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 courtyard of the Engineering East Building 20, in Room 123. There is a large antenna tower installed just outside the courtyard, and the shack is inside the courtyard next to the other large tower with Christmas lights on it. Note that you can’t get to the Shack from inside Building 20 you must go through the courtyard. To enter the courtyard, either enter the Engineering East Building and go through the SPL Annex (Room 118), or call on the repeater for someone to open the courtyard gate.
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. You may get you own door code by checking into three of our nets, and giving our long suffering members who run net control a break by running one (we’ll help you). We run three nets a week, so there are plenty of opportunities to get you door code. The door is usually left open when members are in the Shack, so feel free to stop by even if you don’t have your door code yet. If you stop by, you’ll likely see members hanging out (yapping), surfing the net, talking on HF, working on personal projects, or doing homework between classes.
Inside the shack is a fully network controlled HF station, a satellite round station, an electronics bench and soldering station, computers, a microwave, a 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 (FlexRadio Flex 6600)
The club’s main HF radio is the FlexRadio Flex 6600 Software Defined Radio, located in our Rack. It fully runs off backup power, thanks to our PV system, and can operate most bands such as 6m, 10m, 20m, 40m, and 80m. Antenna switching happens automatically over the network, and most bands use antennas located on the HF Tower outside the courtyard. 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.
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.
