With all my Software Defined Radio equipment and antenna wires all over the place I needed a solution to clean up my hackshack. With most my active SDR’s being used by something in my rack it only seemed natural to build a nice rackmount unit to house the mess.
I decided to put 4 RTL-SDR dongles, FlightAware ADS-B Dongle, and a PlutoSDR in the unit. 2 of the RTL-SDR’s are dedicated to SDRTrunk scanning my local emergency services, One for NOAA APT weather images, and the 4th for GOES 18 earth images. I also needed a Bias-T because the PlutoSDR does not have one. A RTL-SDR Blog LNA was added as well. The way I set this up I can use any SDR with any antenna with or without a LNA.
I started out with a 1U rackmount shelf and a blank front panel. I had to trim the front edge off the shelf for the front panel to sit properly.
I then measured and laid out my front panel for all my equipment. I grouped my 3 active loop antennas on the left, then my my general use antennas followed by my satellite stuff. the LNA and Bias-T came next followed by 4 RTL-SDR dongles stacked. The PlutoSDR was fitted on the end.
I proceeded to drill out all the holes I needed and started to populate the front panel with bulkheads, switches, and equipment. I also extended the 2 LED’s from the PlutoSDR into the panel.
Next came the rear of the shelf. First I hot glued a barrel jack for my single clean 12v power supply. I had 2 Bias-T’s for my Wellgood active loops, BNC bulkhead for MLA-30 active loop, and the FlightAware ADS-B dongle that needed to be mounted.
I wired up 4 switches, 3 for the active loops and 1 for the bias t. The loops want 12V and I wanted 5V on my bias t output so I wired in a 5V voltage regulator to power it.
Here it is all ready to be installed in the rack and antennas connected. I ended up adding 2 USB hubs (not pictured) with 2 RTL-SDR’s on each as they were going to 2 separate computers.
Looks decent and serves its purpose. I was able to clean up a bunch of wires and still have more work to do. So far I like it, no matter what I need its all in one place now. No more searching for the right antenna cable coming from the roof.
