The “Shack” is the main headquarters of the club.
The “shack” is an Amateur Radio term for “radio room.” Our radio room is located on campus in the midst of the Engineering East Building 20, Room 123. There is a large antenna installed just outside the club room; just go to the base of the antenna to get to the room. Note that you can’t get to the Shack from inside Building 20 you must go through the courtyard.
Current club members can access the Shack at any time via a keypad on the door. The keypad lock was installed in January 2006 and has greatly improved accessibility to the Shack. If you stop by, you’ll likely see members hanging out, surfing the net, talking on HF, or even doing homework between classes.
Inside the shack is a full HF station, an APRS station, soldering iron, test equipment, computers, microwave, refrigerator, and couch. Pretty much everything a college student needs in life!
Please click on the links for more information about the shack equipment.
HF Station (Yaesu FTDX9000)
The club owns and operates a Yaesu FTDX9000 transceiver with a Yaesu VL1000 amplifier. This station is the club’s primary HF station which is connected to the antennas on the HF Tower. The HF station is open to use for all club members and can be operated by technicians under the control of a licensed club officer and control operator. If you hold a General or Extra license and are a club member, you are welcome to use the station at any time after the completion of the station operating procedures.
Remote HF (Elecraft KX3)
The club also runs a remote HF station that is available for use for all club members. We run an Elecraft KX3 Transceiver, a PX3 Panadapter and a KXPA100 Amplifier, with a Diamond AP6AR Vertical Multi-Band on the rooftop. Member can access the station using TeamViewer or Wizkers.io, which allows full operation in data, SSB or CW modes, and enables access from a number of different OS platforms.
APRS
The APRS station at W6BHZ provides weather data through WeeWX that posts data online to APRS.fi. Live weather from our station can be found here. The weather station is an Argent Data Systems ADS-WS1 and was installed on the former satellite tower in the Fall of 2019.
Packet
Our packet system runs Winlink Express with direwolf as a TNC. The system is linked to the Tassajara Peak Packet Site through a VHF Motorola GM300.
LoRaWAN Gateway
A LoRaWAN gateway is mounted on the roof.
ADSB Receiver
An ADSB receiver has been set up utilizing the Diamond D130J Wide-band Discone. Data is fed to both Flighradar24 and FlightAware.
Equipment Pictures
