Rack mounts for DIN scanners

[N9JIG]

I am considering rack mounting many of my radios and while I can get rack plates for the R7000, R71, R8500 and CDM 1250's I have, I would also like to mount my collection of scanners.

I have sent an email to NovaCom and am waiting to hear what they say but I was hoping that there would be a reasonably priced system for multiple radios, up to 16 DIN radios.

ScannerMaster has a 2-radio rack, but it is too expensive for my application.

Any other ideas other than making my own (which I am already looking into...)?

 

[ScannaMan9]

Where?
Car?
Truck?
House/ shack?
Bathroom? :roll:

 

[W2NJS]

Rack mounted radios are customarily found in the shack or elsewhere in one's house.

You might try the Middle Atlantic rack accessory catalog. At one time they made a wide variety of rack mounts for various commercial radios.

Dick Robinson of NovaCom is also a very good bet, assuming he'll make up what you want. I use two of his rack mounts which house two XTLs and two Spectras.

 

[N2JDS]

Just wondering, anybody ever looked to their local machine shop to see if the had the ability to laser cut these at a decent price? I however, think a rack system for a car would be way cool.

 

[ShawnInPaso]

I know you said other than doing it yourself, but here's my experience FWIW since I too have had this issue. After getting the excellent products from NovaCom for three of my rigs, I searched locally to have some clean cuts done for other radios (scanner, 2 meter radio, etc.) but came up empty handed. Ultimately I ended up doing it myself. After one sacrificial rack panel to get the system of things dialed in, they came out okay. Of course the panels come in different metals and thicknesses, so each must be tried for best results.

My photography is worse than my cutting, but you get the idea.

 

[GrumpyGuard]

WOW that is nice. Who ever said you had to buy a rack when you can make your own custom rack.

 

[N9JIG]

This is exactly what I am thinking for here. I would think 4 DIN scanners like the 996XT or PSR600 would fit into a single 3U rack panel.

I might use the suggestion of anther poster and have a machine shop cut a couple for me, I am not good at that kind of detail work myself.

BTW, did you make the enclosures or buy them?

I know you said other than doing it yourself, but here's my experience FWIW since I too have had this issue. After getting the excellent products from NovaCom for three of my rigs, I searched locally to have some clean cuts done for other radios (scanner, 2 meter radio, etc.) but came up empty handed. Ultimately I ended up doing it myself. After one sacrificial rack panel to get the system of things dialed in, they came out okay. Of course the panels come in different metals and thicknesses, so each must be tried for best results.

My photography is worse than my cutting, but you get the idea.

 

[ShawnInPaso]

I made the enclosures. There is more info via the link below (when I posted a few pics a long time back one of the other guys asked if I could add some construction details, which I had).

All the pics are old, I need to take some news images someday. My original objective, beyond the fact I like the rack mounts, was to create a sort of modular setup so that when I change the shack around (which I seem to do about every 2 years), the modular rack enclosures would just be moved "as is".

Anyway, here more info:
WB6JWB Radio Bench

 

[ScannaMan9]

You could just buy the faceplates for them, (That are meant to go into a console) and mount them into a custom rack.

If you have big radio's that don't have faceplates, you can just put them on the bottom, in a cut-out section.
Or, you could also make an internal shelf to hold it.

Tell me if you don't get that, tell me and i'll explain that better.

These are some rack installs.
http://forums.radioreference.com/search.php?searchid=4813390