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[CQ-Contest] Contest Station Design - cable management

Subject: [CQ-Contest] Contest Station Design - cable management
From: kg5u@hal-pc.org (Dale L Martin)
Date: Wed Jan 24 00:01:46 2001

 >  How do you manage the mess of
 > interconnecting wires and cables in your shack?  Do you try to
 > cut each one
 > to length to fit your current setup (power cords excepted,
 > maybe)?  If not,
 > what do you do with the additional length.  Do you use labeling, or
 > bundling by function to try to keep things under control?

The cables in my station setup (2-Ten-Tec Omni VI's, PC, Remote VFO
controller, 2 6-band BPF banks, Six-PAK Remote Antenna Switch, SWR/Watt
meters, TNC, VHF radios, antenna tuner, SO2R Control box (15 connectors on
the back!!!!)) are a mess.

Extremely important: The cables are well labelled on each end as to
source/destination/purpose.

Pretty important: The cables are cut to length to permit a 'service loop'
such that I can pull out a piece of equipment from it's location about 1-2
feet before a cable takes a strain.  That adds a lot to the mess, but
reduces the misery of troubleshooting.

I typically run 100 watts or QRP (contests), so RFI is not such a big deal.
Actually, it hasn't shown itself at all at 100 watt power levels.  Higher
power operation might force me to observe better cable dressing,
RFI-proofing, etc.

73,
dale, kg5u


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