Our club shack is located in the lower level of Maple Grove Fire Station 2. This is the same building where we have our club meetings.
We are one of the Skywarn EOC stations so this will be a great improvement in our functionality. The shack also is available to members and is use as a teaching tool for our regularly scheduled license classes. The shack is open most Thursday evenings starting at 6:30pm for “open mic night”.
In the fall of 2016 we added a HF antenna and three more UHF/VHF antennas to the roof and all the necessary cable to connect them to our shack. We also have three coax feeds to the classroom on the upper level so that we can operate from that location as well. This is great for demos at club meetings!
Overview
Logbooks
The first thing you see when you come in are the logbooks. Make sure you sign the operator log. And if you make any changes to the equipment, put it in the maintenance log.
Roof
These are the antennas we have on the roof. Not shown is a long-wire antenna from the mast on the left to some trees nearby.
Lightning Arrestor
Everything is protected by a lightning arrestor on the ceiling of the truck garage.
Plug Board
All the antennas connect through this plug board. 3 plugs go to the meeting room upstairs so we can patch antennas up there for demos.
Station 1
In Skywarn operations, this station is usually used to run the net on the 147.210 repeater.
Viking Antenna Tuner
Viking Ny MB-V-A antenna tuner to match the long-wire antenna.
The PK-232SC Timewave TNC/Soundcard is used for digital modes with the TS-2000.
Kenwood TS-2000
TYT TH-9000 (VHF/UHF/Biz Band)
In addition to Ham VHF/UHF, this can be used to contact the National Weather Service on a Biz Band frequency they own.
Connect Systems CS800D VHF/UHF DMR
Kenwood TS-520
If you want to try your hand at using a radio with tube finals, we have one.
Power Supplies
Big Screen
We’ll usually have weather radar on this during Skywarn operations. If we’re running net control for an event, we might find a video feed from the event and put it here.
Oscilloscope
More Power Supplies
There’s also an ICOM 144mHz all-mode IC-271A
Station 2
In Skywarn operations, we’ll run the 146.700 net here.
Linear
Drake L-4B Linear Amplifier. For when you really need to get through that pileup.
Kenwood TS-850S
ICOM ID-5100 VHF/UHF D-Star
Station 3
Skywarn supervisor will pass reports to the NWS here.
