At my age and licensed for 57 years since I was 19, its probably time for me to think about downsizing.
The following content has been written exclusively for a technically savvy licensed amateur radio operator and so I have blended the radio / electronics side with the house features which expands on the text in the Hamshack.ca main post.
The original house was a complete tear down and completely re-built in 2018.
I purchased the house directly from the builder in Sept 2019 as the first owner / occupant.
For the prior 18 years I had a condo in Vancouver and although I was the strata council, I never installed any antennas etc and was QRT for that period.
I thought that this was to have been my final home and over a period of 2 years I installed my equipment and antennas etc.
This was the height of the COVID pandemic (2020 - 2023) and since I was in isolation, I took my time setting up the station, antennas and a fully equipped woodworking shop.
The house contains 6 bedrooms, each with en-suite full bathrooms, another 2 bedrooms (in the rental suite) sharing a full bathroom, 10 toilets, open plan main level with a family / TV room, kitchen, wok kitchen, 51ft x 10ft covered deck, Bruno chair-lift between main and upper floor with 4 of the 8 bedrooms and access to a 51ft x 10ft open deck with a 200° view of the Fraser River from the Port Mann Bridge to the Alex Fraser bridge and beyond.
The lower level is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom legal rental suite.
All of the pre-purchase pictures are from the original MLS listing etc.
Alas, the house is now proving to be too big for my current needs as of Spring 2026.
I thought that it would be a real shame to simply tear the station down and that perhaps a younger operator / family might be out there who might be interested in a turn-key move.
Time will tell.
If this does not happen in 6 to 12 months, I will sell most of the equipment separately and then list the house on MLS.
I do NOT currently have any realtor or MLS listing for this property.
This would be a "for sale by owner" transaction.
I am listing on hamshack.ca courtesy of Don Rosberg for the foreseeable future, at least until the end of 2026 or so.
The links to my website are also on my QRZ page link which, until this week was a single home page only.
I am in absolutely no rush to sell whatsoever.
Let me describe the property.
Close to schools, bus, Skytrain, IKEA, SuperStore, Canadian Tire, Cowuitlam Town Center, Lougheed Town Center and all the shopping you need within a 2-3 km radius.
300m from the Trans Canada Highway, just west of the Port Mann Bridge.
The corner lot is 10,224sq ft
There are 3 large cherry trees that bear lots of delicious fruit every June.
There is on-site, off road parking (asphalt and concrete) for 10 vehicles plus one in the garage if you keep the woodworking shop - 2 vehicles if you don't.
The depth available inside the garage will take a 17ft Honda Odyssey minivan.
The house is on 3 levels with a total of 6,284sq ft.
Zero non-builder renovations
The main floor is an open concept of main kitchen, eating area, family room, lounge and dining room plus a bathroom with sink and toilet.
The entrance hall, main lounge have double height ceilings.
The separate wok kitchen has a closed door and a gas range.
The main kitchen has an electric induction range (never used) and a gas connection.
Also an inside door for access to the double garage.
The garage floor is epoxy for easy cleaning.
Apart from ham radio, my other hobby is wood working.
The double garage has floor to ceiling storage shelves around all 3 walls.
I have a fully equipped woodworking shop with everything on castors.
Building free standing, floor to ceiling shelving, became my obsession.
Removing my car, everything rolls out to occupy the full area of the double garage.
There is distributed dust collection, drill press, table saw with attached outfeed table, router, band saw, scroll saw, dual grinding wheel, oscillating rotary sander, large work bench with multiple vises installed.
Hand tools, more hand tools and more hand tools!
Overhead LED lighting and suspended ceiling shelving for empty equipment boxes.
Currently there are empty boxes for my second ICOM 7300 as well as my recently arrived ICOM 7300mk2.
The first 7300 was sold and I was about to buy an ICOM 7610 but changed my mind.
I bought a new ICOM 7300 instead about 18 months ago the day after I sold 7300 #1. The new (2nd) 7300 is mint & never modified with the original screen protector.
The garage also has a 50,000BTu overhead gas heater so the shop is usable all year.
All heating in the rest of the house is sub-floor radiant heating, gas fired.
The family room and the main lounge each have a gas fired heater, the family room with a 7 day fully programmable thermostat.
This is in addition to sub-floor radiant heating.
The house has a 4 camera security system with DVR accessible on line with app.
One dedicated video monitor is in the kitchen.
I have installed 5 x ZeeVee professional ATSC video modulators.
They are tuned to an unused cable channel 22.
I have satellite video on channel 22-1
I have second satellite video on channel 22-2
I have a third on Rogers Cable TV content on channel 22-3
I have a fourth on an IPTV box channel 22-4
I have a fifth on my CCTV security cameras on cable channel 22-5
The audio channel on the CCTV channel distributes selected music on channel 22-5.
Every TV in the house can tune to any of the above ATSC channels independently.
I have both 2.4G and 5G WiFi throughout the house.
Even when walking around the house during a project that takes you from the upper level to anywhere else in the house or garden, a shirt pocket C.Crane digital FM receiver allows you to listen to any audio source from whatever TV channel you were watching either on speaker or earphone via a 1 watt Stereo FM transmitter on 93.9Mhz. I am also transmitting the selected audio source on a small Bluetooth transmitter that can be received by any Bluetooth speaker or ear-pods etc.
I am a news junkie and always need to be listening or watching.
I can also select audio output from any of my HF receivers / transceiver so that should I need to leave the operating position for any reason I can continue to listen.
But wait, there is more!. Any of the above audio is audible while I am in the master shower via a dedicated FM receiver.
I also like to listen to music from 60's oldies to jazz or easy listening from Canada, USA or any other part of the world.
I have an internet radio receiver with 10,000 selectable stations from around the world that is selectable from a list of Favorites with news, music of my choice etc.
But if all of the above sounds crazy, on the stereo TX on 93.9Mhz, I can select via external switching and hear HF audio on the left channel and TV audio on the right or whatever combination I choose.
Crazy, I know but I had fun setting it all up during Covid and using it every day!!
Cat5e Ethernet RJ-45 jacks in every room including the garage.
RG-6U cable outlet in every room as well as the garage workbench.
Wall mounted 37" TV in garage for all channels while working on a project.
I also have Telus Fibre already wired inside the house - not activated.
Motion activated LED floods on the front, left side, right side and rear of the home.
Appliances are Bosch, Samsung and the Whirlpool dryer is gas fired.
Moving on.......
The main floor is 100% marble. The rental unit kitchen / eating area is also marble.
The master bathroom on the top floor is also marble floor and walls.
There are full size built in Samsung washer and dryer off the rental suite's kitchen.
There are stairs from the main floor down to the utility room and a sink / toilet on the lower floor.
From the main floor up to the top floor apart from the stairs I have installed a Bruno chair lift with remote controls at each end to recall the chair when needed.
The top floor has 4 bedrooms and a "landing area" that overlooks the front door.
On that landing I have built a radio shack operating position as well as a workbench with tools, soldering station and parts etc.
You can slide from the operating position to the workbench and back on an adjustable chair with rubber wheels.
Both positions are built on IKEA Jerker version 1 desks modified for floor to ceiling.
Brand new RG-213 exits the operating position neatly.
The adjacent smaller bedroom has 3 separate windows, one opens and 2 do not.
The closest non-opening window was removed and placed in safe storage.
It was replaced with a same size 3/4" plywood sheet and has feed-thru for 3 x RG-213, rotor cable, ground wire, lightening arrestor and 49:1 for my 132ft EFHW.
Coax 1 goes to my HyGain TH-3 mk4 that I bought from MFJ just before they closed.
I installed a newly cleaned and painted Delhi / Wade DMX-48HD tower in 4 cu yards of concrete with rebar dead center of the property.
All brand new stainless steel hardware from WADE and new legs.
I also added a second rotor plate between the rotor and the top bearing.
Normally it is not locked to the mast but if the rotor ever needs to be removed, the mast can be raised slightly and bolted in place. That way the mast and the antenna remain vertical and locked while rotor repairs are completed.
I chose a 48ft tower for one simple reason.
ISED / Industry Canada Radio Regulations states that towers / antennas lower that 15m from the ground are not subject to any public input (read neighbors) nor any local land us authority / city government input.
From the ground to the top of the mast, I am 10cm short of the 15m limit per ISED.
I fully serviced the HAM IV and installed a new 500 ohm pot for direction etc.
The TH-3 mk4 is fed with new RG-213 via a new HyGain BN-4000 balun.
I have a 70ft Fir tree on the property line to my west.
I removed all of the branches from my side of the tree.
At 40ft the EFHW is supported by the Fir tree on a pulley system that can be lowered to the ground.
At the 60ft mark I have a 40m/80m inverted V through a HyGain BN-86 using 12 gauge insulated wire. Resonant at 3.729Mhz and 7.175Mhz.
Back to the station.
I have ZERO equipment above 30Mhz.
ICOM IC-7300, Drake L-4B fully restored with new tubes, grounded grids, power supply, soft key, soft start etc by Peter Shilton VE7PS from Grand Forks BC, Dual Drake MN-2000 matching networks, Drake W-4 HF wattmeter with peak reading mod, Daiwa 901-HP cross-needle wattmeter, Kenwood SM-220 scope displaying trapezoidal for properly tuning the L-4B loading control for grid current / linearity, a re-capped Heathkit SB-610 scope for monitoring of RF output and mod / compression levels simultaneously with the trapezoidal display, 2 x Alpha Delta 4 way RF switches for antenna selection, common mode choke, Drake 100 watt LPF and Drake 1.5kW LPF, Heathkit Cantenna kW oil filled 50 ohm dummy load contained is a second safety container, a mint condition Drake R-4B re-capped receiver.
I have a dedicated 240 volt AC circuit from the main panel to the operating position for the L-4B linear amplifier.
I always use a manual antenna matching network.
The L-4B has 2 extraction fans above the 3-500ZG finals and 1 fan above the L-4PS power supply.
The 3 fans have a common adjustable speed control and they are inaudible as to background noise with 85 volts AC applied.
A small LED device is in series with the 240 volt AC supply.
It reads Voltage, Current, Wattage, Power Factor & Line Frequency all in real time.
Look at the station picture above.
Look on top of the L-4B to the left of the cross needle.
This small device reports all of the above parameters in real time.
A small device called a "Tuner Tamer" is plugged into the 7300 ATU Molex connector on the rear panel. See that on the top left side of the 7300.
Pressing the button on the Tamer results in a 10 watt RF output on ANY band and ANY mode for initial matching network adjustment.
All equipment chassis are connect to a "single point of grounding"
I have an 8ft copper pipe in the ground with a short heavy wire into the shack.
I also have 5 large video monitors / TVs, 3 connected to a local dedicated PC for regular browsing, win4icom, RM Noise, Simon's Map, Ham Clock etc plus video content from the ATSC modulator channels 22-1 through 22-5 as described above.
Plenty of storage throughout for parts and additional equipment in the smaller north bedroom.
All 5 bedrooms have en-suite full bathrooms etc and the master bedroom has a walk in shower with support rails everywhere.
Again sub floor radiant heat throughout each room with individual thermostats.
There is central air conditioning and built-in vacuum on all 3 levels.
There is a 51ft x 10ft open south and west facing deck accessable from the master bedroom which is identical to the covered deck of the same size of the family room / kitchen deck downstairs.
There is a natural gas outlet for the BBQ / griddle on the lower deck.
The family room sound system may be switched to "sound inside" "sound outside" on the deck or both. Sound inside covers the family room, eating area and kitchen.
The lower deck has a sitting / eating area as well as floor to ceiling shelving for the storage of wood supplies for the wood shop in the garage.
There are 3 other bedrooms on the upper floor, 2 large, 1 smaller and each with en-suite full bathrooms, sub-floor heating and central AC.
I have just had the roof cleaned of a small amount of moss as well as the dryer duct in the top floor laundry and the rental suite ducts.
The lower level of the house is a legal suite consisting of 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, kitchen / eating area, lounge / office, patio with BBQ.
It has been rented since 2019 by the same great tenant and by his young adult children. This rental produces $29,400 per annum in revenue.
The lower level also has a home theater.
While the house was still being built, I had the builder make a small matching room for the tenant's storage etc and another large lockable storage room for my use.
This was built in the home theater area without disturbing the pre-wired room.
Naturally I built large storage shelves in that area too.
In the main floor washroom I built one wall , floor to ceiling, with pine IKEA Trofast shelves with all 3 sizes of IKEA Trofast storage bins.
I did the same in the smaller upper north bedroom adjacent to the station.
See pictures and shack details etc on my HOME page above.
If you are genuinely interested and have any questions or to arrange a visit then
please provide me with your name and callsign per the ISED records.
You can reach me at the cell number in the footer below.
Call me, email me, text me...... Lets talk?
If it does not sell, I am more than happy to remain here and enjoy my home.
Thank you for reading.
73.
Ray