Space Archives

Station Design And Construction

A little ways back, John (W1MBG) discovered our Blog and approached us about doing a presentation for the Nashua Area Radio Club (NARC) on the design, construction, and operation of our recently completed station. The NARC group invited us to their March meeting where we shared our presentation with the nice group of folks in the Club. I wanted to post an overview of what we shared as well as a link to the full presentation so that our readers can have a look at the material and hopefully benefit from the information that we have assembled. I have also used this post as an opportunity to create an index to all of the articles on this Blog related to the design, construction, and performance of our station.

Topics Covered

Our new station project involved both the construction of a dedicated room for a new shack and a tower-based antenna system. It took us about 1 1/2 years to build our station including the associated antenna system and we covered quite a number of areas during the project. Our presentation focused on some things that we did to plan and build our station that should be useful to many Hams building or upgrading anything from a simple station to an all-out effort to create a state of the art multi-op station.

Station Goals

I think that it’s important to begin a new or upgrade station project by thinking through and writing down the goals that you have for your new station prior to purchasing equipment or beginning construction. This step is important because it helps you to think through what you want to accomplish and serves as a high-level blueprint for making the design, equipment selection and construction decisions as you build your station.

Radio Shack Layout

We put considerable time and thought into the design of the room and operating area for our new shack including many rounds of drawings and some “human engineering” to arrive at the final room layout. While not every Ham will build a dedicated room for their shack, some careful thought put into the layout of the operating and storage areas for your shack and the associated support systems is an important design step.

Antenna System Planning

The other major element in the design of our station was a new tower-based antenna system. We had some pretty expansive goals for the band capabilities and associated performance of our new antenna system and the presentation explains how we went about developing and executing a plan to meet our goals.

Additional Antenna Construction

Since the initial installation of our tower antenna system, we added an 8-Circle Vertical Receive Array for the Low Bands and we’ve reinstalled our SteppIR BigIR Vertical Antenna. These new antenna systems provide important additional performance on the low bands and during contests. We’ve also added an Antenna System and Electronics for LEO Satellites.

Station Automation

We’ve also installed an SO2R and Station Automation System from microHAM. The microHAM system enables much smoother and less error-prone operation of our station and enables SO2R and Multi-two operation during contests.

Virtual Station Tour

Our presentation includes several slides that cover the construction of our new shack and tower as well as the feedline, antenna, power, and other supporting systems. The end result of all of this work is shown via a few slides that provide a “Virtual Tour” of our station.

Virtual Station Tour – Operational Videos

The “Virtual Station Tour” slides contain several videos. You can play these videos below.

[fvplayer id=”3″]

Other posts in this Blog contain more detailed information and many additional pictures and videos about our station. See the index of links at the end of this post to view more detail about the areas that interest you.

Station Performance

Our new station has been complete for several months now and we wanted to take some time to look at how it is performing against our original design goals. As you can see from the above slide, we are on a good track to meet or exceed all of the original goals that we set during the planning stage of our project.

What We Learned

Finally, we shared some additional information about what we learned during the project and a set of links to various sources of equipment and information that we used to complete our new station (see the full presentation). This Blog contains many more details (and pictures) about the design and construction of our station for those who are interested. Some good places to begin are categorized in the index of links below:

A Tour Of Our Shack

Shack Design and Construction:

Antenna and Tower Design:

Tower Construction:

Antenna Construction:

Tower Integration:

Station Integration:

Station Operation and Performance:

I hope that you can apply some of the ideas and information shared here to building or improving your station. We’d also like to extend a special thanks to John, W1MBG and the NARS Group for encouraging us to create and share this presentation. We are available to provide this presentation to other clubs or Ham gatherings. If your club or event is interested, please contact us at ab1oc@arrl.org.

Fred, AB1OC

M2 2M18XXX Yagi (Courtesy M2 Antenna Systems, Inc.)

This post is about the assembly of the second of our four Yagi Antennas – the M2 Antenna Systems 2M18XXX. This antenna uses 18 elements on 2m to provide approximate 17 dBi gain in a very tight pattern. It is designed for weak-signal and EME work on the 2M band. The specifications for the 2M18XXX are as follows (Courtesy M2 Antenna Systems, Inc.):

Model	2M18XXX
Freq. Range	144-146 MHz
Gain (single antenna)	17.14 dBi
Front/Back	26 dB Typical
Beam Width	E=26° by H=28°
Feed Type	“T” Match
Feed Imped.	50 Ohms Unbalanced
Max VSWR	1.2:1

Connector	“N” Female
Boom Length	36.5′
Max Element Length	41″
Turning Radius	19′ 6″
Stacking Dist.	14′ H, 14.5′ W
Mast Size	2″ Nom.
Wind area / Survival	2.9 SqFt. / 100 MPH
Weight	14 Lbs.
# of Elements	18

I began by doing a careful inventory of all of the parts for the antenna and gathering the necessary tools for assembly. Due to its size, I opted to assemble the 2M18XXX outdoors near the tower.

2m Yagi Parts

The first step was the assembly of the boom. I used the 2 foot high sawbucks that I made for the purposes of building our yagi antennas. A set of carpenter’s clamps were used to hold the boom in place on the bucks during assembly. The installation of the elements was next.

2m Yagi Boom and Elements

This step takes some time as each element has a different length and must be carefully centered on the boom. To make this easier, I marked the boom with a felt tip pen to indicate the location of each element for easy cross-reference with the dimension sheet from M2 Antenna Systems.

2m Yagi Element Layout (Courtesy M2 Antenna Systems, Inc.)

Next came the assembly of the driven element and associated balun. The location of the shorting bars on the Driven Element Assembly is important in order to get a proper match between the feedline and the antenna.

2m Yagi Driven Element

The 2M18XXX has a long boom (36 1/2 ft.) and requires a Truss Support. The picture below shows the boom truss support system after it is assembled. The standard mast plate and hardware supplied with this antenna by M2 Antenna Systems will accommodate up to a 2″ mast. We will be using a 3″ mast so M2 supplied a custom mast plate and a Truss Support that clamps directly to our 3″ mast. To make the antenna easier to test, I first assembled it with the 2″ hardware so that I could test it without attaching it to the mast.

2m Yagi Boom Support Truss

Here is a picture of the completed 2M18XXX. It is a very well-built antenna and it should perform well once it is installed at the 110 ft + level on our tower.

Completed 2m Yagi

I am going to move onto the construction of the first of our SteppIR DB36 antennas next. I will provide a post covering this step of our project next.

You can read more about our tower project via the articles which follow:

– Fred, AB1OC

Our HAM Station

Notes on the construction and operation of a multi-op Amateur Radio Station

Category Archives: Space

Amateur Radio Station Design And Construction

First Tower Part 11 – Building Yagis (2m)

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