HARC Shack
The Husky Amatuer Radio Club's Shack is located in the 6th floor penthouse of Wadsworth Hall, on the campus of Michigan Tech at Houghton, MI. Shack is a common term in Amatuer Radio. Many operations setup areas where the operate from. The HARC shack contains all of our equipment, a collection of QST magazines, a computer with internet access, and even a refrigerator for a snack or drink. Members recieve card-swipe access to the Shack so they have access to the shack anytime.
As you enter the shack on the sixth floor of West Wadsworth Hall, directly to the right you will see this couch, where we like to relax, and the chalk board, where we write important reminders of upcoming nets and sked or special projects.
As you continue to move through the shack, the next grouping of items you will see is our HF rig, our MFJ Versa Tuner, and other various equipment. Our HF rig, the Yaseu FT920, was purchased in late fall of 1999.
The next that you will see is one of our two computers. This particular computer is used for logging our contacts with the LogEQF program. Additionally, it is used as our Internet contection and also has Word 97 for reports and what not, making the computer widely used by the members for ham radio and for home work during non-peak times.
To the left of the computer are our Kenwood 2m all-mode (with omni, vertical beam, and horizontal beam antennas) and our Kenwood 430 MHz all-mode. These are used for various contacts and are almost always in use when there are people in the shack.
Our repeater operates at 444.500+ with 50 watts of power from the top of Wadsworth residence hall. The repeater controller is a CAT-300. This controller has many capabilities including voice ID (82K), emergency speed dial, club member speed dial, announcements, and an open autopatch. To see more information on the W8YY repeater, go the the packet and repeater link.
Directly to the left of the repeater is yet another couch. The two couches are essential pieces of the shack. Our members often go to the shack not only to operate, but also to relax, study, visit, or just to get away from all the pressures of school.
What shack would be complete without the snacks and soda. This is another benefit that we offer to our members. The shack is always stocked with our favorite soda and snacks at discounted prices so that we don't need to leave in order to quench a thirst or to fill our bellies.
Directly above the Refridgerator begins our amateur radio book and magazine collection. We also store our qsl card here too. As you can see, we have a pretty large collection of books, some of which have been purchased by the club and others that have been donated by members and past members.
Continuing on with the magazine collection, you can find many years of QZT magazines. These are excellent references for our members wanting to dig up some history on amateur radio. Some of our QST's date as far back as the early 1950's!
This is a quick snapshot from the street facing up towards the W8YY Antenna Towers. We have a omni repeater, 2m/70cm satellite, long wire, hf beam, 6m hex and a duck taped scanner antenna up there available for club use. ;)
This ends the HARC Virtual Tour. We hope you enjoyed it!