Our Shack

We are in the process of building a state of the art multi-operator Amateur Radio Station. We have created this blog to share our plans, experiences and learnings as we go. We hope that this information will be useful to other HAMs and potential HAMs that are thinking about building a station. Anita and Fred, the authors, are recently licensed Amateur Radio Operators and this is our first permanent station project. Our goals for our station are as follows:

• A station that will operate and perform well on all HF bands and 6m as well as provide access to our local VHF and UHF repeaters
• Support all modes of operation including SSB Phone, Digital and CW
• Allow both of us to operate at the same time and also support Single Operator 2 Radio (SO2R) operations
• Allow us to have fun working DX and contests
• Be easily expandable for VHF/UHF weak signal work in the future

There are two parts to this project. The first is the construction of a permanent station in a dedicated, finished room in our basement and the second is to build a good antenna farm. As I write this, the station room is complete (see picture above) as is a basic part of the antenna farm. As time permits, we will add details and pictures of these parts of our project as well as the end result. The current work in progress in the construction of a new antenna system based upon a 100′ tower and an array of large yagi antennas as well as some new wire antennas which will be attached to the tower. Most of our early posts will likely focus on this area.

We welcome everyone’s thoughts and comments on our project via this blog. We hope that you enjoy the material that we are sharing here!

– Fred (AB1OC) and Anita (AB1QB)