I built almost 200' of ladder line using the flexible black 1/2" irrigation tubing cut into 4" lengths - the zip ties pass thru the center and tie the wires on each end - quick to build, easy to replace the zip ties.

Using two sets of the unadilla traps, you should have an overall length right around where you want to be - of course you could build the traps.  Building their dipoles is not too bad - you tune them from the inside out and I had a 40/80 that performed quite acceptably.  When I find room to hang it again, I'll probably put it up again as it's a decently low-profile antenna.

For 40/20 only, a fan dipole is a great choice, two bands is not too tough to tune up.

I've been using a 160 meter horizontal loop for a couple of years.

I have not operated on 160, but mainly on 80 and 40 with this antenna - I find it excellent for those bands.  Performance on 20 is uneven due to the lobing and does not improve as you go higher.

IF you want to use a loop for the higher bands as well, then I would do two of them, no reason you could not make a 160 and hang a 40 inside of it, using a separate open feed line. 

I'm not sure that at 30' like mine is, it's a great DX antenna, but it's the best I've got at the moment.  An 80 vertical is still just a bit beyond my reach yet. 

I ran this decision around for a while before I bought my AL-80B.  Reasons:

1.  Budget - OK, I blew HUGE bucks on the tranciever, but I decided that an entry-level amp would serve me better.

2.  Glass:  It's subject to a lot of debate but I think the 3-500Z's are a better tube than either the 811 or 572's - and you don't have to manage three or four of them.

3.  Station hardware:  Once you exceed a KW, your hardware starts to become larger - most of the antenna protection is up to a KW or legal limit and beyond at a higher price.  For me the cost to upgrade all my arrestors, etc. was not insignificant - with a KW you can still get by RG-8x if you want to.

I hope that in time, the cost of the solid state amplifiers will come down, and the overall quality/aviailiblity will increase, but let's face it, hams are not big hardware users, HF is not a big item so much anymore.

In the mean time, I'll enjoy the friendly glow of the 3-500, or even operate, gasp, barefoot!

In an ideal world, every station would have at least a 30" deep aisle behind it to get to the wiring and back of equipment routing.  Heck, ideally I think would be a rack system with front mounted desk - with a plethora of shelves, panels and various pieces, you can customize to a fine turn.  Downside is that it's a rather utilitarian look.

I have two heavy duty shelves attached to my log walls, and a kitchen table under for the main gear - at this point I don't move things as much as I used to.  It's pretty well set up as I like it.

I would avoid particle board - you can get good quality engineered 3/4" planks up to about 12" wide, and I simply used two planks deep on a shelf bracket made of 1/8" steel with a top 18" deep!  With about 1.5" space between rear of shelf and wall, routing wiring is easy, making changes OK for fixed shelving.

Someone mentioned wire shelving - if you can order what you like, there's some neat options and you can put it on wheels to roll it away from wall for access.  The stuff is silly strong, but you may need to put a solid surface down on top of the wire for equipment, or use wood sleepers for the feet - that preserves the airflow advantages.  If you are in earthquake country, it's easy to anchor equipment to wire shelving - heavy duty zip ties work dandy!

The wire shelving:  I once added shelves to a kitchen by using 4 corner posts and only narrow shelves up HIGH - which gave me shelves over my old stove, straddling the stove - you could do this with a desk and the shelving could be self supporting on the floor on either side of your desk - and you can get 14" or 18" deep shelving.

Since my radio shack doubles as my "office", I have two desks, a radio operating desk and another messy desk, where I work on other projects, keep the computer, etc.  This keeps the radio desk much neater.

One thing I almost never seem to have is enough storage space.  I imagine I never will. 

LED undercounter lighting is still a bit expensive but is very nice on the eyes.

I think I'd go with the Full boat Hy-Gain High-Tower - yea it's almost a grand, but it's all bands, once tuned you can forget about it, and with a bit of guying, it will survive the gentle winds of paradise...

Obviously a man who likes, and is comfortable, working at height!

I've had an AL-80B for almost a year now.  It has survived my ham-handed learning curve - I've accidentally abused it a couple of times and so far, nothing bad seems to have happened.

If your antennas are all a good match, or you use a high power transmatch, the repeatability of the plate and load are pretty decent.  I don't use the ALC myself.  The four meters makes it pretty easy to keep an eye on things.

It looks like the 3-500Z type tube will be around for a while yet - there's a huge installed base so there's still enough demand for them - at least until the solid state amps prices come down into a more competitive area.

One advantage in this amp is that being less than legal limit, the demands on your station are not quite raised to the top - you can still use RG-8X if you need to, and if you have a good 120 volt line, it's happy on 120 volts.  I installed a 240 circuit since I was re-wiring my shack, so I use that.

Not the fanciest amp on the market, but I regard it as a good solid performer at a bargain price.

Got you beat, I've had FOUR LDG tuners and currently still own three of 'em.

The best 200 watt tuner out there, hands down.

Sadly, I believe that Fletcher lost his shirt making the HamDesk - I know that he personally delivered mine to San Francisco rather than risk damage in shipping.  Sadly, that's no way to make a living at the reasonable prices he was charging.  Pity that he seems to have been a victim of his own success!

It's a great desk, and I miss not having two of them every time I work on my station in CO where I don't have one.  I have the big one and it's just great for everything I had on my station including the computer.

The only thing that would be better would be if you could walk behind the desk and just work with it from the rear. 

FWIW, it would not be impossible to build an overshelf as Fletcher did - he used some sort of roller slide and a metal chair foot that rode on top of a teflon slider surface.

Without knowing exactly what the structure is made of - glass fibre or carbon fibre, it's hard to tell.  I would think Diamond would be glad to discuss this with you.  Given the huge number of antenna already on the average G/A aircraft.

I pretty much put manuals and diagrams in binders for equipment.

As to how it's hooked together.  Well, I usually keep label antenna coax connections as they don't usually change, but the interior wiring - well, if it's something I need to remember I put a label on it [I have a classic Dymo label maker], or a string tag.

I guess my shack is small enough that I don't get that confused, although it's getting to the point that antenna/coax switches are too costly to allow the combinations and takes way too many jumpers to do the job - I'm considering going to an all patch-panel approach, the only disadvantage is that it makes changes quite slow unless you invest in expensive push-on PL's.

For me, it's just the nasty tangle of wires behind the hardware that annoys.  Unless you can walk behind your station - and I cannot - it gets ugly sometimes.  Like most, I've got AC, DC, ground, control and coax wires running willy-nilly around behind the hardware.  It's almost impossible to solve the problem unless you go wireless...<GG>

Well....if I were putting up three towers, they would be spaced far enough apart to hold a 160 meter dipole at 120' or so, with them aligned to run NS and EW.  Make one an 80 meter vertical dipole [insulated center section], the other a 160 meter full size 1/4 wave vertical, the other just a really tall one.

Then I'd load 'em with antennas, but one would be a SteppIR dream beam full sized....

"To dream, the impossible dream...."

Donate the mercury to the local college or high school science lab?

I had this dilemma a while back, and I went with the modern version 'cantenna', for the simple reason that the AL-80B can be tuned for several minutes without so much as warming the oil.

I'm not wild about the wet design, but I like the virtually unlimited power capability, and it really stays in line anyway, I don't need move it very often.

From my reading, it's a fifty foot limit in some zoning and seventy feet in the others.

Since a tower needs a building permit, they will tell you, but for planning and design, I'd say you know where to start.