As anyone who has checked in with me regularly could tell you, I help support the database and website for the Parks on the Air program.  I have really been enjoying this for 2 reasons:

• It gives me a practical application for my freshly printed (the ink might not even be dry yet) Information Systems degree
• It keeps me involved in the hobby, even during times when getting on the air is challenging because of the family commitments involved with having 3 little kids while doing some traveling for work.

     In that role, I've gotten a lot of questions about logging, quite often around Park to Park contacts.  If you're into that type of thing, I put together this video to give a high level overview of how it works.  I'll admit I have very little video-editing foo, so consider this informative, if not well polished:-)  If you don't dig taking the 25 minutes to watch it, here's the TL;DW...

• We follow the guidelines of the ADIF format
• We only store "valid" qsos in the database, that meet the program rules (1 contact per call, per day, per band, per mode, per park)
• Make sure you log yourself the way you announce yourself on the air (i.e. N3VEM, or N3VEM/P etc.)
• Make sure you are accurate with time in your log - there is a 15 minute window that the system uses to match park to park contacts
• Best practice is to log the other operators park in a park to park contact.  The system usually finds the matches if you don't, but there is a very specific scenario where it won't, so consider yourself warned if you like to play it loose :-)

    For those of you that have the time to kill, and enjoy an educational video, albeit of questionable quality, here you go!

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     One of the things that we try to do in our house is generate as little trash as possible.  We're certainly not perfect, but it does usually take us a couple months to fill a single curbside sized trash can (excluding our recent construction project.)  One of the benefits of being in the mindset of not generating waste, is that you start getting in the mind-set of re-purposing and reusing things.  This translates well to my ham radio hobby and my on-going shack build, as much of the stuff in the shack so far has been salvage, dumpster saves, or at least purchased used.  With this little bit of background, I'd like to share another progress update, because it was done with mostly re-purposed stuff.

As I was planning dc power distribution and monitoring for the shack, I had made up my mind that I wanted to use an electrical cabinet and some din-rail mounted stuff for equipment power distribution, dc breakers, fusing, control relays etc.  I wasn't quite satisfied with the price/size combinations I was coming across as I googled around, so I set the thought aside while doing other tasks for a few days.  One of those tasks happened to be breaking down some work equipment that needed to go to e-waste.  As I was staring at the metal box I was pulling the stuff out of (that would have ended up in dumpster at work) it dawned on me - here's the cabinet for my power distribution!

The equipment that was originally in the box had a small operator interface, so the box was designed with holes for a display to show through.  Rather than just have a weird hole, I went back to my re-purposing mind set.  I pulled out an old college project where I had used a raspberry pi and a small display, and gutted it :-)  I figured I could use the pi and display to write myself some power monitoring software to keep track of what the shack is doing.  For a gut check, I put the display on my desk, connected the pi, and powered up, just to make sure it still worked, and then I laid the panel over top of it, to see if I could get the overscan settings on the pi adjusted so it would line up with the opening:

Since it looked like I was going to be able to make this work, I grabbed some U channel aluminum at the local big-box hardware store, and whipped up a little frame to hold the monitor in place.

I ended up putting a thin strip of weatherstripping in the channel on the side that would be the front of the monitor.  I then drilled and tapped holes on the back side, so that I could put the monitor in the frame, and put in a couple screws with just enough tension to press the edge of the monitor into the weather stripping to hold the monitor nicely in place.  Once it was in the box, I was pumped about the way it turned out!

    The pictures above shows the box with the outside door swung open.  When that door is closed, there is just a smaller opening so that the display is still visible.  This box also had the benefit of being nicely vented, so heat build-up shouldn't be an issue (I can always add a fan if it is.)

Now I just need to start adding the power distribution parts, sensors for monitoring them, and write some software!

     The month of December was a wild ride for me!  I was in Colorado for the 2 weeks before Christmas, training a new team of folx how to use the processes/systems that I've been working on for the last 18 months.  It was rough on the YL, having the kiddos on her own that long, but I'll be working from my basement office/shack for the next several months, without doing any traveling :-)

     Speaking of the basement office/shack, I obviously haven't gotten anything major done since I was away, but I did get a little bit done over the weekend.  I had been debating for some time what to use as a bus bar behind the desk for station grounding/bonding.  Ultimately, I went with the "budget" option that, per N0AX in "Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur" is perfectly acceptable; a piece of copper pipe.  In his book he recommends 1/2" pipe, but I used 1" pipe for the extra surface area, and because for a short length, it wasn't that much more expensive.

     As I mount the gear, it's face will be flush with the other side of the wall, and it's backside will stick through, just above the copper bus bar/pipe, giving me easy access to the common ground.

     I also wanted the first ground rod to be as close to the operating position as possible.  Since this wall is 4' back, to run my strap from the pipe to the ground rod up (or down) and over to the wall, then to the ground rod outside, would have meant at least 15' of strap before hitting ground.  To avoid the potential issue with a long ground connection, I actually drilled a hole in the floor, and hammered in the first ground rod right into the dirt under the house.  This keeps my ground connection to less than 2'.  From that rod, I'll then tie to the one outside (which in turn I will connect to the main electrical panel's ground rod.)  Some self-leveling concrete caulk, and I'm ready to add the straps.

     I still have a lot of work to do, but it's certainly fun being able to finally work on the shack "infrastructure" now that the living space part of the room is done!

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     No, I'm not referring to monitoring the bands (not at the moment anyway!)  I'm referring to monitoring up my new ham shack!  Since my new shack is also my new office, and I work from home, I needed to get my monitors mounted because I use them every day, and the mess of wires on the desk was making me bonkers!  With that intro - here's my recent accomplishment:

     I had 3 monitors to mount, so I started by marking the center-line of the wall.  After that I measured the offset to the mounting holes for the brackets I used.  Then I marked the hole locations, and measured and leveled off the center bracket markings for the outer brackets.  The bottom piece of tape is just where I measured that the bottom of the monitors would land, because I wanted to make sure there would be room below for the future HF rig to slide under them.

     With the markings done, I drilled holes, and hung up the first monitor - looking good so far:

​Below are the brackets I used, and they are a steal on Amazon!  I got them for like 12 bucks each and they are just as heavy duty as anything I put my hands on at the local home centers and electronic stores.  I also can't say enough for the anchors I used.  They are way better than standard toggle bolts - they hold better, and because of the design their backs don't fall into the wall if you need to back the screws out.  (word of caution - no matter how good the toggle, don't hang monitors just on drywall - you need to hit wood!  In my case, the back of the desk area is 3/4" plywood, so no worries on holding power there.)

Anyway, since I was satisfied with the positioning of the first monitor, up went the next two.  This looks much better than the mess with the wires everywhere:

But wait...where did those wires go?  Well, once I was sure the monitors where just where I wanted them, I swung them out of the way, drilled holes, and passed all the cabling through, back into the service area behind the operating position:

As you can see in the picture above, I made a fancy little shelf to hold my towers and laptop stand back here, so that this stuff could live out of the way, instead of under my desk at my feet, spewing hot air all over me:-)  I just needed to get power to all this stuff, so I ran some conduit from the junction box where I left the ends of the circuits for this type of stuff, so that I would have easy access.  Since I was doing it this way, I was also able to just pull the circuit and put plenty of outlets right at the equipment, rather than needing to rely on a dinky power-strip:

Just don't be too rough with your comments on my cord routing :-)  They will be getting tacked and tidied up once the radio's are in, and I have the more final mess of wires to route and tack down.

P.S. I just got my statement from my work letting me know what my annual bonus is going to be, so I've started "the talks" with the finance manager in our house (my awesome YL!) about what may or may not be able to be diverted towards a new HF rig :-)

     Well, November is nearly in the bag!  In the spirit of thanksgiving, I've been most thankful for the health of my 3 little ones, my wife, and the rest of my family.  In addition, we are privileged enough that I really have to be thankful for everything - I've got no room to complain about anything, when considering the alternatives!

     Among my privileges, are the fact that I get to go to work every day, and earn enough that with some patience, time, savings, and my own labor, I can keep plugging away on building my new ham shack.  The room itself is done, so now I've been shifting gears towards the radio infrastructure.  I left myself a big service area behind the operating position, so that's one of the things I have worked on in the last couple weeks.  When I last left you the space back there looked pretty much like this:

     Since then, I've put insulation in the wall (to keep it from sounding like a drum when I thump on my desk) and attached plywood to the backside.  All the room electrical is in the wall, and all the shack electric will be done surface-mount in conduit, to accommodate changes updates etc. as the radio part of the shack takes shape and changes in the future.

     In case you are curious, the wires coming through the wall in the third picture are some temporary cords for things that are on the shelf in the ham shack - the first is a light, and the second is the small coax for a cellular antenna - my shack is basically a concrete bunker, so I had to put in an external antenna and a little booster-amplifier to bring cell signal down into the space.
     Another thing worth pointing out - in the first picture above you might notice the large junction box.  Inside that box is all of the AC circuits that will eventually be for shack stuff, coming from the breaker panel above it.  This way, as I add equipment, I can run conduit from this box, to wherever I need it, to get the circuits where they need to go.

     More recently, I've been working on getting my computer monitors for the operating position mounted, but in the interest of time, I'll save that update for another post.  Feel free to check out my twitter and instagram if you want to see some sneak peaks of that!