This post got me thinking:


(Beautiful piece of gear BTW)

Why do some folks have nice gear, 10s of thousands of dollars worth of beautiful equipment, out in some skanky rat infested tool shed at the back of the yard?

Did they marry the wrong girl, the same girl that won't let them put a tower in the yard?
Is it to get away from the wife and kids?
I keep my gear INSIDE my house in my home office.

I don't want to start any problems by asking in my local ham community, so .... on your mark ... get set ....go!

Ive found that everyone is different. I like a shop that I can go out to and work on guns, listen to music or read. Its my spot to unwind.

But with radios I prefer my ham rig in the main house, where I can turn it on and scan whats happening locally. My kids and wife listen and we can use it to keep in contact in many remote areas of Northern Idaho when phone reception is spotty.

My shack is in the basement of our ~1600 square foot ranch. 3 bedrooms upstairs, 2 kids. Noise etc made me choose the basement when I got back in to radio. At bottom of stair, so can yell up and down, and semi be part of the family. My wife is okay with it, would not be okay with it being front and center of our living space.

I have a neighbor who is a ham, when I went to visit he has his IC 7000 in the living room, next to the couch. His wife sits next to it and reads and knits, they can both watch TV. He has a headset with mic and key right there. They are in their 60's and kids are gone.

I met another guy because someone asked me to stop by an help with his antenna. He has a $3000 HF rig, and $400 antenna, and neither is up and running because his wife wanted the attic space for herself, in the bump out for a window that I bet is less than 8x10. No kids at home, in their 50-60s.

My point: I think it depends on relationships. If I wanted it in the living room, my wife would say okay within some limits because it was important to me. Its not, so I am quite please in the basement, semi connected when playing radio.

My woodshop was in a detached garage because I did not want to be disturbed burning scraps of wood in the stove and napping in my chair. Learned it from my uncle - his wife still wonders why the intercom system to the pole bard never got connected, and why he still accidentally leaves his cell phone in the house whenever he goes to the pole barn for man time (light wrenching, or woodworking, or hunting equipment maintenance). Its uncanny!

An IC-7300 sits on the end table beside my recliner in the living room. I operate CW and use headphones so my wife hears nothing.

We do get questions about it from visitors so I just flip it on and tune in a one of the few SWBC stations (besides the Bible-thumper ones) still broadcasting and they think it's cool.

My wife's a ham, BTW.

I mean, I started cleaning out and re-organizing my storage shed this weekend.


Minus two boxes filling the empty space in the racks, that's about how everything went back in. I can actually walk in there now which for the last two years I've not been able to do so.


But to answer the question, I don't have room for my junk in the house. In fact, I'd be lucky to get a tone remote at my desk in the house because with my tower from the office, twin displays (which aren't the ones from the office as I have twin 28" 4K displays there and 21" 1080p displays here) two SIP phones, two 8 port switches and lab router, I barely have room inside the house. I'll also note, while the value of the equipment may be in the thousands of dollars mark...I only paid about $1,000 for any of it (the rest was all stuff I pieced back together or removed from service without any intended trade-in or stuff I hold onto for some friends so they have spare parts for their systems in my part of the state). Plus, the cats love to hide in the shed so...no rodent problems.

I walk 100 yards up a hill to an old horse barn's tack room to play radio; because 7 people in 3 bedrooms and 1,600 sq ft don't leave any space for radios....minus the armchair station

My "shack" is the corner of our basement / spare bedroom / homeschool room. It's about 10' from my temporary home office.

I find it hard to do a lot of radio with the kids being kids (loud), however on 2m net night the family gathers around the station and all four of us make a comment. Lately I've been NCS for the Olivia net during the same time period so it can get kind of crowded in the corner of the basement.

What we want is a separate building for the machine shop, it's far more likely to set the house on fire. I'd never use the radio if I had to walk 100yds in the snow in the middle of the night. As it is if I can't sleep I'll hop on the radio and talk to someone. Again, not walking in the snow for that.

I have a drawer in a dresser in the guest room.  Mostly use when mobile.

My Elmer has his shack in a dedicated shed in the yard. He used to have his equipment in the bedroom, but his wife didn’t like it being there. He bought a shed and built it out and now has a ton more equipment available and has a man room as a bonus.

I operate 100% mobile or EchoLink, so no shack in the house yet. I’ll eventually set up a shack in the guest bedroom or the garage.

First of all my collection is not out in some rat infested shed.
I have a nice shack - my shack is in  my basement - yours is in your “office” it might be in your house or in a rat infested “office”in your house- not sure about that- maybe you should check for rats.

If your “girl” demands it out of her living room and in your hidden office then maybe you have a problem with your girl.

If you were lucky enough to have $20,000 of radio equipment why are you hiding it in some cheap office.
It should be lined up in your kitchen for am broadcast- your family room for group DX events and your living room for those great Chinese propaganda broadcasts on your shortwave receiver.
Not hidden in your beloved “office”.

Oh- almost forgot - you should put that soldering station in your kitchen- just in case you “girl” needs a quick warm up of her breakfast.

If I had a restored SX-28 and I told my wonderful wife I wanted it in the family room she would say great.


WTF dude you are trolling—

Everyone has different priorities in life. I wouldn't be able to put up with a "control freak" wife Actually, my wife encouraged me to spend money on my tower and Yagis. It wasn't cheap. She even bought me a new FTDX-3000 for my birthday.
Some people prefer to operate radios from a shed, away from the house. There is less noise and RF issues. Noise can be a game changer on HF bands.

Thanks for the insight, I find it hard to figure out people sometimes and curious of what they do what they do.

My wife encourages me to put up a tower, but all the guy wires are a problem for me, make cutting the grass interesting.
I'm sure I will figure something out eventually.
I live at a relatively high elevation so omni's and yagis for 2m, TV antenna go on masts on the roof and work great. Tall trees for the dipoles here.
No HOA, live out in the country, besides, antennas are beautiful.

Oh, welcome back, I hope you are doing better.

@Gyprat has an awesome solution to the guy-wire issue if he'd like to share a pic or two.

I remember that my grandfathers 40ft tower was guyed to some steel posts maybe 4"od that were 6-8ft high. I'll have to ask my dad how deep they were buried. I don't recall it being an issue when I mowed his yard as a kid.

I was on an ARES VA zoom mtg this spring and one of the guys was in a legit underground bunker. Had a stereotypical curved corrugated metal ceiling and adjoining tunnels. Light bulbs on strings going along all the walls. I thought it was a background until he walked out of frame down a tunnel. It was impressive.

A long time ago, comms was a dark art that could cause injury and fire.  Having a distinct 'radio shack' was safer.

It's just FM. You know, Fucking Magic.

We used three, 10ft pieces of 6" well casing (1/4" wall), buried about half way down. The inner volume was filled with concrete.
I have no problem riding a lawnmower or walking around the posts, without hitting the guy wires.

It's very important to orient all 3 guys exactly at 120 degrees, inline with the 3 sides of the tower. This will prevent any twisting torque to the tower, once the guy wires are tightened. We used a transit to measure 120 degrees and to mark locations of the posts before the tower was installed.
First set of guys was attached at 33 ft. Second set was at about 65 ft. The tower height is 70 ft. Yagi antenna is at about 75 ft.

That's a great solution, thanks for sharing it!
I have the equipment and the skills to weld those attachment plates for the guy wires, simple and elegant solution.
The good thing is we have a Rohn tower dealer about 20 miles away.
I can hook up the flatbed trailer and go get tower sections locally without incurring shipping charges.

I have a ton of old boat anchors set up in the detached garage.  Havent used it as a shack in a few years.  I operate mostly mobile HF or qrp portable.  I have HTs spread around the house but do VERY little VHF.