Quick Start Guide to the Shack

The Badger Amateur Radio Society prides itself on its ability to provide training on, and access to, a well-equipped club-maintained station for the benefit of its members. It is your responsibility to ensure that if you are not familiar with the functionality of a piece of equipment, you seek out appropriate manuals, resources, and guidance from other club members. This guide is not a replacement for hands-on training!

Getting Started

All of the information detailed here pertains to the equipment present in the Shack (Room 1601 in the Engineering Research Building) as of 9 August 2025. Please be aware that changes may occur over time, which may not necessarily be reflected in this guide. Acknowledgments go out to W09U and W9IXG for authoring the legacy documents supporting this.

Abbreviated Procedures

Startup:

1. Master Power -- UP/ON
2. (if desired) Yaseu FT-847/FLEX-3000 Power -- DEPRESSED/ON
3. (if desired) AMERITRON ALS-600 AMP Power -- ON
4. (if powered) AMERITRON ALS-600 AMP OPERATE/STANDBY -- STANDBY
5. Verify LDG AT-1000PRO -- Lights On
6. (as desired) Verify LDG AT-1000PRO -- INLINE or BYPASSED
7. (as desired) Radio Selector -- Yaseu-HF or SDR-1000 (FLEX-3000)
8. (as desired) Antenna Selector -- Dummy Load or 40/80 Dipole or 10/15/20 beam
9. RF Power -- <20 watts
10. Complete Tuning Cycle

Shutdown:

1. RF Power -- Minimum
2. Antenna Selector -- Dummy Load
3. Radio Selector -- Ground
4. AMERITRON ALS-600 AMP OPERATE/STANDBY -- STANDBY
5. AMERITRON ALS-600 AMP Power -- OFF
6. (as used) Yaseu FT-847/FLEX-3000 POWER -- UNDEPRESSED/OFF
7. Master Power -- DOWN/COVERED/OFF

Full Station Startup Procedure

To make use of the ICOM IC-2350 VHF/UHF FM transceiver, Yaseu FT-847 HF/VHF/UHF transceiver, or FLEX-3000 HF SDR transceiver, follow the below procedure.

1. Set master power (covered switch) -- UP/ON Main station power is provided via an ASTRON RS-50M and MFJ-4035MV which should ordinarily be left powered and therefore do not have to be interacted with. However, these are not left inline with the transceivers; to place these supplies inline (provide station power), flip the red covered switch to the UP/ON position. A red light next to the switch should illuminate if the station supply circuit is energized.
2. Yaseu FT-847 POWER button -- DEPRESSED (if desired) and/or FLEX-3000 POWER button -- DEPRESSED (if desired) The HF transceivers should be turned off during normal shutdown; to make use of either transceiver, turn them on using the transceiver's dedicated button. If you wish to use any of the other transceivers on the bench (the Kenwood or ICOM 6m), you must manually connect a power supply. IC-2350 power is set to on by default, per normal shutdown procedure; If the transceiver fails to energize, depress the power button and/or troubleshoot.
3. AMERITRON ALS-600 AMP POWER Switch -- ON and OPERATE/STANDBY Switch -- STANDYBY (if desired) Take care to ensure the amp is NOT set to OPERATE prior to tuning. Tuning any transceiver will cause moments of temporarily high SWR, which, if the amplifer is operating, will cause ~5-600 watts to be reflected back at the transceiver in use.
4. Verify LDG AT-1000Pro Autotuner -- Energized The lights on the tuner should automatically come on upon station power being applied. If they fail to do so, briefly depress the power button once; a relay should be heard clicking, and the lights on the tuner face should turn on, indicating adequate energization.
5. LDG AT-1000Pro Autotuner Tune Button -- Depress Pressing the Tune button will cause the tuner will flash once to indicate it is inline, or flash times to indicate is it bypassed. Set the desired state for your mode of operation.
6. Set Radio Selector -- Yaseu-HF or SDR-1000 Selects desired radio for HF operation. Yaseu-HF corresponds to the Yaseu FT-847 and SDR-1000 corresponds to the Flex-3000. Any other HF transceivers must be manually connected to the antenna switch (normally accomplished by unscrewing the PL-259 connector from the Yaseu FT-847 before attaching it to your desired transceiver).
7. Set Antenna Selector -- Dummy Load or 40/80 dipole or 10/15/20 beam Selects the desired antenna of operation. Set dummy load for transceiver testing, select corresponding antenna for desired band of operation.
8. Flex-3000 Power SDR Software -- Set ATU Mode or Yaseu FT-847 Modulation -- Set CW/AM/FM and Supply a Continuous Carrier (Proceed as desired.) The Flex-3000 contains an autotuner that will tune anything within an SDR range of ~3:1. The PowerSDR software should be configured to supply <10 watts during a tuning cycle (on the DRIVE slider, select TUNE and ensure a value of ~10 or less is set), so tuning is as simple as enabling ATU. It may be preferable to set the LDG AT-1000Pro to BYPASS for SDR use. For Yaseu FT-847 use, the LGD AT-1000PRO must be set to inline, and a continuous carrier must be supplied at low power (minimize RF Power and slowly increase as transmitting/tuning to allow the LDG AT-1000Pro to find a match). A carrier can be provided by any modulation that produces a strong carrier signal - CW, FM, or AM. When using the station, be mindful of your frequency privileges afforded to you by your control operator's license class. As a general rule of thumb, stay 3KHz away from any band edges.

Full Station Shutdown Procedure

Shutdown reverses the startup procedure outlined above.

1. Set Antenna Selector -- Dummy Load
2. Set Radio Selector -- Ground
3. Set AMERITRON ALS-600 AMP OPERATE/STANDBY -- STANDBY, and POWER -- OFF
4. Set Yaseu FT-845 POWER -- Off and RF POWER -- Minimum (Fully CCW)
5. Set FLEX-3000 POWER -- Off
6. Set master power -- DOWN/OFF
7. Ensure all lights/sounds across the transceiver stack extinguish, and reverify radio selector is set to ground.