I'm not very happy with Universal right now. I ordered an antenna on 2 Jan. I called them on the 8th as I had not seen a shipping notification. I was told that they were on back order and would be in by the 24th. Called on the 25th and was told they did not come in but should soon and to check back this week. Called this morning and was told that they were not in and they had no clue on when it was going to come in from the vendor as the vendor was out and had been for several weeks now.  So, I called the vendor as they have a direct outlet. Yep they have the antenna in stock, and they had not had any ordered in several weeks and there was no problem in shipping one out. Took my info and told me the order had already been processed while we were tallking and would go out today and I should have it in hand on Tuesday. Called Universal back and cancelled my order with them. Don't know why they would b.s. a customer like this if they want business. I'd rather deal with a company that admitted that they screwed up over one that just slings something out to get the customer off the phone. Will I ever try to buy from them again? Maybe, but right now I don't think so unless it's something that I can only find there.

It's not just radio gear that has this problem. I own a very rare aircraft that I am restoring...as in it is the only one left. A number of years ago, an original maintenance manual came up on fleabay. Some dinglehead decieded to start a bidding war on it. When it passed about twice whatI could get a good copy of from the Smithsonian, I dropped out.  Got a note about two weeks later from him that I could "have" a copy for a price of what he paid for it plus 20%. Told him no thanks as I was getting a copy form the archieves at 5 cents a page and not the $2 a page he wanted.

You need to work backwards a little.... Determine your dream antenna set up that you would want to have. Now do the wind loading and ice loading calculations for the entire entire antenna stack as installed. From there, you can now narrow down your choices to appropriately rated tower sizes according to whether you want to go with a free standing or guyed tower. At that point, you can start playing with site information and construction requirements based on your location, and select a particular model based on all of the data. Be sure and run all the traps on permits/zoning/covenants etc. prior to spending the bucks to order the tower.

Prior planning with the max set up taken into consideration may expend a few dollars more in the short term, but save megabucks in the long run.

We've been replacing all of our Cool White CFL's with Daylight spectrum CFL's as they quit. Makes a heck of a difference for us, as my wife is a graphic artist. We put the high blockage solar screens on all the windows and with the CFL's it has dropped our power bill. In the bathrooms, we were using the frosted globe CFL's beause they took about a minute to come up to full brightness. Worked great for nighttime trips to the room as you didn't get full light level if you were pretty quick. Since then, we have been changing to the LED bulbs in the bath and they do the dame thing, but wtih less time. Not quite as bright when at full power, but by going up one equivalent size, they work fine.

I'd suggest just buying  two bulbs of different color temps and try them out before commiting to a complete changeover. You might find that it works better for your shack to add a couple of fixtures and switches to allow independant control rather than go with a central light that is bright enough for most things but may be too bright for other activities.

Long years ago when pressed for name and address, I used to give them:

I.B. Amoron
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington DC

Be suprized at how many didn't recognize the address.....A few caught it as I was giving the zip.

It's been back up since Sat morning. When a couple of million people lost power to the east coast storms, numerous VA located server farms got knocked offline. It affected QRZ and virtually everything else that gets routed thru that area.

This might help. You have to scroll down a ways to find the 141 stuff. The one you want I think is:

http://www.glkinst.com/cables/hp_cables.htm

The one you want I think is:
HP 8443A/B 100 KHz to 110 MHz Tracking Generator to 141T/8553B Display Aux. A (standard length 18 inches).
Order P/N 08443-60009 = $149.00

Why not grab a switched power wire to power the GPS instead of going direct? Key on and the GPS will power up. Key off and off it goes.

A quick check on the power requirements and making the assumption that you want both radios on at the same time, you need 41 amps minimum for the 480 and 13 amps for the 710 to run full power. Depending on space and backup capability, a 50 amp supply and a 25 amp supply would have you covered. I personally wouldn't go for a single supply that would cover both at one time as I don't see me ever running multiple radios at full power simultaneously.

The Davis instruments appear to have a solar charger for the remote head for one installation, the other gets it power from the inside unit via com cabling from what I saw.

Coax, interconnect cabling, grounding supplies and all the other little things are so subjective based on personal likes and your shack, so it's tough to call out stuff. In my old operating area, I used to have a clock, a smooth writing surface and a low level task light along with a very comfortable chair.  When the new one goes in later this year, I'm sure it will evolve heavily as it has to be both my shop office and radio room. I'd be willing to be that it won't be long after you do the initial setup that you start refining the operating area and adjusting it to how you use it.

Don't skimp on the AC circuits and ambient lighting. If at all possible. make sure lighting and radio power supplies are not on the same circuit. It's no fun to be working in a darkened room and trip the circuit that also runs the lighting....been there before.

We've lived fairly close to a FEMA communications site for over 20 years. I never really paid too much to the antennas they have up, until recently. One has me really puzzled. The best way that I can describe it, is that it is a pair of log periodic antennas stacked in a "v", but with the boom ends with the shortest elements coupled together. Think alligator mouth, with the "v" being approximately a 30-45 deg angle. The booms are probably  arouind 50 feet long and the longest elements are probably between 50 and 60 feet in length. The centerline of the "v" is set about flat to the horizon.

My question is what is the theory behind this package. It must be doing whatever the job it was built for as it's been up for over 20 years and I see it get worked on once in a while. I don't have a link to a picture right now, but will see if I can locate one.

John: It might be helpful to download the database on licences and sort it by state and then by city. You could then get in touch with those that live close to where you are looking and see what they have run into regarding restrictions. With more than 29,000 active tickets within New York state, there has to be at least a few within Orange County.

Something else to consider prior to construction getting too far along is going ahead and preplacing wall penetrations and conduit to the basement for your coax and other harness needs. It would be very easy to pop a penetration and either a sweep or a pull box in as the framing goes up. I'd actually do two, with one for coaxes and a second for power or control wires. That way, as exterior and interior finish work is done, there is no need to go back in to install the penetrations. With some clever design thought, it should be possible to almost hide the exterior access point but still have it readily accessable.

As for power to the shack, drop a couple of extra 20 amp circuits in along with a 30 amp capable 220 circuit and you should be pretty well covered. My personal preference is to make the lighting and ceiling fan circuit stand alone. I've lived and worked where they weren't and it's no fun when the room goes completely black.

I'm interested in how it all comes together as your build progresses.

Craig

I want to take a moment and thank everyone that replied. You have been able to point me in a couple of possible directions with some good information. Now I need to distill it down and do some detailed reading and research so that I'm not trying to solve problems that have already been overcome.  Unfortunately, some family dynamics have forced me to hold off from purchasing another radio until after Christmas, but it gives me time for reading up and watching for what I ultimately decide on.

Thank you all for your help and guidance,

Craig

I'm starting to look for an all mode 2M rig for the house. The eventual plan is to use it for an EME station. What's available these days in a stand alone unit? I don't plan on being active on HF for a couple of years, so a HF/VHF rig would be a huge waste of capability. I'm not adverse to going after quality used gear, nor am I wedded to a particular brand. All pointers and suggestions are most appreciated.

Thanks for any and all help,
Craig

I've got an hour commute every day also, and I bounce between a couple of repeaters in the area. The one that I normally hang out on is pretty active during morning and evening drive times, but also can get pretty busy during my late night commute time (2200-2300). As time goes by, I know more and more people that are on this repeater and we can get into some pretty interesting conversations, and we know each others schedules pretty well. The repeater is kinda dead on most of the weekends when I commute as the regulars are all catching zzz's at those times.

Best thing I could suggest is hang on a single repeater for at least a week and toss your callsign out every 15-20 mins and see if anything picks up. If nothing happens during the week, then try the next one and so on. Your bound to run upon one that has decent traffic levels.