Resurrecting The Radio Room, Part 1 - Voice Radios

My "vision" for the new radio room is beginning to come together in my mind.

(Pictures soon - I need to learn to "compact" photos to accompany blog postings.)

Randy Pausch used this term - "cognitive dissonance" which is useful to describe the dichotomy of sitting in my radio room, surrounded by computers, radios, and data communications interfaces (TNCs) of the 1980's and 1990's, capable of 9600 baud or thereabouts, with clock speeds of "10's, and 100's of MHz"... and writing this post on a MacBook Pro laptop, using 802.11n Wi-Fi, which is connected to the Internet via 15 Mbps symmetric Verizon FIOS. As I dive deeper into attempting to bring my collection of TNCs and "hacked for data" radios back online and doing something marginally useful with them...

Like one's father who gets smarter by the day as you enter your 40's... I feel more kinship with the Collins and "tube rig fanatics". I could never understand their fascination with bringing those archaic radios back to life... until I realized that's exactly what I'm doing in trying to reactivate my packet radio collection.

I finally "moved back in" to the Radio Room after a major push last Saturday under the threat of friends coming over for dinner that evening. I was working right up until the deadline of having to get a shower and "look fresh" for the company. Looks, and feels great, though - worth every ache and drop of sweat to get the Radio Room back to usable.

There's still a lingering whiff of the insecticide bomb I had to set off in the Radio Room to quell the "Great Bee Uprising" (a cautionary tale for a future post), so I'll have to find some good, neutral odor neutralizer to stick in a corner somewhere.

Study Island for voice radios

• I have this odd piece of furniture acquired from a thrift store that I really like that I call a "study island". It looks like it came out of a school library where you would go to take an important test where you don't want any possibility of cheating. All of the voice radios will be concentrated there.
  • They'll be hung underneath, or sit on top of the main shelf.
  • They'll each get their own Motorola speaker (love the sound of a squelch tail coming out of those things)
  • They'll each get "APRS-standard" Anderson PowerPole 12V power
  • Power distribution from a PowerPole distribution strip
  • Main 12V DC power provided by my venerable Astron 12V power supply
  • Backup power to be provided by a float charging system that I think is integrated into the PowerPole disribution strip (that stuff was bought long ago...)
  • I'll have all the microphones on a unified bracket. I'd like to eventually modify all the microphones to a standard connector and Motorola microphones... but that probably won't happen soon, if ever.

As for the voice radios to be brought online after a long, long rest...

• 10M - to be acquired; I was always impressed with the "President" 10M radios; mostly interested in FM, but AM and SSB would be nice too.
• CB - existing Johnson 40 channel
• 6m - to be acquired
• 2m - Beloved and venerable HW-2036A (hopefully I can find, or create, the special nuts [long lost] needed to heatsink the output transistor studs
• 2m - Beloved, slighly less venerable Icom IC-28A
• 220 - Icom IC-38A
• 440 - Icom IC-48A
• 900 - Kenwood TK-931 (I've been itching to try "Amateur Radio" 902-928 MHz band)
• 1.2 GHz - to be acquired, likely an Icom D-Star
• Marine VHF - to be acquired (just for monitoring, grins)
• Aircraft VHF - to be acquired (just for monitoring, grins)
• GMRS UHF - to be acquired (mostly for monitoring, fun... maybe REACT?)
• FRS - to be acquired (if I can find something interesting)
• NWS receiver - to be acquired (for monitoring severe weather)
• Something interesting to lots of broadcast radio - to be acquired (C. Crane AM?)
• Radio Shack scanner #1 (bought cheap somewhere along the way)
• Radio Shack scanner #2 (bought cheap somewhere along the way)
• Outdoor GPS receiver - to be acquired
• Kenwood handheld
• Motorola FRS handhelds (old, practically antiques now)
• FRS handhelds - to be acquired (cool, sexy, must use ext. microphones and AA batteries)

Other items for the Voice Radio Study Island:

• Logbook
• QSL cards (yeah... who'dve thunk it :-)
• 12V lamp (LEDs - they make them now, available at West Marine)
• iPod stand, power supply, and speakers (some of the best stuff I listen to while I'm putzing in the Radio Room are podcasts, and the old iPod is about to become semi-retired if/when I'm ever able to get a 3G iPhone)
• Comprehensive list of repeater systems here in Western Washington - big, easy to reference, organized in a way that makes sense to me.
• Single page, laminated "cheat sheets" for all the voice radios
• Notebooks for each voice radio with 8 1/2 x 11 manual pages, my notes, etc.
• Notebook for the power system
• Calendar of all the nets and other on-air events that I'm interested in (probably yet another calendar... ooh... maybe for my N8GNJ Gmail Account)
• Power monitoring - voltage, current, maybe even one of those "running power" meters that tell you how much more battery capacity / time is remaining.

Marker for future discussion - my fantasy "universal voice radio interface box" - currently in the wild-ass-imagination stage of design.

Yes, there certainly will be HF in my future, but that's an entire field of study by itself. Never having done HF (it's finally to the point of being interesting with all the amazing digital modes), and there will be plenty of time for that sort of thing in the dreary winter evenings.

Antennas for the voice radios are going to be pretty basic.

The IC-28A, IC-38A, and IC-48A will all be fed by the existing Comet (?) tri-band omni, up 30' on 3 Radio Shack 10' masts, lashed to the deck.

I'm going to move all the antennas for the radios I have in hand to the side of the house and do a better job of mounting them securely. I have to come up with a not-too-aggressive mounting scheme to the 2x4 at the edge of the roof, and I think I have that figured out. Each 30' collection of Radio Shack masts will sit on a steel stake with a horizonta bolt, instead of sitting on the ground, so that water can drain out of it.

Another story best left untold at the moment is why I ended up with another Comet (?) tri-band omni - 2m, 440, and 1.2 GHz. That one will get mounted this summer, but may end up serving the digital radios.

The Heathkit HW-2036A will get its own basic 2m omni. It would be fitting if I can resurrect the old handbuilt (by another ham, regrettably now a SK) Ringo Ranger clone antenna that I used for so long. It was damaged along the way, but I think I might be able to repair it.

The Kenwood 900 MHz antenna will get its own high-gain 900 MHz omni. I picked up a 900 MHz beam along the way, so that might find its way onto the 900 MHz mast.

The scanners may well share a "discone" DC-to-daylight antenna, perhaps also feeding the Weather Radio receiver.

Back to more Radio Room work!

73,

Steve N8GNJ