Building a shack in my motor-home
Once upon a time… It has taken me at least a year of deliberating on this subject as I had a number of considerations to take on board that took a while to decide but eventually I got there. Read on..
What were my shack objectives in the motor-home?
Not destroy the motor-home with holes everywhere! At the same time everything needed to be kept in a small space without overtaking the motor-home. With that in mind I designed a small, well ventilated, cabinet with a hinged door that clipped into place and an open shelf underneath. The door and clip lock had to be strong enough to take a bit of vibration. I had a cabinet maker make it to my design with a total cost of approximately $350. It was fitted to a blank piece of wall behind the passenger’s seat. The seat rotates 180 degrees creating a small office space. The cabinet was affixed with four decent screws allowing me to easily remove it in the future with little repairs required.
Which radios and why?
In the end I decided to fit a Yaesu FTM 400 for VHF/UHF. This allows me to scan the local repeaters on VFO A and VFO B is generally locked to my AllStar node – more on that in a moment. The second radio is my Yaesu FT-891 for regular HF communications up to 100 watts. Both of these units have detachable heads which were mounted on the front of the cabinet and the main units mounted inside the cabinet next to each other with speakers facing towards the cabinet door. I had allowed enough space and ventilation ports to easily let the speakers be easily heard.
On the shelf underneath I fitted my Icom IC-705. I put this in for two reasons. One for QRP but more importantly so I can easily scan the HF bands visually. If I find anything where a little power is required I can switch over to either of these other radios (remembering to turn the 705 off first).
Hand mics were mounted on the front of the cabinet. Radio cabling for power and antennas has been spiral wrapped and loosely falls to the floor rather than fixing. This allows me to easily remove them at any stage.
Space
Under the cabinet is a shelf that was built into the van. The distance between it and the bottom of the cabinet was exactly spaced to fit my Mac laptop – perfect. Also, given I have everything in a fairly tight space I added quite a few clip on ferrite beads to antenna leads and power cables to minimise any RFI.
Power Supply
Under the shelf, and sitting on the floor, is my 100A/Hr lithium battery in a battery box with a multi outlet small Anderson fused strip. I didn’t want any interaction between the equipment and power so that’s the reason for the stand alone power. At the same time I can easily remove the battery for recharging. I also installed a voltage/amperage meter on the box so I can easily track power usage and depletion.
Connectivity
The FTM-400 is directly connected to a uhf/vhf antenna on the roo bar. The other two radios connect to two separate ATUs, share a two position antenna switch and then off to an antenna mount on the roo bar. On that mount a have a number of antennas to choose from. Also I have set it up so I can easily attach a home brew 40M inverted V on the rear of the motor-home where there is an extendable 10metre fibreglass mast. Alternatively there is Chameleon MPAS 2 kit I can setup if I am planning on staying for a day or more. This covers 80-10 metres. I guess the main point is I have choices.
Communication
When you get right out of repeater range the use of vhf and uhf can be challenging so in another corner of the motor-home I installed an industrial wifi router that connects to 4g and 5g networks. It will also connect to other wifi networks that are close by. That can easily include StarLink if I ever decided to go down that path. TV, iPads, phones, laptops, all connect back to the router. Also, I have a VK4NGA AllStar node directly connected to the router so I can easily connect to the rest of the world. As mentioned before, VFO B on the FTM-400 is permanently monitoring the node. I also have a couple of different handhelds that also connect to the node that are handy for about a 300 metre radius from the motor-home.
Conclusion
So that’s basically it. I have no doubt I will modify it, to some degree, over time but for now it allows me to really get down and dirty whilst travelling around this great country and not be too in my partners face. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me by email vk3tcm@gmail.com
73 de Tony
PS – all units connect to headphones when necessary
