Note: Normally I do not do QSL Cards; however, if it is important to you, contact me at my email address above with the QSO details and I'll gladly send you one

I thought I would document at least the beginning of my journey. Perhaps someone will find it interesting, or it might even spark an idea or two. What follows is my current idea of one way to do this. Comments and suggestions are always welcome. After I was licenced I wanted to get going quickly, and there was a lot to learn. 

On December 20, 2019, I was granted a Technician license. Shortly thereafter I purchased my first radio, a Yaesu FT-70. I opted to get the desk charger and a Comet SMA-24. Later, I would purchase a Baofeng UV-5R to see what all the hubbub was about. In February of 2020, after researching and deciding what radios I wanted, I went to Hamcation, in Orlando, where I purchased a Yaesu FTDX-3000, a Yaesu FTM-400, an Astron RS-35M-AP, an Alpha Delta DX EE, a Comet GP-3, and a few other goodies. When I returned home, I continued my research on how to get all this stuff to work together, and then began designing "The Shack”.

I purchased a second desk for my office... this one dedicated exclusively to radio equipment. I repurposed an older Windows box I had previously built, now to use exclusively for radio work. I added a Tripp-Lite Isobar (ISOBAR8ULTRA) for transient voltage protection.

Below is a photo of the 12x12x3 utility box I fabricated to house two Array Solutions surge arrestors... one for VHF/UHF and the other for HF. They are the AS-302U and AS-303U, respectively. The Array Solutions surge protectors are mounted to a 10” x 8” x ⅛” aluminum plate. To connect the ground wires I used a Square D Ground Bar. The ground wires are 8 AWG Stranded THHN secured to the CBS by stainless steel cable clamps with stainless steel tapcon screws. The coax is Times Microwave LMR 400 DB. I used ½” cable clamps for the coax and ¼” for the ground wires, Noalox to mitigate oxidation on the aluminum plate connections, Amphenol 182130 connectors on all the coax runs, and DeoxIT Gold on the finished connectors. At the antenna feeds, where coax connections are exposed to weather, I used a combination of Gardner Bender LTB-400 and Scotch Super 33+. 

Here I used hose clamps to connect the ground wire to the antenna mast. For better conductivity I used ¾” inch copper tube straps that I preformed, first by hammering and then the final fit using the hose clamps to the mast. Perhaps I should have sandwiched the wire between two copper straps. As it stands right now, there is 0.1 ohms between the ground wire and antenna mast as measured with a Fluke 115, so I'll call that good.

I used a hammer drill to drive a 5/8 in. x 8 ft. copper grounding rod. In South Florida soil, it was like a hot knife through butter. I don't like acorn nut connectors, but for now that will have to do. I would prefer a C-Tap compression fitting or Cadweld, but neither of those are available to me at this time. When I have a connection that I'm comfortable with, I will completely bury the rod. For now, a few inches of PVC will protect the ground wire from the landscaper. Note: The NEC requires bonding this at the service equipment.

I recently finished building my first go-box. I designed, engineered, and fabricated the project, with it taking about 4 months from conception to completion. It remains a work in progress, to some degree, it probably always will be. At some point I will provide a narrative on the process, including the materials used, but for now here are a few pics. 

Updates to follow.

I built another go box, but really, this is the last one...

Famous last words. This time, I wanted something I can grab and go. A grab-and-go-box, with the other more of a shack-in-a-go-box. I also wanted an antenna that required no ground plane, so this latest is a vertical dipole, using two 20 meter ham sticks. I used some schedule 20 PVC to keep the coax away from the bottom stick. Here are a few pics of that. 

Grids I have worked

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