Each rig now has a Dunestar bandpass filter to reduce crosstalk between bands.  The audio and keying for the radios are routed through a fairly standard homebrew SO2R switching setup.  All contest logging is done with TR Log and general logging and DX award tracking is done with DX4WIN.  The main shack computer is a Pentium 200 running Win2K. There also are several other machines that are networked together for logging during multiop events.  We use W9XT contest cards in the computers.

Here are a few VHF/UHF amplifiers.  The "Green Machine" on the left is a US Military surplus AM-494.  It runs a pair of 4CX250's on 144MHz. The RF deck is still pretty much original but I've rebuilt the B+ and screen supplies.   The center rack has two 423 amps which both belong to WB9UAI.  The top on is a K2RIW style 2 x 4CX250 and the bottom one is a converted Motorola commercial unit.  At right on the bottom is a 220MHz 8877 amp made by Henry Radio.  The 2KD Classic on top of it is an HF amp that I no longer have.

 

Here's a shot of the panel where the feedlines and control cables come into the shack.   There are 16 runs of hardline and several runs of RG-8 coming in from the yard in addition to a bunch of relay control and rotor lines.   The silver box on the upper left is the 8x2 antenna selector that allows either of the two radios access to any antenna.  For multiple antennas on a single band there are other coax switches chained off the 8x2.  I'm working on an automatic controller that will handle 254 possible logical antenna configurations per radio.  Talk about overkill  ;-)

 

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Antennas:  The first  tower is 70' of Rohn 45 that I put up the summer we moved in.    A second tower (82' of Rohn 45) is located about 120' to the west of the first one.  Both towers use screw-in guy anchors, 2" OD 1/4" wall DOM steel masts and all guy material is 3/8" fiberglass rod. 

The current setup on tower #1 includes (from top to bottom): 

• 5 EL 50 MHz Yagi, 
• 13 EL 144 MHz Yagi
• Mosely Pro-67B 40m-10m
• Cushcraft A3S 3 EL tribander @ 40' fixed E
• KLM 10M4 monobander @25' fixed W

The Pro-67, A3, and 10m monobander are fed through a StackMatch.  Phasing on the tribanders is pretty close but there's no real performance improvement due to stacking.  The main idea is to be able to point in two directions at once on 20-10.  Running the "mongrel" 4/3/4 stack on 10m sometimes works great even though the 10m feedline is a random length of 8214. 

In addition to the aluminum, the tower also supports the following wire antennas:  80m 1/4w sloper east 80m 1/4w sloper west 160m inverted V  75m dipole at 50' The 80m wires have  8-10dB F/B, are super broad banded (They're cut for CW but work well into the lower end of 75m), and as a bonus work very well on 30m!  The VHF/UHF stuff on Tower #1 is fed with 5/8" CATV hardline. The rest uses RG213 or equivalent.

We finished construction of Tower #2 in August of 2000.  It's 82' of Rohn 45 with a 22' steel mast on top.  An RD-1800 turns the following Yagis: 

• M-Squared 432-9WL
• KLM 15M4
• Cushcraft 11L 220
• Cushcraft 17B2
• KLM 20M5.

All runs from the top of the tower to the shack (250') are 3/4" CATV hardline.  The guy system uses 3/8" Polygon guy rod.  The tower also supports a three-direction 40m dipole array. 

For RX antennas we have two "shorty" Beverages that are switched from a common feed point in the southwest corner of the lot.  One wire runs due east and the other runs pretty much north.  They are each about 450' long.  The E wire works pretty well on 80m to Europe.  I'm in the process of upgrading this setup to two-wire versions with better direction switching.   A few years ago I built  an array of 4 pennant (rx) antennas (NE, NW, SE & SW) and switched them remotely from a common feed point from the shack.  Performance was generally good but the antennas were never more useful than the compromise Beverages.  This year (2003) I switched to a pair of K9AY loops set up just like the QST article.  Results so far with the loops are very good.

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