Category: Station Design & Planning

1/31/09 — Built 3’x3′ concrete pad with hole thru center to mount telephone pedastal cabinet on.  Installed a piece of 20″ culvert in the ground as a cylindrical pull box at the tower end of the conduit.  I will place the concrete pad/pedastal over the pull box, and from there use 4″ conduit to route lines to the tower.  

1/23/09 — Installed a 4″ and 1.5″ underground conduit from the shack entry point to the base of tower #1 (roughly 190 feet).  Also installed a 12/2 UF cable to provide 120vAC at the tower.  Lastly, installed #4 solid bare copper from the base of the tower to the western guy post and then to the shack entry point. There are 10′ ground rods installed at 0, 20, 40, 60, and 80 feet away from the tower.  Now the tower, shack ground, and electrical ground of my shop’s main panel and my shack’s sub-panel are all bonded together.

July 2009 — Still working to overcome the lightning strike.  I have done much this month:  installed single-point grounding plate, 6 Polyphasers, bonded those to the existing station ground.  I also began ‘standardizing’ my control cable connections with DB-9 type connectors.  Installed them along with PowerPoles on all my StackMatch control boxes.  These ‘quick connects’ will better enable me to disconnect for lightning protection and also be able to swap a controller to another cable quickly in case of failure.

Also fabricated and installed a cable tray to run the length of the shack.  It is about 12 inches above the floor.  It is made from a section of 4″ PVC pipe.  I cut  a 1.5″ slot down its length.

Also pieced together a working computer from several that were lying around.  It won’t win any speed records, but it is Win98 and will run most software that is needful in the shack.

Also ran a 1″ conduit from my house to the shack (250 feet).  Pulled 2 runs of CAT5E, and connected to my wired network in my house.  Now I have a network connection with DSL for internet access, and a VoIP phone extension in the shack.  What better way to call “room service” at meal time?  I’ve never had high-speed internet in the shack — it sure is nice!