Building a Comm-Center(HAM Shack)

[Highspeed]

Very nice...whats the HF boat anchor on the far left ?

[Dinochrome One]

Very nice...whats the HF boat anchor on the far left ?

Thanks!

That's my good old Hammarlund SP-600 "Super-Pro". It was built in 1952 and used by the Navy up until the 1970's as dedicated-channel Dual-Diversity TTY receivers. I bought it in Oxnard CA in 1983. One of my Shipmates at Adak spotted it in my room at the CPO quarters and remarked, " Anybody who has a 'Speedy-Six" can't be ALL bad."

The hole in the yellow rack above the SP-600 is reserved for the Collins R-388 (51J3). Speaking of boat-anchors; the floor-mounted racks to the right of the desk house a Hammarlund BC-779 HF receiver and it's separate power-supply. There is also room for an R-390 and two R-1051s.

[Highspeed]

Great stuff. I owned a Racal RA-17 in the early 90's - that was probably a comparable set. Used extensively by the Royal Navy in the 50's and 60's Wish I still had it. I always thought it would be cool to recreate the radio room ( signals room in limey speak ) of a warship complete with a Typex mechanical rotor cipher machine but I'm a bit weird

The only radio I have at the moment is an Eton G3 'world band' receiver. It covers 0-30mhz CW\AM\SSB as well as VHF but the performance isn't good compared to a real HF set. The internal antenna is a bit deaf and an external antenna overloads it. I might build a preselector\atu\attenuator for it one day.
For the moment I've got it hooked up to a homebrew broadcast FM dipole pointed directly at the Rock FM station for music in the workshop. " Raddio Rock Eff-Emmayyyyy !!! "

The Drake reminds me of a HF receiver I had, the same drum to select the band\Mhz with a dial for Khz - I think that was a Sommerkamp but it's a long time ago now and I've had a lot of radios...

[Weetabix]

I have got to get off my ass and come visit you, Dinochrome. Are you interested in some light duty elmering?

[Dinochrome One]

just one thing I haven't seen addressed here...

Given the power you're going to run, and the clean power, and strike and surge suppression you're going to need; you absolutely need to set up an improved ground.

My personal recommendation is to bury a few 2x2 (4x4 would be better) or larger plates at least 8 feet from the walls, at least 3 feet down (6 or 8 would be better), preferably in damp soil, with at least a 8 ga cable connecting them to a copper grounding bar running along the baseboards or tabletop edges.

Advice gratefully accepted! I was planning on using three six-foot grounding rods with 10-gauge copper.
What metal for the plates? Our local scrap-yard can probably come up with stainless steel or MONEL but copper plates would be a problem. I've got some 3/8" copper tubing I could use instead of wire and some one-inch copper pipe for a grounding bar. With a solid ground system, I'll probably notice a big improvement in how the antennas load up. Right now, I've been able to get into some distant states (Oregon, New York, Florida) with just my electrical ground and 40 watts (average power) on forty meters.

The very next thing I've got to do, though, is re-install the Air Conditioner!

[Dinochrome One]

I have got to get off my ass and come visit you, Dinochrome. Are you interested in some light duty elmering?

Sure! The shack is still a work in progress, but it's getting comfortable. I really have more gear than will fit in there; maybe you'd like to take some of the boat-anchors off my hands? Texas County is only a short morning's drive and we'd be glad to see you. I check the Gun Counter every day; pick a day and let us know!

[Weetabix]

It will be a while, but it's definitely on my list.

[Weetabix]

Below near surface plus 1/2 wavelength... HF becomes suboptimal, I guess.

[Weetabix]

Very interesting links. One recommends flat plates over radials to reduce inductance while the other recommends radials for the same thing.

I did a stint as field quality control on construction of a science bldg. The insistence on no bends in the bonding wires in the grounding system makes sense now.

All things considered (cost, mostly) the deep driven rods with a ground ring look most doable.

[Aesop]

So essentially, if you're not using a Bobcat (or more) with an auger, you're not doing it right?
Noted for future reference.