My to-do list

What's the weakest part of your ham station? If you had to pick something about your station that's not quite up to snuff, what would it be? And, why haven't you taken steps to change matters?

For me, there are three things that really bug me about my station. OK, there's really more than just three, but these are three that I've known about, thought about, and wanted to improve for a long time, but for various reasons I just haven't gotten around to it.

First, I need to improve my station's grounding. And while I'm making admissions, I went a long time without ANY grounding straps connected to my radios. Yes, I know, shame, shame, shame. That's been remedied and I've buried a few 8 foot grounding rods throughout my back yard. All of my antennas are now grounded. Perhaps not according to strict guidelines, but better than nothing. I'm slowly making progress but not fast enough. The builder of my hex beam suggested that I pay closer attention to ensuring a good ground and that's stirred my interest again. Maybe now I'll get off my duff and continue improving it?

Do I notice a difference by having more and better grounds? No, not really. But that's not the point, is it? I know I need to do this.

Number two - I need to raise my hex. I have the ability to raise the mast to 40 feet. It is sitting around 20 feet now, putting the antenna around 25 feet. Why haven't I done this? I can't do it by myself. I need to summon help, as in coerce my neighbors to help.

The last one is that I need to improve the ergonomics of my station. I have a great u-shaped desk that's sturdy and very roomy. It is so roomy that it allows me to pile stacks of crap all over it and still have room to move around and not feel cramped. That's not good, because it encourages me to keep piling more crap on it. My two primary radios sit on either side of a dual-monitor setup. What I want to do is build or buy a small riser that will allow me to place both radios underneath the riser and have my two monitors above. That way they'll be positioned directly in front of me.

Another boneheaded thing that I've done is to position my rotor on the right side of the desk away from everything else. Why did I do that? The power plug wouldn't reach any further when I set it up eons ago and that's where it has remained. Talk about lazy. Same for my antenna switcher. I have to reach over and lean completely across the desk to switch antennas. Why is it there? The coax jumpers wouldn't reach any closer to the middle of the desk. It'd take me a half-hour to fix, tops. Lazy.

My computer is tucked away underneath the desk, right where it should be. Except the side is off where I installed a 2-port serial port card. I ought to put that back on before the spiders start invading. My Winkeyer only has two cords, a USB cord and a cord from my iambic keyer. They're spread out all over creation like a couple of snakes, always in the way. In fact, cords are everywhere, power cords, keyer cords, coax cables, USB cords.

Whenever I walk into the shack I marvel at the huge desk and then shudder when I look at the mess that I've made and do nothing about. I guess it's more about operating to me. If I'm in the shack, I'm on the radio listening, not tidying up, not hiding cords, not moving equipment closer. I'm operating.

And, you know, maybe that's more important than a clean desk.