K6XX is built on a long, semi-U-shaped bench. It allows using up to six simultaneous HF transmitters. Standing behind the operators, the rigs are arranged as follows: Station 4; Station 2 (A and B), Station 3; Station 1 (A and B); and Station 5. Stations 1 and 2 are set up for SO2R operation.
Antennas are automatically routed to the proper station by a custom relay-switched system. Band data is read from each transmitter and a bank of antennas suitable for that band are connected. The operator need only select one or more directions in which to beam from a choice of five fixed and one rotatable antennas per band. Any station may use any antenna not used by another station.
Here is SO2R station 1A + 1B. It consists of a pair of loaded Elecraft K3s driving either an Alpha 91b or an AL-1500. The tethered round 'pods' are direction selection controllers for Beverages. Diversity reception with the K3 main receiver on the transmitting antenna and a Beverage on the subreceiver is amazingly effective, especially on 160m through 30m. Yes, the K3s have custom knobs. No, the knobs don't make the receivers work any better.
Here's SO2R station 2A + 2B. This one is a pair of 1000MP mkVs to an AL-82 or an AL-1200. Dusty? Yup, because it hasn't seen much use since the K3s started arriving.
Here's Station 3. A catch-all portion of the bench with HF, VHF, and UHF rigs, ready to go on all bands from 1.8MHz through 1.2GHz. This entire station is powered from solar-charged deep cycle batteries (except of course for the single-8877 Alpha 77 amplifier). The K3 and Hercules II 500W solid state amplifier play especially well together.
And Station 4. This is a K3 connected to an Alpha 76A amplifier.
Station 5 is crammed onto the far right-hand edge of the bench, next to station 1. It isn't shown since its antenna connection is generally used by one of the SO2R stations.
Oh, and there are a few antennas as well... Here you see the hard-line runs entering the shack through the plate-aluminum ground windows. The ground windows (plural, because the building would be structurally unsound if one large window was constructed) are bonded together inside the shack and are connected to the outdoor ground system. Regardless of how ugly it looks, it works OK... honest.
