interesting video about shack tips coming up
i've changed everything about and what i have noticed is i've got a resonant frequency here
can you hear that it's a little bit boomy i'll try and take it out with post i'll put some some
of those phone tiles above me that should cure it by the way if you are ultima's here you'll want to
know a couple of things what's going on at the factory is that we move in next week basically
to unit f2 we're in f3 at the moment but the big debate i have is do i also move the shack
and i've now built two shacks i built the original shack in here before we had dx commander and i've
built a really fantastic shack at the farm my goodness have i learned some things because i
just stripped all the coax the switches and all the trunking out of here saturday sunday it's now
monday night i think and i've learnt a lot so let me go through the eight things i've discovered
your work bench i mean this is uh solid oak i mean just from ebay right and i think i oiled this one
instead of varnishing it make sure it can move so you can get in behind leave a gap of at least 100
100 millimeters that's four inches so you can easily get plug blocks coax stubs and stuff
down the back all right because too many times i haven't left enough gap so for instance this this
shelf here i've actually got about a 25 mil one inch gap to make sure i can get a kettle league
lead up behind so just remember your gaps more gap is better do not use trunking i've used trunking
in here substantially all over the wall just to the left of that camera
all over it as soon as it was installed within a month i'm peeling off the top of the trunking to
find a patch cable that i now want to go somewhere else it was a complete and utter disaster i
thought oh hide it all the way nightmare because it doesn't matter how much planning you do
eventually you're going to go actually i want to get to the back of this radio again i'm going to
plug in a different usb line i want to get to the receive jack on the back of the radio
something is going to happen you want to change the power supply my god so you want
as much clear space under the desk as you can now the other way of doing that
is to put some buy some plug blocks i buy always six-way plug blocks that are switched
and i plast them all in front of me i think we've got 18 sockets behind me at holley farm
and that way you can manually switch things in and out but also you've got all your kettle leads
on you at your desk you can shorten if you like or wrap them around and make them a little bit
shorter and plug them in they're not on the floor leave the floor for your coax run coming in
i mean i mean i have a lot of coax but even then i've only got four or five coax lines
neatly coming around the edge of the floor sure you could use a bit of single trunking
just along the wall single or maybe three i put three in a row just horizontal trunking just to
keep stuff off the floor so when i vacuum you know it's out the way but i can easily pull the
top off and move it don't start going horizontal and vertical because you know we've all seen these
um almost i don't know it's a piece of art haven't they these people who make these fantastic shacks
with everything around them can you imagine them at a time they must have to spend sometimes going
oh the hdmi lead on tv monitor four which is coming out of switchbox two is blowing up
which one is that now and they can't get to the back well they can get to the back of the
gear but it's really really hard if you use a laptop this doesn't apply to you but i've got a
big base station and it's sitting in the corner over there i've never had it so i can just walk
up to the base station pull it forward and there's enough spare leads that the whole thing will come
come come forward and i can see what serial port is spare where the hdmi is plugged in which usb
port is free if you have it tucked in a corner under a desk and you can't get to it it'll
gradually completely and utterly clog up with dust now i posted this on instagram can you see
how much dust that was absolutely insane so one remember that you can actually pull these things
out and just remember to get the back out i use a battery vac by the way i think there's less
potential for static and it wasn't plugged in or anything should have been all right
you don't need massive heavy patch leads professionals will use a very
high quality rg58 even up to vhf and uhf i don't i like to keep the losses down so
but i do use short runs of either either an ssb electronic seven mil they call it air cell seven
or messi and polonie do a seven mil coax as well those beautiful pl259s identical to elk n types
all sealed than everything else really easy to fit other than the fat instead of having that little
tiny thing in the end type you've got a nice big four mil banana jack thing so these pl259s by
the way they're fine all right modern two five nines not the cheap dollar for a packet of 10
from a flea market where you have to solder everything together and cut braid and nightmare
new ones fit like any types and if you ever do use them outside they're waterproof and the last thing
you're rearranging your shack you've got a nice big hole i've got i think a two inch hole and
you can fit a lot of lines through that into the outside and a waterproof the biggest one you think
you need and then add a bit all right biggest box you can have outside now a lot of this that
i've done is on my instagram feed so here's my instagram feed this is all my weekend um it'd be
interesting to know that the light i am currently using right now which is that one up there the
diffuser was the plastic wrapper that came off the rsgb's radcon magazine so i get up to all sorts
of odds and ends which you might you might quite like so anyway you you you know there's a number
of things that go on on my on my i'm not trying to sell you my blooming instagram feed right now
you might just quite like it a lot of the stuff on the instagram feed never ends up on youtube anyway
okay so it's two kind of different things but it's kind of what i get up to is what loki gets up to
uh i'll see you on a live stream friday at about 11 o'clock no mid uh let me think about this
10 o'clock utc in the morning i'm normally on the radio we normally start on 20 meters
about half past 10 locals that'd be half past nine 9 30 in the summer months anyway
utc so if you're in new york that's going to be i don't know 6 30 something like that six o'clock
you'll have to wake up early maybe i'll catch you because sometimes sometimes we have quite
a bit of u.s uh traffic going on all right have a good day thanks for tuning in enjoy your shack
enjoy your radio i'll see you next time bye for now