My Little Shack

[mark432k]

As many of you know, we are sometimes limited by our spouse by what we can/can't do with our equipment. I was given some tight parameters by my wife being: 1) No outside antennas can be visible from the front of our house and on our deck out back, and 2) I get a four foot nook in the corner of our office for my "stuff."

This unorthodox setup was my solution to my better half's demands. I decided to operate most my radios via computer, and stash them away in the lower cabinet. This made cable management easy, as I could just hide a big mess of antenna and speaker cables out of sight. Under the hood and run by Proscan are:

1 BCD99T
2 BCD996P2's
2 BCT15X's

On the shelf I have an HP1, 780XLT and the oldies but goodies, a PRO-2022 and my very first radio that I will never get rid of, my trusty 560XLT.

I run all my audio through a Behringer Eurorack mixer and an amplifier to the speakers. So far I am impressed with the audio, and the simplicity of isolating a radio to one speaker, while either muting or sending the others to a different speaker is working great. I am hoping to add Bluetooth soon so I can listen anywhere around the house.

Outside I have 7 antennas in locations I am not particularity pleased about, but the wife is OK with. Negotiations are never ending and someday I may get get to put one or two where they should be....

 

[seth21w]

Nice setup!

 

[03msc]

Awesome! Great idea remoting the Unidens!

 

[kjfswkr]

Looks good

 

[ilgrant]

(Disregard my question...I see you are running the Proscan software.)

What is the software program that you are running on the right side display showing the faceplates of the 996's? Very cool.

 

[radio3353]

Let's see the antennas! Thanks.

 

[eaf1956]

Wife told me it was a Her or a new radio...Well, I got the radio haven't seen her for a while...

 

[NYG]

I kind of cringe at these things (sorry and don't want to sound rude). My wife knew she wouldn't be my wife without all those wires, antennas, computers and electronic components. I don't know how some of you do it.

I know relationships are a compromise, I've been married 24 years. But this hobby is what makes me happy.

 

[desert-cheetah]

Wife told me it was a Her or a new radio...Well, I got the radio haven't seen her for a while...

I kind of cringe at these things (sorry and don't want to sound rude). My wife knew she wouldn't be my wife without all those wires, antennas, computers and electronic components. I don't know how some of you do it.

I know relationships are a compromise, I've been married 24 years. But this hobby is what makes me happy.

I know this is almost a month old but I haven't been around much lately. I just wanted to assure the single scanner people out there that not all women are going to give such strict guidelines for your scanning hobby. Yes, relationships are about compromising, but the OP's situation isn't a compromise. I know it's none of my business, I just wanted to assure "you" that we aren't all like that.

With that being said, I think the monitoring station looks great given what you had to work with.

 

[N9JIG]

Outside I have 7 antennas in locations I am not particularity pleased about, but the wife is OK with. Negotiations are never ending and someday I may get get to put one or two where they should be....

How about getting 1 fantastic scanner antenna and using a multicoupler to allow it to be shared among 8 radios? That way all the radios will have better results...



I am considering doing something similar with the scanners, running them with remote software. I already have a batch of Butel products but I might consider ProScan if it plays nicer with multiple radios.

Do you use all serial ports or a USB hub and USB cables?

 

[mbott]

Nice!

--
Mike

 

[ridgescan]

As many of you know, we are sometimes limited by our spouse by what we can/can't do with our equipment. I was given some tight parameters by my wife being: 1) No outside antennas can be visible from the front of our house and on our deck out back, and 2) I get a four foot nook in the corner of our office for my "stuff."

This unorthodox setup was my solution to my better half's demands. I decided to operate most my radios via computer, and stash them away in the lower cabinet. This made cable management easy, as I could just hide a big mess of antenna and speaker cables out of sight. Under the hood and run by Proscan are:

1 BCD99T
2 BCD996P2's
2 BCT15X's

On the shelf I have an HP1, 780XLT and the oldies but goodies, a PRO-2022 and my very first radio that I will never get rid of, my trusty 560XLT.

I run all my audio through a Behringer Eurorack mixer and an amplifier to the speakers. So far I am impressed with the audio, and the simplicity of isolating a radio to one speaker, while either muting or sending the others to a different speaker is working great. I am hoping to add Bluetooth soon so I can listen anywhere around the house.

Outside I have 7 antennas in locations I am not particularity pleased about, but the wife is OK with. Negotiations are never ending and someday I may get get to put one or two where they should be....

I have to say, contrary to how your post suggests the idea that you're extremely restricted in your hobby by your wife's wishes, I'd say your shack is pretty generously laid out! It's nice! But the sideways scanners in that cubby, couldn't they be stacked one on the other in there or does vertical space not allow?
I'm lucky that my gal actually likes my radio thing and when we get a house together next year, she says she has no problem with what I want to do-even antennas; she's seen my "shack style" and my way of deploying antennas in a tasteful sort of stealthy way and she says the radios are "good-looking". As are yours!

 

[N9JIG]

Mark;

I am shamelessly copying your shack setup! I bought ProScan, a new computer and display, 12 USB-Serial cables, a few USB hubs and soundcards as well as other cabling.

See https://forums.radioreference.com/r...-forum/353169-my-next-shack-computerized.html for the progress, when I am done I will post it to the Pictures forum.

Thanks for the ideas! My wife thanks you too since she won't have to see so darn many radios!

 

[tunnelmot]

My apologies , but I don't get the whole "keep the spouse happy" thing. My wife lets me put any antenna I want wherever, radios in the office, etc. She has the same respect from me in decorating other areas of the home. In return, I made sure the house mounted antennas and wiring are all clean, neat and orderly. And we live in an up to date, HOA restricted neighborhood. I may just be misreading your gentlemanly ways, but I never put my baby in a corner with restrictions, and likewise her with me. We both contribute and sacrifice for our home/utilities /etc, so we both have decent space and leeway for hobbies, different tastes and such. My possible misunderstandings aside, great shack and setup. Great equipment and a solid listening station..I have been thinking for a while about one of the Behringer mixers. I have plenty of radios, but that is a nice bundle of Unidens there. I have been known to misread Internet posts before, and context sometimes doesn't transfer to forum posts.
Rich

 

[tunnelmot]

Above rant aside, I am truly interested in how the mixer is run. Are there any impedance or ground loop issues, was it pretty much plug and play? Any stereo /mono issues? Like I said, I have been looking at those and any insight or tips would probably be a help to not only me but others. What kind of amplifier are you using? Thanks
Rich

 

[N9JIG]

My apologies , but I don't get the whole "keep the spouse happy" thing. My wife lets me put any antenna I want wherever, radios in the office, etc. She has the same respect from me in decorating other areas of the home. In return, I made sure the house mounted antennas and wiring are all clean, neat and orderly. And we live in an up to date, HOA restricted neighborhood. I may just be misreading your gentlemanly ways, but I never put my baby in a corner with restrictions, and likewise her with me. We both contribute and sacrifice for our home/utilities /etc, so we both have decent space and leeway for hobbies, different tastes and such. My possible misunderstandings aside, great shack and setup. Great equipment and a solid listening station..I have been thinking for a while about one of the Behringer mixers. I have plenty of radios, but that is a nice bundle of Unidens there. I have been known to misread Internet posts before, and context sometimes doesn't transfer to forum posts.
Rich

My wife lets me have almost anything I want, in return I try to keep things neat and orderly. She gets on me when I let the office get messy, being a total clean freak herself.

I do what I can to make it neat, and the OP's efforts spurred me to do the same at my shack. I do these little things for her and she appreciates it. I could stack all the radios in a messy pile if I wanted to, she wouldn't like it but she won't divorce me over it.

I learned early on in my marriage: Happy wife, Happy life.