Well, here is the much anticipated radio go box completion. I have a bunch of pictures here so I will go through them and explain what I have done as I go through them.
I waited until the radio equipment showed up at my house before I started to build the cabinet. I originally wanted to place them in a tool box or something, kind of like the links below:
http://home.comcast.net/~wx2nj/aresbox.html
http://www.freewebs.com/ai4wm/emergencycommunications.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~buck0/combox.htm
http://www.qsl.net/na4it/portable/portable.html
http://www.southbears.net/jump_kit/jump_kit.htm
I guess this was a little ambitious considering I had just moved and I don't have a lot of fabrication equipment at my house at the moment. I would have really liked to have been able to do it in part metal. Maybe at a later time I will be able to fabricate a more compact case.
Once I had the equipment below laid out I took some measurements and allowed a bit of room for air movement and cooling.
From there I sketched up a small wood cabinet that I wanted to build. I was going to put European doors on it. This was also going to be my first attempt at hinges, which I learned a lot on how not to do them on this project.(click this one for a closer look)
After I was comfortable with the dimensions of the cabinet I transposed the pieces onto the sheet of the right which had a sheet of plywood drawn on it. This allows me to estimate how much plywood that I am going to need and what sort of cuts that I am going to do on the table saw. Since there were a lot of pieces that were the same width I wanted to rip them all at the same time, as it is harder to reset the fence on a table saw to match the cuts up.
I went on to build the cabinet and paint it.
The lower shelf view
The back of the cabinet
In went the radio bodies and the mounts for the faceplates. Since these were European cabinet doors I had to make sure the faceplate mounts were far enough back so that the doors could close with them in place.
From there I added the powergate and the rig runner distribution panel in the back.
Now I put in the last pieces of equipment
And ran the wires to all the components. I made sure that the middle shelf was an inch shorter on both the front and the back to account for the microphone cables and the other wiring runs that were going to be placed.
Here is the final product with all the gear in.
Now we close it up.
And highlight Steve’s callsign VE6SDM
I waited until the radio equipment showed up at my house before I started to build the cabinet. I originally wanted to place them in a tool box or something, kind of like the links below:
http://home.comcast.net/~wx2nj/aresbox.html
http://www.freewebs.com/ai4wm/emergencycommunications.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~buck0/combox.htm
http://www.qsl.net/na4it/portable/portable.html
http://www.southbears.net/jump_kit/jump_kit.htm
I guess this was a little ambitious considering I had just moved and I don't have a lot of fabrication equipment at my house at the moment. I would have really liked to have been able to do it in part metal. Maybe at a later time I will be able to fabricate a more compact case.
Once I had the equipment below laid out I took some measurements and allowed a bit of room for air movement and cooling.
From there I sketched up a small wood cabinet that I wanted to build. I was going to put European doors on it. This was also going to be my first attempt at hinges, which I learned a lot on how not to do them on this project.(click this one for a closer look)
After I was comfortable with the dimensions of the cabinet I transposed the pieces onto the sheet of the right which had a sheet of plywood drawn on it. This allows me to estimate how much plywood that I am going to need and what sort of cuts that I am going to do on the table saw. Since there were a lot of pieces that were the same width I wanted to rip them all at the same time, as it is harder to reset the fence on a table saw to match the cuts up.
I went on to build the cabinet and paint it.
The lower shelf view
The back of the cabinet
In went the radio bodies and the mounts for the faceplates. Since these were European cabinet doors I had to make sure the faceplate mounts were far enough back so that the doors could close with them in place.
From there I added the powergate and the rig runner distribution panel in the back.
Now I put in the last pieces of equipment
And ran the wires to all the components. I made sure that the middle shelf was an inch shorter on both the front and the back to account for the microphone cables and the other wiring runs that were going to be placed.
Here is the final product with all the gear in.
Now we close it up.
And highlight Steve’s callsign VE6SDM
