Chasers: Show us your Station

Seeing this picture, I realized that my station looks pretty good and really doesn’t need to be straightened and cleaned up after all. Much relieved to get that one out of my job jar.

Gary, K9ZMD
Ridgefield, WA

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Nice to see an Index Labs QRP+ still in operation. The one I owned was serial number 487. Yours?

Gary, K9ZMD
Ridgefield, WA

This would have been mine in 1981, had SOTA been around then.
A makeshift shack in my bedsit :slight_smile:

Better still, a few years later Hong Kong, I would have had some superb summits to activate. :slight_frown:
I was left just to manage the daily pileups with the HW9.

And nowadays, the KX3 and a wee dram is all that is needed…

7 Likes

Mine is Serial #0124. I got it from Ebay quite a few years ago…can’t remember exactly when. Can’t figure out exactly how old it is…today I managed to break the pileup from here in Utah for W2T on 20 meter SSB. Pretty cool. Using End-fed half wave.

G0FEX
I like the yellow marker on the Bushmills Bottle.
73’s Ken

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It’s very nice to see the home stations of many of the chasers here.

I don’t have a chance to set up any static antennas at my home QTH, and the noise pollution here would make chasing hard in any case. Luckily I have access to my group station LA4C, which is only about 10 minutes away by car.


Old aerial image of LA4C - Holmen

LA4C is located on a small island on the west coast of Norway, bordering the North Sea.

We have two almost identical work stations inside, the only difference is the Tranceiver. I prefer using the Icom IC-7700 shown below, but we also have a IC-7300 station set up next to it for contest use.


Primary work station

The shelf in the middle contains antenna selectors (with A/B work station), rotors and various other stuff.
Out of the window you have a beautiful view of the North Atlantic, which offers up some amazing sunsets at times.


Sunset seen from the parking lot

Our antennas:

  • 20m 5 element Logyagi
  • 10-15-20m beam
  • 20m quad
  • 40m K1WA-style vertical dipole
  • 80m half-wave dipole
  • 160 meter vertical delta loop
  • various antennas for 70cm, 2m and 6m


Some antennas


More antennas

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This is my operating position at home. Rig is a Yaesu FTdx3000 running exclusively QRP (5 watts output) at all times.

The antennas are a tribander Yagi at 40 feet (2 elements on 20, 2 elements on 15, and 4 elements on 10); rotatable dipole for 40 and inverted vee fed with ladderline for 30, 40, and 80.

73,
Randy, ND0C

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VHF: Icom IC-2200H, antenna Diamond X-30
HF: Tentec R4030 (on way new Youkits HB1B).

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Here is my station

Antennes MA5B, 2x15 Doublet, 4el 6M, 5el 4M
Running 200W from K3 Expert

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Who cares about the K3 when there’s an HP8566 and other toys! :slight_smile:

That’s a nice looking shack Karel, thanks for posting.

A change in my shack this week - replacing two 19" square screen monitors with a 27" Samsung HD widescreen TV which will allow an HDMI connection from a PC - see pic below. The ex-corporate HP Compaq PC I bought for £150 last month (TNX - bought via the Mr SOTAbeams G3CWI Fleamarket website) didn’t have an HDMI port - its a good PC though - i3 processor and Windows 7 with 250 GB SSD, 16 MB RAM and 6 USB ports. So I bought a VGA to HDMI converter from a seller on the usual auction site for £6 and the Compaq PC now powers the TV/monitor. Can’t see me watching TV in the shack though, too much else of interest in the cave!

73 Phil

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If this convers, fine…if not it’s a Wouxun KG-UV3D With a 19" Diamond antenna.
I bet I get more miles chasing than some of you do on your excursions. Trying to get into the right place can be a challenge. Sometimes I find a two-inch window to Tx/Rx, and when the wind blows your antenna out of the window…it’s a whole bunch of fun!!!
That’s why we do this!!!

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Hello,

up in the thread my former shack is shown.

This summer I had time to reorganize it giving using more space. The equipment is the same as described before but now it is a pleasure to sit and ran the radio on this tidy table (unless I have any ongoing project that makes it much more crowded, which happens often, hi)

73 de Ignacio

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My actual shack, powered by poder supply or solar pannel. Leds are powered by solar pannel.

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How about a graphics card? That would allow you to add more monitors as and when you feel the need; all of them running at 4K if need be.
73 Matt

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I just relocated my station and setted up more 2 antennas.



Both vertical for 20/40m bands.

73 de Eyran 4X4-2238.

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Chasing activity from ON4FI was almost nihil last month. Don’t worry I am in good health just moved to a new QTH an apartment in the center of TIENEN. I love the new QTH with all its comfort in the town center. Downside is of course the limited or no possibility for ham radio antennas. But as you can see the HP measuring corner is almost in place. I hope to be qrv soon again with a IC7100 in the car so you will here me soon /P or /M [https://photos.app.goo.gl/ENNPcXAtCERxV8KG9] hps to post soon pictures of my mobile shack 73 Karel ON4FI

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Hi Karel,
Do you still keep your previous QTH with all the great antennas you had or you got rid of everything?
Should you still keep them, have you considered setting up a remote station?
I went through a similar change when we moved from the QTH in the village, where I had a good radio station, to a rental appartment in the city center. I initially installed an endfed wire in the balcony, but one day the QRM became unbearable and I setup a remote station with an Icom-706. I initially had it with one single antenna and later I included a remote antenna switch letting me select up to 4 different antennas I have in my rural QTH. Later I also included an automatic antenna tunner, which I can command from the IC-706 front panel. This is how it looks like in these days:
This is what I have with me at the rental appartment:

This is what I have at the QTH in the village:

This is me chasing a Northamerican activator on 20m CW a few weeks ago:

Cheers,

Guru

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Perhaps this is why I’m not going crazy yet. I have a wife (N5NHC) and three dogs, and I enjoy being home with them. And in between stuff, I’ve been doing some chasing. Over 400 points in March. This is the main station:

I have a pretty large room (blessed to have a wife who allows radio in the house).

The main operating desk, over the years it has evolved into a comfortable ergonomic design.

At night, sometimes you don’t need a lot of light just for chatting with friends.

I do enjoy older radios, especially antique receivers. The dog is my constant companion, whatever I am doing, she is with me.

And what is a hamshack without a work bench?

That’s it. If I have chased you, and it was not S2S, this is the station I was using.

Vy73 – Mike – KD5KC – El Paso, TX.

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Wow, great to see so many cool chaser stations!

I started chasing with my home station. However, it is optimized for DXing, so I’m not always able to hear stateside SOTA. Current home version looks like this:

Yes, there’s a few amps ;-), but I chase SOTA at 100W or less (DX is a different story!). K3 is the primary rig, FT-1000D is the backup. Palstar tuner is used for high power. Antennas are a SteppIR DB18e on a HyGain crank-up, and an HF2V (primarily for 80M, but sometimes 60M). No trees and small lot size limits antenna options.

About 2 years ago, I set up a remote station at my cabin in NW WI, where I have an OCF about 35-40’ up. I configured a Pelican-style box to hold the control gear so I can easily carry and set up to operate from anywhere there is internet available. This is my primary chasing station now. Pictures below (also on my QRZ page):

From left to right, the bottom contains:

  • Begali Traveler paddles, already mounted, connected and ready to use.
  • Sennheiser portable headphones in a zippered case
  • Control head for TS-480 (the “guts” reside at the remote site)
  • TS-480 mic
  • A yellow wire used to prevent the top of the case from flopping completely flat
  • A Winbook 8" tablet with USB to ethernet adapter.
  • RemoteRig Control box
  • A small bluetooth keyboard (inserted between the right side of the case and the Control box).

From top to bottom, the case top contains:

  • A Vonets ethernet to wireless adapter
  • An ethernet to ethernet adapter
  • A power strip with an on/off rocker switch to power the Control box, Winbook and Vonets
  • A small envelope with essential documentation

73 Paula k9ir

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