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Author Topic: Ham Station Cost  (Read 1782 times)

KB8VUL

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #15 on: May 10, 2022, 03:50:43 AM »

After posting what i did,,,, and the silly amount of money spent, not to mention the thousands of hours in the last 3 years building the thing out.  I will also say this.  Hardly any hobby is cheap.  I played in the hot rod car arena for a while.  That was a money pit.  And other than having a fast car, you had nothing to show for it other than a bunch of receipts for parts to make the thing faster.  Got into shooting after that, and quickly into reloading so I could afford to actually shot the guns.  That was thousands of dollars as well, and it just kept requiring money for reloading supplies, range memberships, additional equipment and NONE of it was cheap. 

There are ways of doing most things on the cheap.  But at the end of the day, you sort of feel left behind as stuff gets better and you want to further your abilities with better gear.  It's the hot rod car mentality.  It's never really fast enough.  It can always be faster, have more chrome or whatever.  The truth is with that, or many other things is you CAN drop a few hundred bucks on an older radio and talk on it and have a good time operating the radio.  Or you can get buck nuts and drop 48K on a tower site and build a monster radio site out of it with big antennas and dishes for satellite communications and EME.  But that old TS-440 Kenwood and a dipole will get you on the air and provide HOURS of entertainment without all that money being spent.  But it's YOUR choice it you are gonna take out a second mortgage to pay for your hobby.
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K3XR

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #16 on: May 10, 2022, 05:13:26 AM »

What you spend on a hobby is up to you.  I've purchased lots of ham gear since 1959, but never at the expense of my family.  To the extent you can afford it, you should get all you can out of life.  As my Dad liked to say, "Enjoy life...you're dead a long time.
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K7JQ

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #17 on: May 10, 2022, 07:40:53 AM »

If you’re behind on your mortgage and car payments, you spent too much.
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N8FVJ

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #18 on: May 12, 2022, 05:48:35 PM »

It appears most Hams do not want to post price of their Ham station.
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K1VSK

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #19 on: May 13, 2022, 08:55:07 AM »

It appears most Hams do not want to post price of their Ham station.

See my previous post.

It’s a hobby; what people spend is a function of two things - the size of their wallet and what value they place on the toys. Our boat costs more than our house - we can’t play with a house.
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N2SR

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #20 on: May 13, 2022, 09:13:05 AM »

It appears most Hams do not want to post price of their Ham station.

$2,000,000   

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KL7CW

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #21 on: May 13, 2022, 11:59:45 AM »

NN2X's estimate of a station cost of $3500 is reasonable.  This is a lot of money for most of us, but, let us say you use it for 10 years.  With a little luck the yearly cost to maintain it should be low.  If the resale of the station goes to zero, that is only $350 per year. Lets add $100 for maintaining the station, so let us call that $450 per year.  I cannot think of many hobbies you can enjoy for less than that.  My friends who snow machine, dog mush, of hunt spend many times that per year, and my flying buddies spend at least an order of magnitude more. I used my 1957 station of a home brew RX and Heath DX-100 (heavily modified) for nearly 40 years. I did not spend much money on antennas until after about 1977 since I was a poor teacher raising children, buying braces for them, a 4H horse, etc. When my financial situation improved, I still used my basic station, with better antennas until about 1997, and had lots of fun. After the kids were grown, our house was paid off, and I actually had some time bought a Ten Tec, extended my tower, and that was fine for another 20 years.  We are now retired and our children have their own careers, so I "upgraded" to an Elecraft transceiver, and a good Yagi.  So consider your priorities when money is tight.  I was fortunate that I never needed to send any equipment back for repair and I still do all of my own tower and antenna work at age 81.  This could be very expensive since rotators, Yagi's, and towers do require possibly expensive repair and check ups.
    Do I actually have more fun with my two towers and a modern transceiver?  Probably not, but since we have been able to travel extensively and do other things more important than ham radio, why not spend some of our nest egg.  If I calculate the yearly cost of my ham equipment for these 67 years, probably it is not too high.  A side benefit of my ham experience, is that after 10 years of teaching, I was able to land a high paying job in electronics for 27 years.  Lots of fun, and my job consisted of flying all over Alaska and troubleshooting all kinds of fun projects.  Vacuum tube, solid state, antenna crews, microwave, digital switches, etc. etc.  Without my ham experience this would not have happened.  I know I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time and not all folks with only ham experience will fall into a position like this.  Education helps for sure, at least in getting your foot in the door.  I had a degree in physics, and the equivalent of a math major also, but some of the engineers and technicians were not really good at troubleshooting, although they had more technical knowledge. 
      Enjoy your modest station and later if you can afford it improve it, but ham radio should not be the most important thing in life.  If your wife wants a new sewing machine or an ocean cruise, this should take priority. 
                 Rick  KL7CW     
 
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ZL1BBW

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #22 on: May 14, 2022, 03:47:46 PM »

The amateur radio situation down here in ZL is so different from way back when I was a G stn.

There is only one retailer of transceivers, and that is Icom, so you choice is rather limited, anything else has to be freighted in, then the cost if it over $400NZ is subject to customs fees and GST on the total, goods+freight at a further 15%, it soon gets expensive.

At 74, I got to this stage via various ex Govt bits n pieces in the UK, then KW Vespa + G2DAF RX, finally ended up with Drake B line which I loved, then C line with I hated.

In NZ this evolved into selling whole lot stuff bought a S/H IC7410 which was fantastic, then paired that with a L4B.  A few years pass by (not many) and at 65 ish we start to realise some of our real estate into cash.

This led to a IC7610 and when I said I was going to build a new linear, the xyl refused and said just buy one, NOW. So have ended up with a Om2000+.

The IC7610 has a five year warranty, so that works out about 20bux a week, or about 3 cups of coffee, even if it only lasted for 5 years and a day.

The tower was 2nd hand from Auckland, picked that up on a trailer, a good size load 2 section tower, head unit with prop pitch, base section about 10ft high that it swivels over on, I dug the hole, cost was about $1200NZ plus about 400 for getting some new welding done.  GH Controller was the icing the cake.

So, I'm now round to the question, what has it cost me, well absolutely jack nothing, Amateur radio got me into a good job, that job led one throughout my whole life, sort of morphing into other streams of the use of technology, but without that first job, my life would have been very different.

I suppose in hard cash I've probably laid out a few hundred dollars over my lifetime, but always wheeled and dealed and made a few bob on this n that.

At 74 now, I am "looking" forward to a move into town later this year, that will require a whole new tower setup and beam, plus all the other bits, I can see me spending 10 or 15k to get what I want and if the real estate fairy is good to me maybe a SS Amp to get those quick ATNO's that are there for a few minutes.

Cheers  Gavin
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ex MN Radio Officer, Portishead Radio GKA, BT Radio Amateur Morse Tester.  Licensed as G3YCP ZL1DAB, now taken over my father (sk) call as ZL1BBW.

W9FIB

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #23 on: May 15, 2022, 05:09:13 AM »

It appears most Hams do not want to post price of their Ham station.

Between equipment, towers, antennas, grounding system, UPS system for the shack, ethernet network throughout my office/shack, office/shack having its own sub panel and all wiring to the sub panel, spare parts, test equipment, etc...probably in the area of $10,000 over 40 years. I really don't buy anything new...but looking to change that with a new Mercury III and new FT-991 as retirement gifts to myself. But first I have to work off my debts from covid. Not an easy task.

So there is a legit answer to your question.
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73, Stan
Travelling the world one signal at a time.

K7JQ

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #24 on: May 15, 2022, 06:55:05 AM »

In my 63 years as a ham, through many housing moves, I’ve spent many thousands of dollars on equipment over the years. This topic prompted me to take inventory of my current shack and it’s cost. I’m not an “accumulator”, so if I want a new piece of equipment, I sell the item I want to replace.

When you also count all the accessories in addition to radios and amps, you’d be surprised how it all adds up. It totaled out to be just in excess of $11,000. And that’s living in an antenna restricted community, with no tower or yagi, etc. Those prices are crazy these days…probably would add at least $10,000 including installation for a decent system.
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KD0VE

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #25 on: May 17, 2022, 04:32:45 AM »

I recently put together a station for a friend that got interested after we operated my portable station from my deck.  I bought almost everything used while he studied for his tech and general.  Friend is well to do so some items are "upgrades".

$890  IC7300
$230  Heil proset and adapter
$120  power supply
$200  MyAntennas 10-40 EFHW
 $50  ~100' RG8x
 $22  dummy load Ebay
$175  RigExpert AA-50
$250  Legal limit manual antenna tuner
$550  AL811 amp
 $30   several patch cables
$000  2018 ARRL Handbook, Antenna book,
$000  several other various books
 $35  homebrew 15M vertical with homebrew feedpoint choke
 $35  homebrew shortened 80M dipole
 $25  DVM
 $25  Alpha Delta lightning arrestor
$000 hours of "Elmering"

I'd be interested if anyone thinks I missed anything that would be a necessary part of a basic station.
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AF5CC

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #26 on: May 17, 2022, 10:40:12 PM »

KD0ZDW:

A 6 Meter antenna.
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KH6AQ

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #27 on: May 18, 2022, 10:36:21 PM »

I have about $6k in my station and consider it a rather modest station.
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VE3TMT

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #28 on: May 27, 2022, 12:58:55 PM »

The actual amount, or the amount we tell the XYL? 

Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM

Glad to know I'm not alone!
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G8FXC

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Re: Ham Station Cost
« Reply #29 on: May 27, 2022, 01:34:08 PM »

There is probably around £6,000 worth of equipment in my shack at the moment. It breaks down more or less like this:

FTdx101D : £3,000
FT-991A : £1,000
PSUs (2 linear 30A) : about £100 each
ATUs (3) : around £900 (but one of them inherited from an old friend)
PC : around £500
sundries including antenna switching : the balance...

Apart from the inherited ATU, the rest has been purchased out of earned income over a period of around 15 years. It was all new purchased from main dealers. The most recent was the FTdx101D which was purchased last week after my accountant told me to "spend some money". It was funded with around £2,200 of cash plus the trade-in value of my IC-7300. I'm always honest with the XYL - she was encouraging me to spend the extra £1,000 and get the FTdx101MP, but I find that 100W causes enough disruption to the house electronics - I would never have been able to wind it up to the full 200W!

My wife is an amateur jeweler - she can easily spend a hundred pounds on a hammer, so she likes me to spend money on my radios in order to stop her feeling guilty about the amount she spends on tools!  ;D

Martin (G8FXC)
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