Project “GoBox” has taken a massive step forward over the last few days

I’m delighted to report that Project “GoBox” has taken a massive step forward over the last few days. After gathering all the parts from various locations and suppliers I was able to map out and then mark out all the locations in the shelves to mount the equipment.

My father then drilled everything for me in his workshop and on Monday afternoon I started bolting everything down and fitting it into the Gator case. The bolting down of the radio was quite difficult as it’s not really intended for portable use so it doesn’t come with any sort of mounting bracket so I had to make one. That wasn’t so much the problem, the problem was getting access underneath the radio to tighten the nuts and bolts. It took a few VERY frustrating hours but eventually it was done and I was happy the radio wasn’t going fall out any time soon.

Everything else was quite straight forward to access the bolts and once the “shelf sub-assemblies” were complete they dropped nicely into the case for the final time.

Tuesday, I started on the plumbing and wiring in of all the equipment. It took most of the day to make up custom leads for everything and to make sure everything went into place without running into everything else which is quite tricky in such a confined space. By the end of Tuesday I had about 75% of everything connected and was able to hook up battery power for a first test to make sure nothing went bang and nothing got hot, started smoking and bust into flames. After a few hours on soak it all looks OK.

Today I’m hoping for a resupply of powerpoles to finish connection everything up and then I should be good to go, or at least start working on the antenna side of the project.

Once everything is complete then I’ll post a full write up on Project “GoBox” for everyone to read and enjoy (hopefully) so pop back soon.