Episode notes are up! Building your off-grid ham shack for beginners. This post augments the Off-Grid Ham Shack video. Merry Christmas 73 Julian oh8stn oh8stn.org/blog/2023/12/21/building-an-off-grid-solar-powered-ham-shack/
Indeed old buddy. The rig and amplifier choices may begin yo make more sense now 👍 Thanks for watching and commenting. It's greatly appreciated. 73 Julian oh8stn
You are one of the best, well thought out HAM preparedness people I've encountered anywhere. Thanks, Julian, for doing what you do. I've learned a lot from you.
I love having multiple back up charge controllers, BMS's and inverters. Very smart. I do the same and even have back ups in a faraday cage. One thing I noticed. Your wind generator shaft goes directly into generator. This puts a lot of strain on the bearings in the generator. Having a separate, stand alone bearing between the generator shaft and shaft of the rotor would take the strain off the bearings in the generator and should help the generator to last longer. Just an observation. Thanks for all you do for the emergency radio community Julian.
Hi Julian! I have been running an offgrid ham shack for the past 3 years. Everything runs off of solar charged batteries: Radios, computers, lights etc. At the moment all is kind of ramshackle. I have been following Will Prouse's youtube channel. He offers many videos on setting up off grid systems. I took from his book a plan for a photovoltaic system for an RV or small cabin. It is a system consisting of at least 800w of solar panels (I am using 1200w) a 24 volt system, total 600Ah and a 3000w AC-DC inverter. This system is moveable and is intended to also back up essential appliances at the house in case of a long term grid down situation. The components are there. I will be assembling soon.
Thanks for watching and commenting. The reason I didn't go with inverters is the noise they create on hf. This is about the only thing I can see, which is different in offgrid cabins, RV, ... than ham shacks. Have you found a quiet inverter yet? 73 Julian oh8stn
You should spend a video explaining why you'd (generally) want to be resonant. Vast majority of hams insist it doesn't matter whether you're resonant, but they're thinking of having plenty of power
Julian, your a wizard on the solar and power for your shack. My dear wife say's it has to have 2 functions for approval of purchase , So will your grid of solar be tapped over to the house ? Lights and heat . As always your the best . Top quality equipment and assembly of your grid , no wiggling wires to make things work. Stay warm,later.
Ive been tinkering with solar for years now. Getting real world experience with what you need and what you can generate is vital to success. My hamshack has always been off grid. I dont own a wall plug power supply. With lifpo4 320amp battery is a game changer for sure. Thanks for another great video. 73 VA6CQB
Kids are doing a cyber security cert this morning, then welding and fixing a broken tower later. I also have to comment, that the Queen battery seems expensive until you go price a lead acid battery here in the USA. My 6.7 Cummins needed a new Lead acid battery, and that thing was 225 dollars also. I'd like to personally thank the Fed and Brandon for this.
Research 'Rocket Mass Heaters'. Super high-efficient wood furnaces that use minimal thin wood sticks, burn all the smoke so no smoke outside, no smoke smell, and zero creosote production so no danger of a fire and no cleaning the chimney.
Sounds very interesting, thanks. Off-grid heating will play an important role in the ham shack. Thanks for watching, commenting, and letting me know of this interesting technology. 73 Julian oh8stn
Hello Julian, you have inspired me, I just ordered 4 small solar panels 12 v 5 watt with a mmpt 12v solar chager. I want to see if I can fully supply my (TR)USDX with solar energy. Or the 18650 batteries Lets start small and lets playing around with it and see what else is possible. Thanks for the inspiration 👍🏻
Thanks. I'm generally running three radios at a time with this set up. Winlink Gateway, Robust Packet HF APRS, and a JS8Call station. Voice comms while the others are running could be problematic if we're on the same band. Otherwise I think (hope) it will be okay.
Thank you so much for the video. I live in Northeastern WI. I just ordered my ARRL Technician and General handbooks, and I can't wait to get them to start my studies and get my licenses. We own private property, so this gives me a wonderful idea of how to go about setting up an off grid style HAM shack. For rookies like me just getting into HAM, great video, please keep making more. 😊 New subscriber here. Blessings to you.
Thanks Julian, I am just entering the process of setting up a off grid hamshack. But I'm gonna need to get rid of my windos machine or generate some 110 as well. Looknig at my house its all electric so we will just need to run the 110 fan in the woodstove to get some house heat. This is going to be a study. Perhaps I just get 12v uninterupted in the shack first. N5OBC
Hello. I just stumbled across your channel. I’ve listened to a few of your videos but this is all very new to me so much of the info is way over my head. I’m hoping you could point me in the right direction as to where to get started. Primarily looking for off grid communication for myself and various family members living 75-85 miles away. Any help would be much appreciated
Hello James. From my channel perspective, I would start here: ru-vid.com/group/PLKMrdrsNkFA7VoErWaXfTGD4y59OCObm-&si=MRpaWBtIwHf6jM_- When you're ready to start training for your ham radio license, use ham radio prep www.hamradioprep.com/ and use julian20 at checkout for 20% discount. It's the best way to get licensed these days, Assuming you're in the united states. Hope this helps. 73 Julian oh8stn
Really looking forward to this series. Are you running DC appliances (non-Ham) in your shack or AC through an inverter? I've been hunting for quality DC lights, hot plates, etc. but the "quality" part does not seem to be out there.
Agreed. Trying to keep everything DC, because of the inverter noise on HF. The EcoFlow River 2 has 2x AC outlets just in case AC is required temporarily. Quality lighting is my problem. Testing LED lamps used in busses/cars, but the switching is terrible.
Thank you 🙏 As with all inverter generators, there are two sides to this question. The DC outputs, USB outputs, and charging from solar or USB-C PD are all clean. When the AC inverter outputs are on or AC is being used for charging the River 2 Max, the RFI is terrible. I only use the AC side as an emergency measure. So the AC ports are deactivated unless in use. This way, RFI is not an issue day to day. Hope this helps. 73 Julian oh8stn
Yesterday I was thinking on what battery to buy ,then saw you video. Thank you for sharing your experience. Could you please check that the coupon code for the battery (discussed on the video) is current? I tried it at the checkout and it is not valid / applying. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you,
not sure I understand what you are doing with the multiple genasuns and the wind camp Anderson power pole thing? are you and if so how are you connecting all the genasuns to the wind camp?
Each of the strings of solar panels are connected to an individual charge controller. The connections between the charge controllers and the battery are via the Windcamp SP-8. Separate video incoming.
In part yes, but also to handle the different sets/strings of solar panels. I've got a set of solar panels up on the tower. One south facing set at the back of the building. Two sets on the southwest wall of the building. Finally, another south facing set on a lean-to we are building next spring. We would also like to add supplemental panels. For example, some of my portable panels in an emergency. All of these different sets or strings of solar panels require their own charge controller.
The power queen batteries are very reasonably priced With the referral link in the description. They have two offers going on. I believe you can get five percent with my discount. I believe you can also get a discount If you are first time customer on that website. Please check the description. Thanks again for watching and commenting. It's greatly appreciated. 73 Julian oh8stn
One more question, Mr. Julian...how do you secure you wires to the Genasun? The wires always seem to work loose and had I not carried a small tweaker screwdriver, one of my recent activations would have been ruined. Thank you.
As long as we're talking about DC (not AC, that gets more complicated) and the output voltage of both is kept within a tenth of a volt, it should be fine.
@grahamauld8894 I've only tried it with Genasun controllers. However, multiple strings of solar panels on different charge controllers connected to a single battery is normal on RV, Yachts and Overland vehicles. As long as the controllers output voltage match the battery, theres no problem. 73 Julian oh8stn
Having multiple smaller charge controllers instead of one big one is smart for redundancy puprposes. Would you say that’s the most likely thing to malfunction?
Excellent comment! From years of field experience, I expect the Genasun charge controllers to be the last thing to fail. The redundancy is great for ensuring only a single string can fail at a time. The Victron is also rock solid. My weakest points are too high current in the power distribution and the current cobbled together wiring mess. Both of those things will be remedied as we progressed through the series. Thanks for the excellent questions.
hello Julian, the Genasun 10 is rated for 140w but you're feeding it with 2*100w panels. I guess I'm missing something.. could you please clarify what's going on here? thanks a lot 73
Sure! At this latitude during winter months, the 2x parallel panels will never reach 200 watts. We are so much farther ftom the sun, stacking panels won't harm anything. Naturally during the summer months, I need to be more careful. Finally, check out this post from Genasun about Genasun GO functionality. sunforgellc.com/genasun-overdrive-go-for-gv-5-and-gv-5-mod/ 73 Julian oh8stn
Yes, I have the same concerns. Currently I can generate up to thirty amps from all of my solar strings. More strings will require the planned additional power distribution board. Naturally, I am willing to consider a combiner, If someone has experience with one they can recommend. Recommendations welcome 🙏👍
It's a great question, but difficult to answer as I use different rigs for different applications. For data comms (my primary operating mode) I use an IC-705 with Microsoft Surface & N9SAB dipole. Total weight 1.5kg/3.5lb for all mode, data, phone, cw, ... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-r22xilag_9A.html
