Ergonomics in your shack

Foundations of Amateur Radio

In my day job I work in computing. For many years that consisted of going on-site and fixing stuff. Invariably this involved me fixing servers that were installed into a room the size of a broom closet with an optional air conditioner screaming in my ear. The experience often included sitting on a crate, or the floor, holding a keyboard and if it was a Windows Server, rolling a mouse on my knee in order to click on stuff barely discernible on a tiny screen that likely sat a meter too high above my eye line with Ethernet wires going diagonally from one end of the room to the other.

These days with ubiquitous internet connectivity that kind of experience is mostly a thing of the past.

That said, operating a radio during a contest in many stations I've used over the years is not far from that kind of layout.

Often a traditional shack starts off with a radio on a table with a notepad to record contacts. Over time that gets expanded with technology like a computer. It's common to have to juggle the radio display and keyboard, to find a spot for the mouse that doesn't interfere with the desk microphone, or to have to reach over to change band and to activate a different filter, select another antenna, use the rotator or some other essential tool that's required for making that elusive contact.

Some stations have multiple monitors, sometimes they're even together, but more often than not they're a different size, sitting too high and the radio sits as a road-block between your eye line between the screen and the keyboard.

I'm raising this because over the years I've not actually seen anyone spend any energy on discussing how you might improve this experience.

If this was your workplace, the occupational health and safety police would be all over you and for good reason. You could argue that amateur radio is a hobby and that OH&S is of lesser concern, but to that I'd like to point out that you have the same risk of self injury at work as you do in your shack, especially if you're doing a contest for 24 or 48 hours.

Not only is there a risk of injury, why make the experience harder than it needs to be? Ergonomics is the process of designing or arranging a workplace to fit the user. It's a deliberate process. You have to actually stop to consider how you are using a space, in this case your shack.

At the moment I'm experimenting with different aspects of the layout of my shack. For example, I started with a layout of the computer, counter intuitive perhaps, since we're talking about a radio shack, but given that I'm spending much of my time doing contests and digital modes, the computer is used much more than the radio is, even if the radio is what's making all the on-air noise.

After making sure that my keyboard, mouse and screen were in locations that actually helped me, I started trying to figure out where to put the radio and what role it actually plays in making the contact. If during a contest you're using search and pounce, which is when you hunt up and down the bands looking for a contact, you might argue that you'll need access to the radio to change frequency, but if you already have your computer connected to the radio, you can change frequency from the keyboard or by control with your mouse.

Another way I'm looking on reducing the amount of stress to my body whilst operating my station is by sorting out audio. Almost every radio has a speaker on it, but if you've got more than one going at the same time it becomes really difficult to determine which one is actually making noise and even harder if multiple stations are on different frequencies on different radios at the same time.

You could wear headphones and select a radio, one at a time, either by plugging in a particular radio, or by using a selector. If you're using digital modes, the audio might already be going into the computer, which offers you the ability to select from different sound cards, but there are other options. I'm working on plugging the audio from each radio into an audio mixer that will allow me to set the level for each radio independently, mute at will, set the tone, the balance between left and right ear and a few other things.

For a microphone I plan on using the same mixer and I'm working on how to have my digital audio coming from the computer incorporated into the same audio environment, because the digital audio could just as easily be a voice caller using the same system.

For push to talk I settled on a foot switch a couple of years ago. That said, if I'm on my own, I tend to use VOX, or voice operated switching, which turns on the transmitter when microphone audio is detected by the radio. This will need some careful planning if I'm going to connect multiple radios, since I don't want to transmit the same message across each radio at the same time, but with computer control, that too can be addressed.

My point is that we have lots of technology available to us as radio amateurs to achieve what ever we need to. It takes extra effort to decide how you might go about making your environment a place where you can safely sit and operate without making life harder than it needs to be.

What kinds of different techniques and technologies have you used to make your shack a more comfortable environment? Do you spend your days hunting DX, doing contests or making digital contacts, or something else? Have you considered how you might improve the layout of your shack to suit your particular use-case and when was the last time you checked to see if the decisions you originally made are still valid today?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB