. And if you're not jonesin' for it in a few weeks, just as well.

Wen I got rid of my HQ-150 recently it was surprisingly painless. It sat in my kitchen for years listening to the gang while I was off the air. But I was only keeping it for nostalgia, just because I could. Neat receiver, but so are a lot of others. Figured it'd be easier to replace it later if I ever feel the need. Plenty of good memories, but I still don't miss it.

Some people say the definition of bigamy is "one wife too many".

Others argue the same definition applies to 'monogamy'

  ::)

Gates BC-1J
BC-610E
BC-610I
Two SX-28As
Two Super Pros
Two R-390As
Viking II
6n2er
A couple of Hallicrafters slopbucket tranceivers
Two IC-725s (left over from my aircraft ferry pilot days)
Kilowatt Matchbox
Jr Matchbox
Two Goony Boxes
Lots of old test gear
1940 NDB transmitter (all 400 lbs of it)
Ultrasonic welding machine (810s and 866s)
Lots of parts and old Buzzard gear

None of is on the air at the moment, since the shack is a construction zone.

The duplicate stuff along with much other stuff will get recycled as the shack comes together.

O.K. guys, you asked for it... I know I qualify.


Phil

WOW!!!!!  Thats incredible.  I bet you could go through that in your spare time and organize and toss alot of it out. The stuff you need, label and box up or put on racks. 

C

 "  Ya need at least 5 of anything. (Xyl's excepted).  "

GACK!!  You need at least 5 of anything EXCEPT XYL's


Oh the humanity!!

klc


more to follow

I gotta build some more shelves to keep up with this group.  Might be able to find something that way.

You know you've reached qualification when visitors refuse to walk into your shack out of fear for being crushed.

Phil

hey, he told a funny... "build more shelves"!! Ha ha ha... like that's going to work??

                    _-_-bear

Shelves won't help. You will end up with 8 FT tall shelves full of the same stuff and 3FT aisles between them.

Why was it collected?

for parts to build with.
for parts as spares.
because it was too potentially useful to pitch.

I am surprised this topic has just been breached/broached? Good on the OP for cleaning out. I spent the better part of Saturday morning sorting the mixed contents of document boxes into bin-boxes. The result was a clear space where there was a 3x3x4FT pile blocking one of said aisles BTW.

I got a "large" tub of unsorted power resistors. Must weigh 60 lbs It will take two people all day to sort them. I know that because Apprentice Jacob and I already did one tub.

Unfortunately he knows better now. -part of the training! when to know better - and that applies to saving stuff, so why doesn't it apply to amateur radio operators?

Anyone want to show up here with a truck and I will fill it up with parts and or equipment of my choice. It's most likely I'll just point out what is free, and leave the deciding and toting to the party of the second part. I do not mean garbage either. anything from a Pioneer SX-series receiver to a tube amp to a bag of triacs to some old test gear and or odd piece of professional grade electronics equipment or big boxes of mixed parts and pieces. If you got a benjamin or two, the quality goes up and you get to pick what you pay for. I made this offer before, and some of you guys ought to take me up on this before I have to pitch it. There is also a storage in Fort Worth that needs severely thinned out. 900 cubic feed of solid boxes all full.

Wow.  I am humbled... I have in the shack

1- R390A
1- Valiant
1- KWD TS-520
1- S-85

plus a couple home brew/commercial tube type RVRs. mostly for parts or repair depending on my mood. 

My parts bins are small, generally I only get parts I need for a current project, so the stock doesn't hang around. 

Of course my shack is tiny, so maybe I just need more space to fill?

We are getting it down now..  Still alot of crap here but at least we are not tripping over things.  This week I am testing amps so they can be sold.  Tonight I tested the LK800-ism.  WOW what a power house this thing is. 

C

Lets see, where do we start  ???   ???

R-390A. SP-600, RBS, HQ-160, HQ-170, Hq-140x, HQ-150
SX-28, SX-42, SX-101A, NC-183, NC-183D, NC-2-40D, NC-300,
one of those little 5-tube AC/DC Nationals (forgot model #)
SB-303, 75A-3, FRG-7700, TMC MSR-9, and a few more RXs I'm forgetting

Viking 1, Valiant 2, Ranger 1, Invader 2000, Invader 200, Meisner EX,
Sonar SRT-120, Glob scrote, Glob chump 300, 32V-2, Multi Yellmac 67,
6' rack rig originally built by W4DEK, HX-50, HT-32, ART-13, My HB 4-1000 rig,
My HB 5w piss weaker, G-76, 2 KWM-2s, 30L-1, 312B-4, Johnson T-bolt,
HW-100, 1 very large homebrew tuna. and God knows what else I'm forgetting.

2 cabinets and 12 or 13 boxes of tubes, many assorted boxes of partz,
3 Ham-2 rotors, 2 half built (by someone else) GG amp decks, 1 813 amp deck
250lbs(or more) of assorted oil capz, at least 2000lb assorted iron, many boxes of RF coilz and capz, 1 large MFJ and 1 large griefkit tuna, 1 SB-610 and 2 HO-10 scopes,
and more!!

Not to mention 50 or 60 antique broadcash receivers restored and working, tools,
much assorted test equipment, and God only knows what else I'm forgetting.

And that is just my electronic stuff!! Not including my gas engine collection.

It's enough tonnage to keep my house from blowing away in a bad storm  ;D  ;D

And that is not counting what I have sold off over the years to "thin the herd" a little! !

And I still dont hold a candle to Vortex Joe!!

My wife will have a good job peddling it all off after I crap out  ::)  ;D  

Or they can't walk into your shack.

I hactually had that happen in Joe's basement when a chair lost a caster and I went over backwards into a floor to ceiling pile of boat anchors. One of my scariest ham radio adventures!!

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

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.

This is the workbench when it is clean!

I have shelves.

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?

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.   

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?

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

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?

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

C

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  :D 

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

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.

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.

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

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

           :D

                   _-_-bear

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.

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

WHY ASK WHY?

WHY? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  BECAUSE WE CAN!!  ;D  ;D

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

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.  :o ;D

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

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

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.  ;D Have a party, invite your pals over, or a dumpster clean out ala W2ZM.

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

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

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                              

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.

Just got back from harbor freight. They had nothing close to what I need. They only had small parts bins for nuts and bolts. I will keep looking

C

I prefer "Scoop Away. The containers are white, not yellow, and stack quite nicely. Save thems little desiccant packets  and throw 'em in with your stuff.

My wife thinks i'm crazy as I have 20# of rice and 10# of beens stuffed inside of one. Cheep insurance. Ya never know.

klc

Just don't cook from the wrong container :)

When I was a kid my mother used to use the small tupperware containers to store flour, corn meal, etc. to take on camping trips.  After returning home from a trip my brother was eating dinner and said, "hey, there's soap in the ice tea".  My father thought there was also soap in his coffee.  The actual culprit was the pumpkin pie.  My mother had finished up the small amount of "flour" left from the camping trip mixing it with some actual flour to make the crust.  The container she grabbed was a small amount of tide laundry detergent instead of flour.  It was years before I started to like pumpkin pie again and I never developed a taste for Tide.

Rodger,
That's one way to clean you out! My mother was not all that great of a cook and she did that kind of stuff all the time from unmarked containers!
Regards,
Joe, W3GMS

My grandmother grew up in the hills of TN and she was an incredible cook.  I will never forget the aroma from the spare bedroom where she stored all of the cookies and candies she made prior to Christmas.  She also made a broiled liver dish that was wonderful, I have tried broiled liver at various restaurants and from the taste of that I understand why people hate liver.  I wish I knew her secret.  My mother wasn't as serious about cooking.

R,

I feel your pain.....

I once made a nice blond ruex with confectioners sugar.......................


klc

PS...  the trick is to leave the stuff in its original bag.

ugh. too much crap everywhere. just to be on topic, cleaned out 4 document boxes of parts and junk. All went into bin-boxes on shelves. Even sorted the ceramic insulators out.. heavy standoffs, light standoffs, 575A hash chokes on standoffs, through-hole standoffs. Found thirty new 2K 40W resistors in a bag. Where did those resistors come from? Into the >1K-3K/>20W-50W drawer they went. 20 drawers of power resistors. All this mess. Attacked the giant pile of fasteners. Now have a bin box each of metric, <1/4", 1/4", 5/16, 3/8, 1/2, and sheetmetal fasteners. Tried to repair a WWV RX. no dice but is restorable, unit so tagged. Repaired a Ballantine 0.05Hz to 30KHz peak to peak VTVM. It needs tubes but is OK for now, and also tagged and shoved in a rack. Dug through all the CRTs to find one a guy wanted. Found the rest of the stuff for a couple other people, now it has to be packed up.

The point is, the magical realization has struck that we don't live forever, and we ought to get rid of some of the stuff to people that want it, or just at least organize it and tag the items that we think others would find interesting. Considering the article in ER about the OM's station and hoard, what will ever become of all of the stuff we have?
Besides the junk mountain, there are always 1 or 2 things each QTH that ought not be destroyed for either historical or functional reasons. We won't care when we are dead, but others in the hobby will care. The next question is, "Will they care enough to buy it".

I have a 50 year collection of Skippy peanut butter jars that make great parts containers. The old glass ones don't bounce off the floor very well. Then new larger plastic ones are great.

Back when I used to smoke a pipe, I used Union Leader tobacco.    I have a bunch of the cans full of parts.    The cans are now worth more that the parts.