When I look at pictures of radio shacks and even computer setups one of the first thing I look at is cable management. The one thing I hate about my office it to see wires. It is my pet peeve, and I obsess over it, almost as much as I do for changing my shack around.
Over the years I have had a wide variety of desks, each one presented its own challenges. My earliest desk was a 1960’s one my parents bought at a second-hand store when I was a 6-year-old. I had this desk all the way thru grade, middle and high school and college. When I got my own apartment it came with and followed me to several more. I probably had that desk for close to 30 years. It had no way to manage cables on it but I only had a few radios most of the time anyway, I wasn’t really into many radios at the same time until I got married and tossed that broken-down pile of cheap lumber in the dumpster and moved on.
When we bought our first house the wife and I ran thru a variety of Office Depot put-togethers. In the 90’s these were all the rage, with hutches, monitor stands and keyboard drawers. On most of these wire management was mostly using twist-ties to bundle things up. This was before wireless keyboards and mice were popular and computers were big beige boxes, even Mac’s. Monitors were big beige boxes too, with CRT’s mandating depth and big cables.
When I first started getting into really managing wires in the shack was when I went with an all-Elfa solution. The wife and I went all in on Elfa from the Container Store, investing a couple thou on desktops, shelves and bracketing. This stuff was great, you mounted a heavy steel channel on the ceiling joist and then you hung vertical supports from that, then the desktops and shelves mount on brackets hung on the verticals. This resulted in the desktops and shelves being about an inch off the wall, leaving a lot of room for wires to be routed. It also allowed for said wires to be strapped to the verticals. While visible they were able to be neatly bundled.
Later I discovered Velcro straps. I use several types. One is the wire straps that have a slot in them to remain captive on the cable. These are great for things like programming cables that you use and then store again, wrap the cable up and tie it off with the captive strap. I also bought off Amazon a large roll of ¾ inch wide strapping with the hook on one side and loop on the other. You cut this to the length you need, and it can hold as many wires as needed. If you are really cheap go to Home Depot or Lowes and get Velcro tomato vine strapping, same concept but smaller and cheaper.
I used a variety of solutions for hanging wires under the desktop. First off, I used those horseshoe shaped pipe hangers to route wires, these were screwed into bottom of the desktops. These were soon filled up. I then used larger diecast wire brackets made surplus from when demolished our police station, these had held up the 600-pair phone wires thru the building above the drop ceiling and in the phone room. I still have a bunch of these and occasionally used them as tool holders.
Later I started using those plastic squares with double-stick tape that hold cable-ties. These things changed my life! They really worked great, and I used them on several iterations of my shacks. I just had to have plenty of cable-ties as the ties needed to be cut after use. These holders are available at Home Depot type places, along with the plastic cable-ties.
Since I moved here to Arizona I have used a couple different standing desks. These are great as when raise it is easy to work on them setting up a shack. The trick with standing desks is to put EVERYTHING on or mounted under the desk. This makes it much easier to manage wires. Don’t put the CPU on the floor! One then needs to just manage the external wires (power cord, antenna and network cables etc.) to move with the desk.
I had set pen to paper to try to develop a concept for a “double desktop”, the lower desktop would have been mounted a few inches under the main one with space to hide the wires, power bricks and other bric-a-brac of a radio shack. While this never came to be it did spawn an idea. I bought one of those clamp-on monitor shelves and mounted it under the desk instead of above. This gave me a place to put my power bricks, network switch, USB hub etc. and keep it off the desktop.
My previous desk to my current one was an Uplift L-shaped sit-stand desk. It was plenty large enough for my radios and computers and I used it for years. I had a hundred or more screw holes on the bottom from the various iterations of my shack over the years and it served me well. After I started downsizing and my stepson moved in, I gave him that desk and bought a SecretLabs desk. (More on that later!). He is an IT support dude and needed the extra room. When they moved out last month he asked if he could take that desk with him. I was happy to let him, even though it was my favorite until recently.
As I always am looking for the next great thing, I was looking at desks even before the kids arrived here. Before I even thought about getting a new desk, I saw a YouTube video about the SecretLabs Magnus Pro desk. This is a fairly standard heavy-duty sit-stand desk with a couple twists. The first is that it is all steel except for the interior MDF core of the desktop. The top itself is steel as is all of the supporting structure (legs, feet etc.).
The main feature of the Magnus Pro is the wire trough at the back. This extends all the way across the rear of the desktop and had a several-inch deep tray covered by a flip-lid that leaves enough of a gap to let your monitor cables, antenna wires etc. pass thru. It is designed however to look almost seamless. It also has an integrated power cable that plugs into the left leg’s base and powers the desk itself as well as an outlet within the trough. Pop in a power strip and off you go. The tray is plenty large enough to hold all my wires and a couple power bricks.
The SecretLabs ecosystem includes monitor arms, cable management devices and accessory holders to match the aesthetic. I went all-in. I have 2 of the dual-monitor arms so I can add a fourth monitor if I need to, I have 3 now. I also bought the under-desk CPU mount to hold the large computer case under the desktop where it is nicely out of the way and off the floor. The wire-management stuff is all magnetic to clamp down on the steel parts of the desk. Even the full-sized desk mat is magnetic, so it doesn’t slide around.
I do not work for them or have any financial interest in the company, but the desk is fantastic! I have ceramic tile floors in my office, so I popped a few of those nylon slider things under the feet so it is easy to slide around on the floor. I also added a couple Ikea accessories, one is a clamp-on water bottle holder (essential in the Arizona desert) and a clamp-on headphone holder.
I bought the larger XL-size, it is 70 inches wide with a 32-inch-deep desktop, 27 inches forward of the wire tray. It took about 2 hours to assemble, they even include the tools. I even bought a second CPU holder to mount my UPS under the desk, but the UPS was actually too small to be held in that, so it lives on the desktop behind a monitor.
There are a couple things I would have done differently if I were SecretLabs. First I would have put a second outlet on the other side of the tray. Also I would have made the under-desk CPU mount able to hold smaller cases like a MiniATX, this would allow it to also hold my UPS. Other than these little quibbles It is almost perfect.
I have the wires managed by use of a wire sheath that holds the networking cable, USB cable from the computer to my radio cabinet as well as the control cable for my IC-7100, for which the head lives on the desktop. There is enough slack in this to allow the desk to go from absolute bottom to top.
For wire management on radios, the best way is to rack-mount them. This allows most wires to be stashed inside the cabinet. While there are bound to be some visible wires in many shacks, like USB or audio cables that need to be connected to the front panel, these can be managed with a little effort.
My current shack as of this writing has most of my radios in a 10u cabinet. The computer connections are on the rear for 5 of the 8 scanners (4 536’s and a 996P2). The SDS200’s have a front panel USB port, for these I bought a couple right-angle ribbon connectors. For my BCD260DN I used a right-angle USB connector. All three of these radios’ cables tuck in a gap in the mounting plate. I have a USB hub in the cabinet, this allows me to use a single USB cable to the computer. I have a power strip mounted on the back that supports the entire cabinet. A single 50-amp 12VDC power supply powers all the radios. Coming out of the cabinet are a half-dozen antenna cables, these are in a sheath leading to my antenna patch panel on a different wall.
While I might take wire management to an extreme, the wife appreciates it. She knows I hate seeing wires as much as she does but there is also a more practical reason for this, cleanliness. We have a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. Keeping the wires off the floor or sheathed keeps them from getting tangled in the tentacles of my robot. We must do wire management all over the house lest we have to extract Rosie the Roomba from a lamp cord.
My wire management and desks have evolved over the decades. If you need inspiration on how to create your perfect shack look at the Pictures forum here for ideas, watch a ton of YouTube videos or go to gamer’s forums. While I am not a gamer at all they share a lot of similarities with us radio people and we can learn from them. Remember, when it comes to shack design plagiarism is good, learn from someone else’s misteaks.
Over the years I have had a wide variety of desks, each one presented its own challenges. My earliest desk was a 1960’s one my parents bought at a second-hand store when I was a 6-year-old. I had this desk all the way thru grade, middle and high school and college. When I got my own apartment it came with and followed me to several more. I probably had that desk for close to 30 years. It had no way to manage cables on it but I only had a few radios most of the time anyway, I wasn’t really into many radios at the same time until I got married and tossed that broken-down pile of cheap lumber in the dumpster and moved on.
When we bought our first house the wife and I ran thru a variety of Office Depot put-togethers. In the 90’s these were all the rage, with hutches, monitor stands and keyboard drawers. On most of these wire management was mostly using twist-ties to bundle things up. This was before wireless keyboards and mice were popular and computers were big beige boxes, even Mac’s. Monitors were big beige boxes too, with CRT’s mandating depth and big cables.
When I first started getting into really managing wires in the shack was when I went with an all-Elfa solution. The wife and I went all in on Elfa from the Container Store, investing a couple thou on desktops, shelves and bracketing. This stuff was great, you mounted a heavy steel channel on the ceiling joist and then you hung vertical supports from that, then the desktops and shelves mount on brackets hung on the verticals. This resulted in the desktops and shelves being about an inch off the wall, leaving a lot of room for wires to be routed. It also allowed for said wires to be strapped to the verticals. While visible they were able to be neatly bundled.
Later I discovered Velcro straps. I use several types. One is the wire straps that have a slot in them to remain captive on the cable. These are great for things like programming cables that you use and then store again, wrap the cable up and tie it off with the captive strap. I also bought off Amazon a large roll of ¾ inch wide strapping with the hook on one side and loop on the other. You cut this to the length you need, and it can hold as many wires as needed. If you are really cheap go to Home Depot or Lowes and get Velcro tomato vine strapping, same concept but smaller and cheaper.
I used a variety of solutions for hanging wires under the desktop. First off, I used those horseshoe shaped pipe hangers to route wires, these were screwed into bottom of the desktops. These were soon filled up. I then used larger diecast wire brackets made surplus from when demolished our police station, these had held up the 600-pair phone wires thru the building above the drop ceiling and in the phone room. I still have a bunch of these and occasionally used them as tool holders.
Later I started using those plastic squares with double-stick tape that hold cable-ties. These things changed my life! They really worked great, and I used them on several iterations of my shacks. I just had to have plenty of cable-ties as the ties needed to be cut after use. These holders are available at Home Depot type places, along with the plastic cable-ties.
Since I moved here to Arizona I have used a couple different standing desks. These are great as when raise it is easy to work on them setting up a shack. The trick with standing desks is to put EVERYTHING on or mounted under the desk. This makes it much easier to manage wires. Don’t put the CPU on the floor! One then needs to just manage the external wires (power cord, antenna and network cables etc.) to move with the desk.
I had set pen to paper to try to develop a concept for a “double desktop”, the lower desktop would have been mounted a few inches under the main one with space to hide the wires, power bricks and other bric-a-brac of a radio shack. While this never came to be it did spawn an idea. I bought one of those clamp-on monitor shelves and mounted it under the desk instead of above. This gave me a place to put my power bricks, network switch, USB hub etc. and keep it off the desktop.
My previous desk to my current one was an Uplift L-shaped sit-stand desk. It was plenty large enough for my radios and computers and I used it for years. I had a hundred or more screw holes on the bottom from the various iterations of my shack over the years and it served me well. After I started downsizing and my stepson moved in, I gave him that desk and bought a SecretLabs desk. (More on that later!). He is an IT support dude and needed the extra room. When they moved out last month he asked if he could take that desk with him. I was happy to let him, even though it was my favorite until recently.
As I always am looking for the next great thing, I was looking at desks even before the kids arrived here. Before I even thought about getting a new desk, I saw a YouTube video about the SecretLabs Magnus Pro desk. This is a fairly standard heavy-duty sit-stand desk with a couple twists. The first is that it is all steel except for the interior MDF core of the desktop. The top itself is steel as is all of the supporting structure (legs, feet etc.).
The main feature of the Magnus Pro is the wire trough at the back. This extends all the way across the rear of the desktop and had a several-inch deep tray covered by a flip-lid that leaves enough of a gap to let your monitor cables, antenna wires etc. pass thru. It is designed however to look almost seamless. It also has an integrated power cable that plugs into the left leg’s base and powers the desk itself as well as an outlet within the trough. Pop in a power strip and off you go. The tray is plenty large enough to hold all my wires and a couple power bricks.
The SecretLabs ecosystem includes monitor arms, cable management devices and accessory holders to match the aesthetic. I went all-in. I have 2 of the dual-monitor arms so I can add a fourth monitor if I need to, I have 3 now. I also bought the under-desk CPU mount to hold the large computer case under the desktop where it is nicely out of the way and off the floor. The wire-management stuff is all magnetic to clamp down on the steel parts of the desk. Even the full-sized desk mat is magnetic, so it doesn’t slide around.
I do not work for them or have any financial interest in the company, but the desk is fantastic! I have ceramic tile floors in my office, so I popped a few of those nylon slider things under the feet so it is easy to slide around on the floor. I also added a couple Ikea accessories, one is a clamp-on water bottle holder (essential in the Arizona desert) and a clamp-on headphone holder.
I bought the larger XL-size, it is 70 inches wide with a 32-inch-deep desktop, 27 inches forward of the wire tray. It took about 2 hours to assemble, they even include the tools. I even bought a second CPU holder to mount my UPS under the desk, but the UPS was actually too small to be held in that, so it lives on the desktop behind a monitor.
There are a couple things I would have done differently if I were SecretLabs. First I would have put a second outlet on the other side of the tray. Also I would have made the under-desk CPU mount able to hold smaller cases like a MiniATX, this would allow it to also hold my UPS. Other than these little quibbles It is almost perfect.
I have the wires managed by use of a wire sheath that holds the networking cable, USB cable from the computer to my radio cabinet as well as the control cable for my IC-7100, for which the head lives on the desktop. There is enough slack in this to allow the desk to go from absolute bottom to top.
For wire management on radios, the best way is to rack-mount them. This allows most wires to be stashed inside the cabinet. While there are bound to be some visible wires in many shacks, like USB or audio cables that need to be connected to the front panel, these can be managed with a little effort.
My current shack as of this writing has most of my radios in a 10u cabinet. The computer connections are on the rear for 5 of the 8 scanners (4 536’s and a 996P2). The SDS200’s have a front panel USB port, for these I bought a couple right-angle ribbon connectors. For my BCD260DN I used a right-angle USB connector. All three of these radios’ cables tuck in a gap in the mounting plate. I have a USB hub in the cabinet, this allows me to use a single USB cable to the computer. I have a power strip mounted on the back that supports the entire cabinet. A single 50-amp 12VDC power supply powers all the radios. Coming out of the cabinet are a half-dozen antenna cables, these are in a sheath leading to my antenna patch panel on a different wall.
While I might take wire management to an extreme, the wife appreciates it. She knows I hate seeing wires as much as she does but there is also a more practical reason for this, cleanliness. We have a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. Keeping the wires off the floor or sheathed keeps them from getting tangled in the tentacles of my robot. We must do wire management all over the house lest we have to extract Rosie the Roomba from a lamp cord.
My wire management and desks have evolved over the decades. If you need inspiration on how to create your perfect shack look at the Pictures forum here for ideas, watch a ton of YouTube videos or go to gamer’s forums. While I am not a gamer at all they share a lot of similarities with us radio people and we can learn from them. Remember, when it comes to shack design plagiarism is good, learn from someone else’s misteaks.
