I think details are important. I prefer neatly wrapped cables. I like straight lines. I abhor piles, but if a stack is required, it MUST go from largest on the bottom to smallest at the top. I'm picky about how the dishwasher should be loaded (to the point where my family makes me do all the dishes...) Need I go on?

Now that you have some insight into my neurosis, I'll fill you in on why I shared. The empty concrete cube that I've been turning into my ham shack had some conduit and a decent size junction box for my home fire alarm system running through it (that's right - I said fire alarm system, not smoke detectors. I am fortunate enough to have a commercial fire alarm system in my house.) The junction box was too deep for the ceiling treatment I did, so after the main ceiling was up, I needed to build up a little something to cover it, and to mount the smoke sensor onto, so that my sense of order in the universe would not be shattered. Here's how I did it:

    That's That!  The most important piece of equipment in my ham shack is already in place and operating.  Hopefully though, I'll never need it! 

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If you go back in time a couple years, to the beginnings of my blog, you might recall that one of the reasons I started it was to share my ongoing shack builds. It's been a while, but as I promised last week, I finally have an update on the home shack.  This is a good time to also point out, that if you don't follow me on twitter or instagram, please Check out the links in the right side bar and do so!  My followers there got several sneak peaks at this while it was in progress...

The last time I shared, I only had framing done. Since then, the rough electrical for the non-radio stuff (outlets & lights) has been nearly finished. Because of low headroom, I decided to do exposed conduit for part of the main run to the shack's sub panel. This means I had to get the ceiling treatment done before I could finish my rough electrical.

Since I wanted something that looked old and weathered, I knew that I needed boards that were a little rough. They do make flooring that "looks" old, but it still seemed too modern.  To get the look I was after, I ended up buying 1/2" exterior sheating. This is plywood that has imperfections, knots, dings, you name it. In other words, with a bit of stain, it would be perfect!

Before I got too carried away, I put up furring strips and foam insulation board. I also painted the face of the insulation board gray, so that if there were any gaps in my rustic ceiling you wouldn't see green or pink foam showing through.

With my fancy boards ready to go, I started the process that took a couple weeks worth of spare evenings. I would stain as many boards as I had room to lay out, and then the next available evening I would screw them up, and then stain the next round. Repeat until finished.

I'm thrilled with the way it came out! I know the look isn't for everyone, but I love it, and will enjoy it every time I lean back in operating chair for a stretch between contacts!

  With a strong lead, and about 31% of the vote, this is the project that all of you picked for me to build!  For those who may be curious about where the project they voted for landed, here were the final results (rounded):

     Any of the ideas that you don't see listed above didn't get any votes, which either means the person that suggested them didn't re-appear to vote for their own idea OR they just liked someone else's idea better than their own!

For anyone that needs a reminder, here's the basic starting point of the project that we'll embark on together, now that this has been determined:

   The idea here is to use the box to build a small HF station.  One of the suggestions involved using one of the popular kits like the BitX or new uBitX, as the basis for the transceiver.  There were varying versions of this idea, covering different power levels, focused on different modes - i.e. cw only, ssb only, digital modes only (by including a single board computer), or some combination. For voting, we'll lump all these idea's together, and if this idea wins the vote those details will be hashed through in the planning stages.

     That's all for now!  Stay tuned, because I will be writing up some information to start defining the details of the project, and to start collecting input on where we go from here.  Thanks for joining the fun!  

Before I share which project won the vote, I feel the need to do a public service announcement, so that we don't accidentally alienate any of our friends.

     I'm a friendly guy, which is why I love ham radio - just about everyone involved is friendly! This series of blog posts, Crowd-Sourced Project, came out of that idea. Hams love to share ideas, give input and suggestions, help out by Elmering newcomers, and talk about what they're up to in the hobby. This project is a fun way to do all of this via the internet!

     Occasionally though, our underbelly shows. Either we stumble across one of the bad seeds (every hobby has them) or we just catch one of the normally friendly folks on a bad day. Believe it or not, these posts, and the idea of doing a project based on input from the community brought out one of the two (I suspect it was the latter.)

     I really do think that it was a simple misunderstanding, because when I responded to the individual on Facebook, his posts suddenly got deleted (I assume he deleted them himself?) He also left a slightly aggressive comment here on my blog. I chose not to publish his comment because he doesn't need to be chastised for making a mistake. If he happens to read this, here's a message just for him:

So, to bring the rest of you up to speed, this gentlemen incorrectly thought I was asking all of you for money to build my project (although he didn't phrase it nearly as kindly.) I will take some of the blame for maybe not making it clearer, or for making the assumption that everyone knew and understood these concepts:

     These are two related, but very different ideas, that are prevalent in the maker and open-source communities. I can understand being put off if you think someone is asking for money. I can also understand that you might be put off by the term Crowd-Sourced if you confuse it with Crowd-Funded. Since the ham radio community, makers, and open-source folks are all so closely related, I think we have a responsibility as hams to understand some of the terminology of our sister communities, if we want their members to join ours. To help in that effort, let's allow Merriam-Webster to straighten things out for us:

Crowdsourcing: the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers

Notice that none of the things being solicited are tangible - i.e. it is looking for ideas and input, not money or goods.

Crowdfunding: the practice of soliciting financial contributions from a large number of people especially from the online community

This is what I am NOT doing, that our friend, through a misunderstanding of terms, got a little excited about.

So there you have it folks! Let's keep putting our heads together with the confidence this project will be crowd-sourced, but only N3VEM-funded. (Remembering that per the scope, I have final veto power if prices of supplies get out of hand....)

Stay tuned! - my next post will announce what I am going to be building, based on the input I received from all of you!

     For anyone new to our crowd-sourced project, feel free to check out the first post in this series here. For those of you that prefer the quick version, here's the scoop:
     Through my work I ended up with a neat little box, that just begged to be reused for some neat ham-radio related purpose.  Rather than just dive into something, I decided to make this a fun group project, where anyone who reads my blog can contribute ideas, and I would supply the labor and do the actual building.

​     After collecting ideas for our group project, here they are!  Some of the idea's were very similar, so in some cases I lumped ideas from different individuals together.  Also, because I don't want to influence the vote, I'm going to attempt to write the descriptions of each ideas clear enough for everyone to understand the idea, but vague enough to leave things open-ended for additional feedback and ideas once we pick a project.  Here we go!

     This is one of the idea's that is mostly self explanatory.  Some of the suggestions were basic, and some were more complex, including the possibility for a small computer for digital/packet type activities.

     The basic premise of this idea is to build a device that can receive and record the entire AM radio broadcast band at once.  The purpose would be to deploy the box in the path of an Eclipse.  By playing back the recording and evaluating what AM broadcast stations are heard (since the locations of these stations are known), we can extract some data to evaluate the Eclipse's effects on propagation.

     This is another self explanatory idea. - Similar to idea #1, but single banded.

     This idea is probably self-explanatory, but for newer hams or non-hams, here's some basic info:
​     A popular activity in ham radio is using radio direction finding techniques to find hidden transmitters, as part of a contest or event.  This idea is to use the box I have to build a transmitter in, so that it could be hidden for Foxhunting.

     The idea here is to use the box to build a small HF station.  One of the suggestions involved using one of the popular kits like the BitX or new uBitX, as the basis for the transceiver.  There were varying versions of this idea, covering different power levels, focused on different modes - i.e. cw only, ssb only, digital modes only (by including a single board computer), or some combination. For voting, we'll lump all these idea's together, and if this idea wins the vote those details will be hashed through in the planning stages.

     Winlink is a system for sending e-mail via radio.  There is more information about it available at www.winlink.org. This suggestion is to build all the components necessary for a functioning VHF/UHF Winlink station into this box.

     These ideas are centered around having some basic tools / meters / small radio / small computer built into the case that can be used for testing, repairing, setting up, and maybe even tracking (via APRS) radio equipment.

     This one is centered around building a small computer and SDR into the box for a portable receiver.

     Make a rugged portable Wifi hotspot that could be used in Emcom situations so that individuals in a response area could communicate with each other via wifi data connections on their own, or "throw-away" cell phones.

     I don't know a lot about PSKMail, but there is some basic information available here.  This looks like another option for mail over radio.

     The suggestion was to build a repeater controller, that could potentially link to other repeaters with DTMF tones.

     Build a small kit for satellite operations.

    So there's the ideas!  Vote for your favorite below.  Including your callsign is optional, but I plan on acknowledging everyone who contributes by including their callsigns' in (or on) the project, for anyone who chooses to share theirs!

​Voting is now Closed!
​Stay tuned - the winning project will be announced soon!