Now that I have the office back to myself, I have been able to arrange it the way I wanted. I have almost everything I have been waiting for and have it the way I think it will stay for the foreseeable future. Of course, knowing me that will change by the time this posts. The original plan was to repaint the office this fall but that has been pushed back for now so I went ahead and did my thing now instead of waiting.
Starting with the overall shots here is the main desk. It is a SecretLabs Magnus ProXL, sit/stand desk. The CPU is mounted under the desk’s right side on a bracket. It is a home-built AMD Ryzen 7 7300X3D, with a Radeon 6600 GPU, 64GB or RAM and a pair of 2TB SSD’s. It is in a Fractal North case with the oak and brass trim. I built this a year or so ago and it has worked flawlessly, it even turned me into a Windows guy from my beloved Mac!
There are 3 Acer 27” HD monitors and a UPS is hiding behind the far-right monitor. On the desktop is the control head for my Icom IC-7100 and the SM-50 desk mic.
I love the SecretLabs desk, it is entirely self-contained., only a power cable, Ethernet, USB and the Icom control cable running out of it. It has the best cable management on the planet with the rear cable tray. They sell their own monitor arms and CPU brackets that match the aesthetic and they are of extremely good quality.
On the wall forward of the desk is a 50” 4K monitor I usually use for watching live-cams.
In the below shot you can see the desk along with the radio console and the other two 50” 4K monitors, one is usually used for my GeoChron and the far-right one is used for my security cameras.
Below you can see the radio cabinet. It is the 10u AudioRax box with front panels from NovexComm, Scanner Master and Alberta Radio. To the left side on the table (a 3-drawer end table that was perfect for my needs and the wife didn’t need it in the living room) are my Icom R8600 and IC-705. In the cabinet itself are (Bottom to top):
BCD260DN/BCD996P2 in a 2u Scanner Master DIN panel
BCD536HP (x4) in a custom 3u NovexComm DIN panel
SDS200 (x2) in a 2u Alberta Radio Supply panel
Astron 50-amp power supply/Anytone D578-UVIIIPlus in a 2u custom NovexComm panel
At the bottom of the case is a 1u blank panel, behind that is the shelf unit for the IC-7100 as well as the LDG tuner used for it.
To the right is a Husky (Home Depot) 9-drawer tool chest with wood workbench. I saw a YouTube video where a gamer was using a similar chest for his office, the next day I took my wife to her hair salon and each station had chests like this for the hairdressers and the wife thought it was a great idea.
On the workbench table is my v2 beta RH-200 remote head, currently plugged into one of my BCD536’s. I am working on the development of this product, and it is handy to have it hear for testing with various radios.
Also on the desktop is my 4u Turret Rack from AudioRax. It has my Ubiquiti router and gateway as well as an SDR station I am hosting for a friend. I took a 1u ventilated rack shelf and bolted the Intel NUC bracket to it, along with a 4-port multicoupler and a USB hub for the SDR’s. Due to the heat generated by the SDR’s (They get hot!) I bought a Noctua 12v fan and run it off a 10v wall-wart. This makes the fan absolutely silent and provides plenty of airflow to keep the SDR’s and computer nice and cool. I keep my MacBook Pro under it and a couple handheld desk chargers on top as well as my hotspot.
In the top drawer I keep my handheld collection, several scanners, a pair of FRS radios, some CCR’s and my video camera.
In the other drawers I have tools, antennas, programming cables, printer supplies and other stuff I need from time to time.
In the next picture the far wall holds some airport diagrams, my propeller (from my dad’s first flight in 1958). The two chairs are a Herman Miller Aeron and a LF Gaming LFG Extreme Gaming Chair. I alternate between them. The LFG was more expensive and is a great chair, but I still really like the Aeron for extended use.
Lastly is my Patch Panel. This has been altered from time to time and one of these days I might have a new one made but for now this works fine. There are two Alpha-Delta 4-position switches that I had custom escutcheons made for by Greg, KC8GL (KC8GL Engraving). The labels that came with the switches would have been upside down in this configuration and one of these started life as a desktop console mount so the switch, when extracted from the desktop mount, had no label. I couldn’t get ahold of Alpha-Delta so when I bought labels for a radio I asked if he could make these. He could and he did and here are the results. One of the RF switches supports the IC-705 and the other the IC-7100.
Since the current room layout results in the panel being in the open instead of behind something the wife made a canvas cover for it. The near end just tucks between the wall and the panel, and the flap has a wood dowel sewn into the bottom to keep it weighted somewhat. The color of the fabric was as close as we could get to the wall.
As for the antenna situation, my antennas are in the attic of my HOA home. There are a pair of ST-2’s, an Omni-X, a couple discones and a few 2m/440 Dual-banders. The Comet GP-1 and Diamond DX200A actually work better than the ST-2’s and OmniX and the DX200A is connected to the scanners via an 8-port Stridsberg multicoupler. There are 5 wire antennas for HF, 20M and 10M dipoles in the attic and 10m and 20M end-feds hidden on the roof. In addition, there is a 20m dipole along the roofline on the side of the house. The attic 20m dipole seems to be the best performer for 10, 20 and 40M.
For now, the only change upcoming is replacing the Ethernet cables. I hate seeing wires, so I bought some right-angle 6-inch male to female cables to be able to tuck in the cables to run behind the switch. This works and looks fine but they are cheap chinesium cables and they are just the right length to get caught under the rear edge of the switch, this makes it awkward for moving or adding a cable. I have all new Ethernet cables on the way from TrippLite that have the right angle on the end directly.
Starting with the overall shots here is the main desk. It is a SecretLabs Magnus ProXL, sit/stand desk. The CPU is mounted under the desk’s right side on a bracket. It is a home-built AMD Ryzen 7 7300X3D, with a Radeon 6600 GPU, 64GB or RAM and a pair of 2TB SSD’s. It is in a Fractal North case with the oak and brass trim. I built this a year or so ago and it has worked flawlessly, it even turned me into a Windows guy from my beloved Mac!
There are 3 Acer 27” HD monitors and a UPS is hiding behind the far-right monitor. On the desktop is the control head for my Icom IC-7100 and the SM-50 desk mic.
I love the SecretLabs desk, it is entirely self-contained., only a power cable, Ethernet, USB and the Icom control cable running out of it. It has the best cable management on the planet with the rear cable tray. They sell their own monitor arms and CPU brackets that match the aesthetic and they are of extremely good quality.
On the wall forward of the desk is a 50” 4K monitor I usually use for watching live-cams.
In the below shot you can see the desk along with the radio console and the other two 50” 4K monitors, one is usually used for my GeoChron and the far-right one is used for my security cameras.
Below you can see the radio cabinet. It is the 10u AudioRax box with front panels from NovexComm, Scanner Master and Alberta Radio. To the left side on the table (a 3-drawer end table that was perfect for my needs and the wife didn’t need it in the living room) are my Icom R8600 and IC-705. In the cabinet itself are (Bottom to top):
BCD260DN/BCD996P2 in a 2u Scanner Master DIN panel
BCD536HP (x4) in a custom 3u NovexComm DIN panel
SDS200 (x2) in a 2u Alberta Radio Supply panel
Astron 50-amp power supply/Anytone D578-UVIIIPlus in a 2u custom NovexComm panel
At the bottom of the case is a 1u blank panel, behind that is the shelf unit for the IC-7100 as well as the LDG tuner used for it.
To the right is a Husky (Home Depot) 9-drawer tool chest with wood workbench. I saw a YouTube video where a gamer was using a similar chest for his office, the next day I took my wife to her hair salon and each station had chests like this for the hairdressers and the wife thought it was a great idea.
On the workbench table is my v2 beta RH-200 remote head, currently plugged into one of my BCD536’s. I am working on the development of this product, and it is handy to have it hear for testing with various radios.
Also on the desktop is my 4u Turret Rack from AudioRax. It has my Ubiquiti router and gateway as well as an SDR station I am hosting for a friend. I took a 1u ventilated rack shelf and bolted the Intel NUC bracket to it, along with a 4-port multicoupler and a USB hub for the SDR’s. Due to the heat generated by the SDR’s (They get hot!) I bought a Noctua 12v fan and run it off a 10v wall-wart. This makes the fan absolutely silent and provides plenty of airflow to keep the SDR’s and computer nice and cool. I keep my MacBook Pro under it and a couple handheld desk chargers on top as well as my hotspot.
In the top drawer I keep my handheld collection, several scanners, a pair of FRS radios, some CCR’s and my video camera.
In the other drawers I have tools, antennas, programming cables, printer supplies and other stuff I need from time to time.
In the next picture the far wall holds some airport diagrams, my propeller (from my dad’s first flight in 1958). The two chairs are a Herman Miller Aeron and a LF Gaming LFG Extreme Gaming Chair. I alternate between them. The LFG was more expensive and is a great chair, but I still really like the Aeron for extended use.
Lastly is my Patch Panel. This has been altered from time to time and one of these days I might have a new one made but for now this works fine. There are two Alpha-Delta 4-position switches that I had custom escutcheons made for by Greg, KC8GL (KC8GL Engraving). The labels that came with the switches would have been upside down in this configuration and one of these started life as a desktop console mount so the switch, when extracted from the desktop mount, had no label. I couldn’t get ahold of Alpha-Delta so when I bought labels for a radio I asked if he could make these. He could and he did and here are the results. One of the RF switches supports the IC-705 and the other the IC-7100.
Since the current room layout results in the panel being in the open instead of behind something the wife made a canvas cover for it. The near end just tucks between the wall and the panel, and the flap has a wood dowel sewn into the bottom to keep it weighted somewhat. The color of the fabric was as close as we could get to the wall.
As for the antenna situation, my antennas are in the attic of my HOA home. There are a pair of ST-2’s, an Omni-X, a couple discones and a few 2m/440 Dual-banders. The Comet GP-1 and Diamond DX200A actually work better than the ST-2’s and OmniX and the DX200A is connected to the scanners via an 8-port Stridsberg multicoupler. There are 5 wire antennas for HF, 20M and 10M dipoles in the attic and 10m and 20M end-feds hidden on the roof. In addition, there is a 20m dipole along the roofline on the side of the house. The attic 20m dipole seems to be the best performer for 10, 20 and 40M.
For now, the only change upcoming is replacing the Ethernet cables. I hate seeing wires, so I bought some right-angle 6-inch male to female cables to be able to tuck in the cables to run behind the switch. This works and looks fine but they are cheap chinesium cables and they are just the right length to get caught under the rear edge of the switch, this makes it awkward for moving or adding a cable. I have all new Ethernet cables on the way from TrippLite that have the right angle on the end directly.
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