The Station

The station is currently under construction. In fact, I drove the first nails for the new shack two days after returning from Dayton 2008. From first license in 1997 until 2005, the station was a run-of-the-mill single transmitter with a multi-band directional antenna for the high bands and dipoles for the low bands. Our family seized a once in a lifetime opportunity to sell our home at a considerable profit, so the station was dismantled and boxed up for a year while we scrambled to purchase land, build the shop (which we lived in for 2 1/2 years) and finally build our new home. Now, three years later, with our new home completed and many other projects out of the way, I have begun construction the way I want it to be (at least for the time being!) I have plenty of room, and no municipal or zoning restrictions of any kind to hinder my station building. As of June 14, 2008 the operating position is in the new shack. My new shack is contained in my shop, which our family affectionately calls the Pumpkin (once you see it, you will understand!) I now have a modest SO2R station.

I'm located at 32.46222 -92.40288 in grid square EM32tl at 265 feet above sea level, which is high for Louisiana! . Take a look via Google Earth to see what I mean!

I've used HFTA by NB6V to get a feel for the surrounding terrain. Link to that data here.

My home and shop are on 12 acres in rural western Ouachita Parish in northeast Louisiana. The majority of my land is pasture, with the only mature trees lying on the north and east boundaries of the property. It is a rectangle, running east-west 1,332 feet and north-south 400 feet.

I decided to build the new shack as a room inside the shop. The shop is 40 feet by 40 feet with central heat and air, a woodburning stove, complete kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room (see the floorplan in my photo album) In order to utilize the workshop area to its fullest potential, the layout places the shack open to the kitchen and the bathroom door opens from the shack. I have supplied the shack with its own 100amp subpanel with 20 circuit capacity. The shop has its own power meter, and is supplied with 200amp service.

From 2005 until May 2008, I've been gathering pieces and parts toward the goal of becoming a little less modest. In other words, I want to upgrade my little water pistol to a small BB pistol. Here's the list of what I've gathered, and over the next couple of months, many of them will find their home in the new shack or on the new towers.

Tranceivers:

#1-Yaesu FT-1000MP, fully loaded with filters and Inrad mods, included roofing filter

#2-Icom IC-756ProII, with Inrad roofing filter

Antenna and bandpass filter switching is accomplished via:

(2) TopTen Band Decoders with both source and sink drivers

(2) ICE 419 bandpass filters

(1) SixPack 2x6

Antennas currently in service:

Lightning Bolt cubical quad - 2elements for 10, 12, 15, 17, 20 on single boom with single feed line

Quad resides at 45 feet on homebrew tubular tower

40 meter dipole in the trees

80 meter dipole in the trees