Show/share your shack.

Unfortunately, being overseas my shack consists of the internet. However, I do have some plans for when I get back stateside. Even in areas where I have zero experience.

For example, I am interested in AM and would love to setup a station for that. Something like a Collins 75A3-32V3 setup for 80/40m AM.

For Contesting and DX I plan to have the Elecraft K3 and other K-Line items sitting on the OP desk.

For Ragchew I would like two setups. One modern and one vintage.

Vintage: Collins S-Line.

Modern: Thinking TT here but still a toss up. TT Eagle, TT Orion II, or I don't know.

QRP: Toss up; KX3 or TT Argonaut VI.

Of course this will take time. Three or four years. My main two setups will come first as funds are already set aside.

My most current station was as follows:

IC-756 ProIII
AL-572
IC-7000
TS-60
FT-VX7

I have photos of that particular setup I can add later but its 5AM and I'm too tired to dig atm.

So, why not share a few things. What is your current shack setup, what was your favorite shack setup, and what is your dream setup?

My shack is a MESS right now since I have to finish the renovation.

N2RJ wrote:My shack is a MESS right now since I have to finish the renovation.

At least your shack is existent. At the moment, mine isn't.

Mine is in transition yet again. Both FT-980s decided to go stupid on me within 2 weeks of each other, so at the moment I have a Paragon II, and Omni VI/Opt3 and an Omni V doing HF duty. I need to fix my other Paragon II; the 160M band position and the 6KHz filter are inoperative, thanks to what I assume to be a collection of bad PIN diodes on the signal and bandpass boards. After swapping it into line I need to fix a few of the R71As which I'm using as slaved receivers. 3 out of 5 have developed VCO issues and another has what looks to be a memory board problem.

N8YX wrote:Mine is in transition yet again. Both FT-980s decided to go stupid on me within 2 weeks of each other, so at the moment I have a Paragon II, and Omni VI/Opt3 and an Omni V doing HF duty. I need to fix my other Paragon II; the 160M band position and the 6KHz filter are inoperative, thanks to what I assume to be a collection of bad PIN diodes on the signal and bandpass boards. After swapping it into line I need to fix a few of the R71As which I'm using as slaved receivers. 3 out of 5 have developed VCO issues and another has what looks to be a memory board problem.

There used to be a guy that sold replacement boards for that vintage of Icom radios. I have picked up a few in the past. For the life of me I cant remember his call. Ill search it out tomorrow but knowing you, you have a parts rig, lol.

KB3LAZ wrote:There used to be a guy that sold replacement boards for that vintage of Icom radios. I have picked up a few in the past. For the life of me I cant remember his call. Ill search it out tomorrow but knowing you, you have a parts rig, lol.

Willco Electronics, PIEXX and Narda are the main ones. I have at least one spare WillcoE board tucked away for just such an occurrence and am going to convert both of my IC-751As over with their boards and the PIEXX serial interface hardware.

Kenwood TS-570SG.
MXL-990 Studio Mic running to a Behringer XENYX 802 Mixer
Kenwood KES-4 External Speaker.
Dishtronix DWM-2104A Wattmeter
Homebrew Break Out Box
Astron RS-35M and Astron RS-20M
80M OCF Dipole @ 40 Feet or so.
10M/6M Fan Dipole @ 25 Feet or so
The black box with the miniature toggle switch is my homebrewed PTT switch. Also there is a Foot Switch on the floor. I don't use it though... too lazy to step on it.
The Philips Center Channel Speaker was a failed experiment.....but it's pretty, so I left it there.

For what it is, I am very pleased with my station.

I loved my Kenwood but I had an opportunity to swap up.....so I did!  Consequently, the Shack changed!
Other than the new (for me) FT-950 the shack remains the same, but I had to move stuff around some to make the new rig fit.

I am so jealous. Congratulations.

N9XR wrote:I am so jealous.  Congratulations.

Thanks Jerry, but don't be jealous....compared to most, my shack is very modest.

By the way, That Phillips Spkr is no longer a failed experiment. I replaced the 2 small speakers with a 4" Pioneer K1VA8 full range speaker and it sounds amazing. I had to cut a larger hole between the 2 smaller holes and I have no woodworking tools.... My Dremel got quite the work out.

N8YX wrote:Mine is in transition yet again. Both FT-980s decided to go stupid on me within 2 weeks of each other, so at the moment I have a Paragon II, and Omni VI/Opt3 and an Omni V doing HF duty. I need to fix my other Paragon II; the 160M band position and the 6KHz filter are inoperative, thanks to what I assume to be a collection of bad PIN diodes on the signal and bandpass boards. After swapping it into line I need to fix a few of the R71As which I'm using as slaved receivers. 3 out of 5 have developed VCO issues and another has what looks to be a memory board problem.

You have too much stuff... your going to turn into a certain California based "Collector" we all know  ..... I have a genuine desire to help you out. To prevent your coming mental illness....... just send all of that junk to Illinois and I'll dispose of it for you!  

This shack is mostly all old hollow state plate modulated AM boat-anchors. But its also an embarrassing mess. Let me clean it up a bit and I'll post a picture.

My shack has undergone some changes over the years and I'll have to post some pics as soon as I can upload them to snapfish and share them on the site. I have a mix of new stuff and plenty of boatanchors, mostly AM and CW stuff but some 60's and 70's SSB rigs as well.

Oh and IZE, I wouldn't worry too much about the mess, wait till you see mine and you'll feel better. 

dupe, crappy *** internet

all I got is a FT-847, a ht, and a UHF repeater.

Now if I could only get the Indiana repeater council to get off they bum and actually coordinate I could get this damn UHF machine up... but since they want to work slower then the federal government, the machine prob wont be up until march....

KB3LAZ wrote:Unfortunately, being overseas my shack consists of the internet. However, I do have some plans for when I get back stateside. Even in areas where I have zero experience.

For example, I am interested in AM and would love to setup a station for that. Something like a Collins 75A3-32V3 setup for 80/40m AM.

Just curious, when you do this AM are you going to shot for more or less a stock audio sound ? Or are you going to go for the high fidelity New England AM sound. When i got into it I went the New England HiFi route which meant sometimes doing some pretty heavy modifications to the audio chain in the rig which sometimes included completely bypassing the speech amp driver, triode connecting the modulator tubes or using a heavier duty modulator tube or even replacing the stock iron with better quality iron. However, in those times many of the rigs were viewed as old but not necessarily collectible so we would modify the heck out of them. These days the vintage gear has value in its original condition so a lot of the guys are hesitant to modify them too much or else they do mods that ca be easily reversed to get the rig back in original stock form. Also, these days a lot of the guys have gone the solid state class E approach. They have found that many of the modern transceivers produce some very good high fidelity AM out of the box but at much lower power levels than the old plate modulated class C rigs. So they get hold of a bunch of inexpensive power MosFets, build up a class E transmitter and use the modern rig as a driver. In most cases they produce a much cleaner frequency response and a nicer overall fidelity than the older rigs.

N2IZE wrote:

KB3LAZ wrote:Unfortunately, being overseas my shack consists of the internet. However, I do have some plans for when I get back stateside. Even in areas where I have zero experience.

For example, I am interested in AM and would love to setup a station for that. Something like a Collins 75A3-32V3 setup for 80/40m AM.

Just curious, when you do this AM are you going to shot for more or less a stock audio sound ? Or are you going to go for the high fidelity New England AM sound.  When i got into it I went the New England HiFi route which meant sometimes doing some pretty heavy modifications to the audio chain in the rig which sometimes included completely bypassing the speech amp driver, triode connecting the modulator tubes or using a heavier duty modulator tube or even replacing the stock iron with better quality iron. However, in those times many of the rigs were viewed as old but not necessarily collectible so we would modify the heck out of them. These days the vintage gear has value in its original condition so a lot of the guys are hesitant to modify them too much or else they do mods that ca be easily reversed to get the rig back in original stock form. Also, these days a lot of the guys have gone the solid state class E approach. They have found that many of the modern transceivers produce some very good high fidelity AM out of the box but at much lower power levels than the old plate modulated class C rigs. So they get hold of a bunch of inexpensive power MosFets, build up a class E transmitter and use the modern rig as a driver. In most cases they produce a much cleaner frequency response and a nicer overall fidelity than the older rigs.

Probably stock. In fact, I have really grown to like the Jonson gear from what I have been reading. Also, I have found one or two guys that do complete restoration. Man, do they look nice after. Also, a fully restored Valiant seems to go for a third of the cost of a fully restored 32V series.

First thing is first, getting in some test drives. Info on the net can only go so far.

It's cluttered and dirty now. There's more stuff too.

I forgot to remove my teeth from the shot.