If you go back and view any of the several dozens of variations on my shacks over the years (Check the Pictures of Your Shack forum) you will notice that many of the shack variations use rack-mounting. Up until very recently I have been using standard 19-inch rack enclosures for my radios. I have recently downsized drastically to using pretty much 4 scanners (SDS200, 2 536’s and a 996P2), an R8600, an R7100 and an Anytone 578UV in my home shack. I still have several other scanners and radios stored for now in case I change my mind and want to expand the shack again.
I first started getting interested in rack-mounting in the 1990’s when I was offered a complete 2-position CentraCom II system being decommissioned by a neighboring police department. I knew everyone there, went to school with most of these guys and helped them many times over the years with radio issues as well as backups and street coverage. (I worked for the second largest of 5 small towns on our network and we all knew each other well!).
If I had a place to store all this stuff, I would have loved to have had it. The Motorola CentraCom furniture was, in my opinion, the epitome of industrial design in radio consoles in the 80’s and 90’s. The white enamel desktops, white accents and black panels were a simple, yet elegant design that stood up well. The steel frame construction lasted forever, and it all just looked so darn cool!
The system offered to me included the consoles, the CEB and even the radios they connected to as they were all being replaced. I had to decline on most of it, but I was able to pick a few parts from the trash heap before the junkers took it all away. I made off with a couple of the console sections, speakers and accessory trays. Part of this ended up in my house and the rest went to a friend who did much the same thing with his shack as I did.
At the time I had an R7000, so I bought a panel for it from NovexComm. Above this I mounted 4 Motorola speakers scavenged from the consoles, this took care of the lower section. I later made a panel that held a pair of CSI CD-1PL decoders and a switching network so I could easily connect them to any of the radios. On the upper section I fitted 2 inset trays. These trays happened to fit a PRO2006 and BC780XLT side by side perfectly on each tray and even had holes in the back for antenna and power leads. I placed other radios on the top of this.
This was a bit unstable by itself, so I located my big, heavy Astron 50-amp linear power supply in the bottom section. This added stability so it was not too top heavy. I had this section for several years but eventually got rid of it as my needs and aesthetic choices changed, as they are want to do.
Eventually as my shack grew with BCT15’s and other scanners and radios the wife started to complain about the wire mess under and above my desks. I then invested in three slanted 10u cabinets with faceplates and power supplies. Each cabinet had a 25-amp Astron switching power supply on a 2u rack with a space for another radio and then I had rack panels and faceplates for almost all the radios I had at the time. One cabinet was 8 BCT15 scanners and my dual-bander, the other two had a variety of other radios. Each was self-contained with its own multicoupler for the scanners, AC power strip, 12V power supply, USB hub etc.
After we moved to Arizona in 2015, I accumulated several more radios and rebuilt the 3 cabinets here, albeit with some changes. This got less manageable, and my wife suggested a single rack cabinet. She had seen a server cabinet I installed at work that contained our voice and video recording systems as well as a couple servers and suggested I get one of those. I checked around and found the perfect one for me, a 42u cabinet on casters. This was what they call a “Network Cabinet”. It is less deep than a “Server Cabinet”. This was perfect for me as I did not need the added depth. 42u was just about 7 feet tall with the casters, it had plexiglass from door and ventilated side and rear panels. The doors and sides were easily removable, so it was exceedingly easy to work in.
We bought it and over the weekend I disassembled my entire shack and remounted everything inside this cabinet. The casters made it really easy to move around to access the rear or sides and I left fairly long “tails” for the antenna, power and computer cables to facilitate the movement. I installed about 25 radios, including some 20 scanners, a couple two-ways, an HF ham rig and the R8500. I placed 2 UPSs at the very bottom, this helped reduce the tip over possibility. One was for the computer that ran all the radio stuff, and the other was for the networking gear also included in the cabinet. The wife loved it as it kept all my stuff contained with no visible wires.
This cabinet served me very well for several years. I needed all those radios as I was new to the area, and I wanted to work out the MilAir situation as it was a big deal in the Phoenix area and not particularly well documented. I also used some GRE/RS scanners to map out the local P25 systems which were being built or expanded at the time.
All this pretty much worked itself in 6 or 7 years. I had pretty much worked out the trunking systems and MilAir stuff so no longer needed so many radios. I did my first Shack Reduction and retired the tall cabinet and replaced it with a 4u tall/3-bay desktop cabinet. This held less radios with 12u of total space and worked well. The problem was that it was too tall to use as a monitor stand as well so I had to use it as a side piece (the only side piece my wife would allow me to have). I really wanted to have the radios in front of me.
I then bought a 3u/3-bay cabinet that was not slanted. It was several inches lower than the slanted 4u cabinet and I ordered some custom rack panels from NovexComm to fit my R8600, R7300 and scanners. This worked well but I had specified 14-inch depth to accommodate the Icom rack panels. This worked fine on my old desk but when I got my new SecretLabs MagnusXL desk this was really too deep. The new desk has a wire management tray that takes up the rear 5 inches of real estate, so I had to either not use that (for which I paid a lot of money) or have a very limited amount of desktop real estate. I tried it both ways and neither was particularly feasible, but the latter was preferable. That lasted a year or so until I bought a new 10u single bay flat-front cabinet and reused my existing rack panels. I found it fit nicely on an unused nightstand we had stored in our closet. This worked well but now my office was getting too crowded as I have been sharing it with the kid. He works from home and we gave him priority during the work day.
I finally gave up on the rackmount solutions, at least for now a couple months ago. I also realized that I really only needed 4 scanners for my daily listening. I bought an IC-7100 to use on the desk for HF and 2M/440, put my R8600 on the desk as well and the rest of the stuff on a bookshelf just to my right as I sit at the desk. On that shelf I have a 996P2, 2 536’s and an SDS200 on a single stack with an 8-port Stridsberg multicoupler mounted to one side. This stack is on the right side of the shelf that is about equal in height to my desktop. On the left side is the power supply, shelf unit for the IC-7100, an auto tuner for the 7100 and my Anytone dual bander.
On my current setup I use ProScan or Butel to control and log from the scanners. I also can control things from the radios themselves if desired.
Out in the garage I still have the 4u/3-bay slant cabinet, the 3u/3-bay flat cabinet, the 10u flat cabinet and a 4u single bay slant cabinet waiting for some future use. With the kids moving to their new home this fall I will have the office to myself once more so I can spread my wings again. I suspect that I will likely reuse one of these cabinets again but that depends on what furniture I have left when they move. I might stay with a free-standing stack on a shelf as that seems to be working pretty well. I also retained the various rack panels and accessories for future reuse.
For those looking for rack-mounting supplies I have a couple suggestions. I have done business with each of these and never had any problems with them.
For cabinetry I wholeheartedly recommend AudioRax (www.audiorax.com). I have 4 of their cabinets and they are awesome. They are not cheap by any means but then again, you get what you pay for. They will custom build almost any variation on their standard products and the workmanship is top notch. They also have a wide selection of hardware for rack-mounting.
For rack panels there is NovexCom (www.novexxcomm.com) They have stock and custom panels for just about any radio or combination of radios and accessories. If they don’t have it they will make it for you. I sent them a couple radios so they could fit them properly and they returned them quickly with the panels they made for me.
For scanners and two-ways Alberta Radio Supply (www.albertaradiosupply.com) is also a great source. They came out with SDS200 rack panels before anyone else did and they have several variations available. They ship to Canada and the US.
Scanner Master (www.scanenrmaster.com) also has some rack-mounting gear. They have DIN-mount panels and DIN Sleeves as well as some other accessories.
I bought my original 3 cabinets and panels from NorthComm Technologies (Northcomm Technologies | Innovative Communications Solutions) but that was almost 20 years ago and they do not carry the same products as they did then. They still have some rack gear so check them out. Their panels use JottoDesk faceplates so you can pretty much mount any mobile radio or scanner that fits in a 2u space.
I first started getting interested in rack-mounting in the 1990’s when I was offered a complete 2-position CentraCom II system being decommissioned by a neighboring police department. I knew everyone there, went to school with most of these guys and helped them many times over the years with radio issues as well as backups and street coverage. (I worked for the second largest of 5 small towns on our network and we all knew each other well!).
If I had a place to store all this stuff, I would have loved to have had it. The Motorola CentraCom furniture was, in my opinion, the epitome of industrial design in radio consoles in the 80’s and 90’s. The white enamel desktops, white accents and black panels were a simple, yet elegant design that stood up well. The steel frame construction lasted forever, and it all just looked so darn cool!
The system offered to me included the consoles, the CEB and even the radios they connected to as they were all being replaced. I had to decline on most of it, but I was able to pick a few parts from the trash heap before the junkers took it all away. I made off with a couple of the console sections, speakers and accessory trays. Part of this ended up in my house and the rest went to a friend who did much the same thing with his shack as I did.
At the time I had an R7000, so I bought a panel for it from NovexComm. Above this I mounted 4 Motorola speakers scavenged from the consoles, this took care of the lower section. I later made a panel that held a pair of CSI CD-1PL decoders and a switching network so I could easily connect them to any of the radios. On the upper section I fitted 2 inset trays. These trays happened to fit a PRO2006 and BC780XLT side by side perfectly on each tray and even had holes in the back for antenna and power leads. I placed other radios on the top of this.
This was a bit unstable by itself, so I located my big, heavy Astron 50-amp linear power supply in the bottom section. This added stability so it was not too top heavy. I had this section for several years but eventually got rid of it as my needs and aesthetic choices changed, as they are want to do.
Eventually as my shack grew with BCT15’s and other scanners and radios the wife started to complain about the wire mess under and above my desks. I then invested in three slanted 10u cabinets with faceplates and power supplies. Each cabinet had a 25-amp Astron switching power supply on a 2u rack with a space for another radio and then I had rack panels and faceplates for almost all the radios I had at the time. One cabinet was 8 BCT15 scanners and my dual-bander, the other two had a variety of other radios. Each was self-contained with its own multicoupler for the scanners, AC power strip, 12V power supply, USB hub etc.
After we moved to Arizona in 2015, I accumulated several more radios and rebuilt the 3 cabinets here, albeit with some changes. This got less manageable, and my wife suggested a single rack cabinet. She had seen a server cabinet I installed at work that contained our voice and video recording systems as well as a couple servers and suggested I get one of those. I checked around and found the perfect one for me, a 42u cabinet on casters. This was what they call a “Network Cabinet”. It is less deep than a “Server Cabinet”. This was perfect for me as I did not need the added depth. 42u was just about 7 feet tall with the casters, it had plexiglass from door and ventilated side and rear panels. The doors and sides were easily removable, so it was exceedingly easy to work in.
We bought it and over the weekend I disassembled my entire shack and remounted everything inside this cabinet. The casters made it really easy to move around to access the rear or sides and I left fairly long “tails” for the antenna, power and computer cables to facilitate the movement. I installed about 25 radios, including some 20 scanners, a couple two-ways, an HF ham rig and the R8500. I placed 2 UPSs at the very bottom, this helped reduce the tip over possibility. One was for the computer that ran all the radio stuff, and the other was for the networking gear also included in the cabinet. The wife loved it as it kept all my stuff contained with no visible wires.
This cabinet served me very well for several years. I needed all those radios as I was new to the area, and I wanted to work out the MilAir situation as it was a big deal in the Phoenix area and not particularly well documented. I also used some GRE/RS scanners to map out the local P25 systems which were being built or expanded at the time.
All this pretty much worked itself in 6 or 7 years. I had pretty much worked out the trunking systems and MilAir stuff so no longer needed so many radios. I did my first Shack Reduction and retired the tall cabinet and replaced it with a 4u tall/3-bay desktop cabinet. This held less radios with 12u of total space and worked well. The problem was that it was too tall to use as a monitor stand as well so I had to use it as a side piece (the only side piece my wife would allow me to have). I really wanted to have the radios in front of me.
I then bought a 3u/3-bay cabinet that was not slanted. It was several inches lower than the slanted 4u cabinet and I ordered some custom rack panels from NovexComm to fit my R8600, R7300 and scanners. This worked well but I had specified 14-inch depth to accommodate the Icom rack panels. This worked fine on my old desk but when I got my new SecretLabs MagnusXL desk this was really too deep. The new desk has a wire management tray that takes up the rear 5 inches of real estate, so I had to either not use that (for which I paid a lot of money) or have a very limited amount of desktop real estate. I tried it both ways and neither was particularly feasible, but the latter was preferable. That lasted a year or so until I bought a new 10u single bay flat-front cabinet and reused my existing rack panels. I found it fit nicely on an unused nightstand we had stored in our closet. This worked well but now my office was getting too crowded as I have been sharing it with the kid. He works from home and we gave him priority during the work day.
I finally gave up on the rackmount solutions, at least for now a couple months ago. I also realized that I really only needed 4 scanners for my daily listening. I bought an IC-7100 to use on the desk for HF and 2M/440, put my R8600 on the desk as well and the rest of the stuff on a bookshelf just to my right as I sit at the desk. On that shelf I have a 996P2, 2 536’s and an SDS200 on a single stack with an 8-port Stridsberg multicoupler mounted to one side. This stack is on the right side of the shelf that is about equal in height to my desktop. On the left side is the power supply, shelf unit for the IC-7100, an auto tuner for the 7100 and my Anytone dual bander.
On my current setup I use ProScan or Butel to control and log from the scanners. I also can control things from the radios themselves if desired.
Out in the garage I still have the 4u/3-bay slant cabinet, the 3u/3-bay flat cabinet, the 10u flat cabinet and a 4u single bay slant cabinet waiting for some future use. With the kids moving to their new home this fall I will have the office to myself once more so I can spread my wings again. I suspect that I will likely reuse one of these cabinets again but that depends on what furniture I have left when they move. I might stay with a free-standing stack on a shelf as that seems to be working pretty well. I also retained the various rack panels and accessories for future reuse.
For those looking for rack-mounting supplies I have a couple suggestions. I have done business with each of these and never had any problems with them.
For cabinetry I wholeheartedly recommend AudioRax (www.audiorax.com). I have 4 of their cabinets and they are awesome. They are not cheap by any means but then again, you get what you pay for. They will custom build almost any variation on their standard products and the workmanship is top notch. They also have a wide selection of hardware for rack-mounting.
For rack panels there is NovexCom (www.novexxcomm.com) They have stock and custom panels for just about any radio or combination of radios and accessories. If they don’t have it they will make it for you. I sent them a couple radios so they could fit them properly and they returned them quickly with the panels they made for me.
For scanners and two-ways Alberta Radio Supply (www.albertaradiosupply.com) is also a great source. They came out with SDS200 rack panels before anyone else did and they have several variations available. They ship to Canada and the US.
Scanner Master (www.scanenrmaster.com) also has some rack-mounting gear. They have DIN-mount panels and DIN Sleeves as well as some other accessories.
I bought my original 3 cabinets and panels from NorthComm Technologies (Northcomm Technologies | Innovative Communications Solutions) but that was almost 20 years ago and they do not carry the same products as they did then. They still have some rack gear so check them out. Their panels use JottoDesk faceplates so you can pretty much mount any mobile radio or scanner that fits in a 2u space.
