Amateur radio projects
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This page is intended to be a pool from which future ARCatUCF activities can be selected. Some of these are also appropriate for individuals as well. If any of these projects interest you, please bring it up at the next club meeting or on discord!!! If you think of any additional radio projects, feel free to add them to this list!
Bold items have already been completed by the club, but could be repeated, as not all club members were involved.
Categories[edit | edit source]
Other project categories, pages, and files:
Activities[edit | edit source]
- POTA
- Satellite tracking and contact
- Contesting
- hamexam review and testing
- morse code practice
Personal starter projects[edit | edit source]
These are projects intended for an individual to complete and take the result home. Some of these are completed designs for which we have parts and can build at any meeting. IF you want to build one of these, please notify us ahead of time (in discord or in previous meeting) so we can make sure we have enough parts for everyone who wants to build one.
See also Easy antenna projects
| build time | have parts | description |
|---|---|---|
| 30m - 2h | yes | 900 mhz solid wire J-pole antenna |
| 30m - 2h | yes | 70cm (440mhz) solid wire J-pole antenna |
| 2-3h | on order | 2m tape measure yagi antenna |
| 30m-1h | maybe | 2m or 70cm moxon antenna |
| 30m - 2h | maybe | 2m roll up wire j-pole antenna |
| 40h? | no | SolderSmoke Direct Conversion Receiver Challenge |
| ? | yes? | UHF/VHF magnetically shielded small loop for direction finding |
ARCatUCF project designs and meeting activities[edit | edit source]
Research:
- HF double bazooka 20m antenna
See also Category:ARC projects
Proposed basic projects:
- practice code key (physical key plus 555 based or cpu based)
Proposed advanced projects:
- HF power amplifier (see QST contest!)
- ATV transmitter
Proposed field trips
- National Weather Service office (Melbourne) during Melbourne hamfest
- tour of a county emergency operations center
- tour of an airport traffic control tower
- tour of a commercial radio station
- UCF/KSC satellite ground station
Proposed guest speakers / topics
- How to use your NanoVNA for analysis of antennas and other devices
- AMSAT (amateur satellite)
- National Weather Service Skywarn training (UCF sponsored talk)
- microwave and weak signal
- EZnec antenna modeling
Current active projects[edit | edit source]
These are projects for which we have partial materials and/or designs.
Talk to us on discord or at a meeting to participate in these projects!
Project dependencies[edit | edit source]
This is a rough map of the relationships between some of our projects.
Active[edit | edit source]
This list is mostly up to date as of March 2026. All of these are active! All of these projects are looking for team members and some need project leads too!
stage:
| 0 | thought experiment |
| 1 | brainstorming |
| 2 | partial designs started |
| 3 | prototyping |
| 4 | usable prototype complete |
| 5 | prototype tested |
| 6 | production version in construction |
| 7 | production version ready |
| 8 | in production, polishing, tweaking features |
| 9 | production version installed / complete |
| NA | continuing activity, not a completable project |
Marked * have had activity in the last week, either at meetings or in discord. as of 3/20/2026
| stage | Project | type | status | project leader | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Done | Fox hunt beacon | hardware | Done! | Travis | |
| 9,6,2 | Remote SDR | software | design, need antennas, duplicating | Steve | |
| 0,4,8,9 | Meshtastic projects | hardware, software dev | (multiple) | ||
| 0,1,9 | discord/meshtastic bots | software dev | (multiple) | ||
| 8* | Ham exam study, build new curriculum for college students | document | Mostly done | Skye | |
| 8* | WX Discord bot | Software dev | v3 rework in progress | Skye2 | |
| 5 | free standing portable HF vertical | Antenna build | Completed! Ready for copies | Ryan (NY2O) | |
| 3* | Winlink and APRS Project | hardware, software | AIOCs need rewiring, Sites need picked | Nathan/Travis | |
| 3 | Pi receiver projects | software | (multiple) | ||
| 3 | Portable Rotor | software dev, hardware | CAD needs rework, partial parts here | Travis/Julie | |
| 2 | ATV transmitter | Electrical | LimeSDR troubleshooting | Nathan | |
| 0,1 | WX detect/alert projects | software dev, hardware | (multiple) | ||
| 0 | WSPR | hardware / software | On Hold (Need Antennas) | Travis | |
| 0 | 5ft Sat Dish rotor | Mechanical | Not Started | unassigned | |
| 0 | Repeater controller | hardware, software | Not Started | Unassigned | |
| NA | Guest speakers | organize | Not Started | Corenna | |
| NA | tower maintenance | organize | On Hold (Funding) | Travis | |
| 2 | MQTT Framework | Software | In Progress | Steve | |
| 3 | Shack Neopixels | Software | Easy intro project | Unassigned | |
| 0 | Repeater Bot | Software | Oh Hold (Repeater Controller) | Unassigned | |
| 3 | Deep Learning SDR | Software | In Progress | Logan | |
| 7 | General Server Discord Bot | Software | Functional | Ryan | |
| 0 | Live Demo Display | Software | Not Started | ||
| 0 | Web Logger | Software | In Progress | Steve | |
| 0 | SDR Distributed Direction Finding | Software | Not Started [Complex] |
Details of active projects[edit | edit source]
- Remote SDR and SDR software
- Provision one or more raspberry pis (and desktops) with software and one or more SDRs (one SDR per antenna)
- discone: multiplex between general VHF receive, NWS weather, ADS-B, etc., or dedicate antenna+sdr to some
- HF loop? : multiplex between general HF receive, WSPR, weather fax, etc.
- Rotor Antennas and related projects
- build a small Az/El rotor suitable for aiming a handheld yagi with full computer control
- Portable Rotor and Ground station
- Ham exam study
- pick vocab and a few questions to cover at each meeting to help pass the exams!
- free standing portable HF vertical
- This is designed and tested, need to put together kits if others want to build one. A cheap tripod and ground plane system for the alpha whip would also be useful.
- Winlink and APRS Project
- Find or buy hardware and set up one or more packet radio stations capable of winlink and APRS protocols
- Guest speakers
- Pick guest speakers as a club, then coordinate parking (Steve) and timing, guest accomodations (Corenna)
- Lou, Stan, Travis (eznec), Steve (nanovna), Sky2 (weather charts)
- Repeater controller
- (replace this project with off the shelf parts?)
- replace the repeater controller with something programmable that can handle echolink
- suggest something Pi based
- multiple sub projects are possible once this is done
- Meshtastic projects
-
- Personal nodes (shopping)
- select new personal nodes and fund a group purchase
- MQTT local gateway (software)
- serve as a hub for multiple software projects instead of one radio per project
- Bot discord gateway (software dev)
- bidirectionally gateway between a (rate limited) discord chan and a meshtastic chan
- WX alerts (software dev)
- improve the meshing around WX alerts
- RF WX digital SAME receive (hardware/software dev)
- directly receive NWS digital SAME alerts and gateway to discord/meshtastic
- shack alert! (hardware,software dev)
- connect an arduino or similar to neopixels and/or strobes and send commands via shack computer and meshtastic
- WX projects
- RF WX receive (above)
- Lights and sirens in the shack (software dev + hardware)
- possible weather station
- Fox hunt beacon (hardware, software dev)
- The AIOC works on baofeng and kenwood HTs and has a fox hunt mode. Now we need to build more directional antennas and attenuators and do another fox hunt!
- WSPR
- Receiver / reverse beacon network
- transmitter / permanent antenna? (which bands?)
- 5ft Sat Dish rotor
- possible MAE senior design project
- mechanical rotor to support dish, wind load, etc.
- Tower maintenance
- get guy wires professionally inspected
- replace damaged antennas
- add antennas on tower and other locations
- ATV transmitter
- program a lime SDR to do ATV and maybe add an amplifier
Proposed and inactive projects[edit | edit source]
Proposed[edit | edit source]
- Weather station
- ATV hardware is available for club use [horrid filters, needs fixing]
- Do a review of existing logbook software
- test, program, complete code practice keys (elsewhere on this page)
- TS-2000 13pin DIN audio connector for digi-modes [CAT serial is functional]
- IC-706mk2 digital connectors
- IC-756 digital connectors
- Design new QSL card and activate online bureaus, etc.
- Banner in Atrium
- SDR Direction finding
- SSTV recorder
- Antenna projects
- Patch antennas
- magnetically shielded small loop
- cylindrical patch antenna for rockets
- quadrafiliar helical for 136Mhz weather sattelites : rebuild? deploy?
Inactive[edit | edit source]
(designs and/or parts partially available)
- pypanadapter -- python panadapter that uses an RTL-SDR and the IF of any radio, links with hamlib(?) / contact Steve if you want to work on this
- (funded research) cheap high bandwidth digital telemetry radio modem for satellite and ground station
- repeater controller design (switch to raspberry pi?)
- portable field station demo
- field day prep projects
- test and write up instructions for serial / digital for fldigi and all radios and cable
- Radio astronomy
- maybe use the big dish?
- see if the astronomy club is interested or wants help with this
- https://github.com/AP-HLine-3D/HLine3D
Other project pages[edit | edit source]
- Kit radios
- Direction finding, fox hunting
- Repeater modifications
- Antenna links
- ARRL Technical articles (many require ARRL membership login)
- Voice over IP
- APRS
- Software Defined Radio
- http://www.adafruit.com/
- http://www.ladyada.net/
External kit pages[edit | edit source]
- http://www.arrl.org/tech-portal
- http://amqrp.org/
- http://tapr.org/
- http://hackaday.com/
- http://foxdelta.com/
Misc. projects[edit | edit source]
- Pneumatic Antenna Launching Systems
- Radio to Bluetooth Interface, QST Feb 2007
- Lightning Protection fo rthe Amateur Radio Station (QST June/July/Aug 2002)
- Bionics
- APRS Tiny Track
- PIC projects (TAPR has many)
- The St Louis Switcher (QST May 2002 p35) turn a computer power supply into a radio power supply
- Mirophone adapter for the IC-706 (QST May 2002 p39) includes sound card interface
- A Quality Sound Card Interface for ICOM Rigs (QST March 2002)
- An Accurate dip Meter Using the MFJ-249 SWR Analyzer (QST Nov 1993)
- Indestructible Co-ax Attenuator
- Salt Water Dummy Load
Tools[edit | edit source]
- Field Strength Meter
- nanovna tools
- jig for capacitors, inductors
- jig for measuring dielectric, ESR of raw plates
WiFi projects[edit | edit source]
- Hinternet and openHSMM
- QST July 2006 p84
- http://www.arrl.org/hsmm
- http://www.openhsmm.org/
Internet remote base projects[edit | edit source]
These would allow the club to install an HF radio on a remote tower, and allow control from the shack (or anywhere else) without unreasonable expense.
- good overview article, QST November 2002, pg 39
- Remote control of the Amateur Station, QST April 2007 pg 28
Components of a remote base would be:
- hardware
- remote controllable radio such as the TS2000, IC756, and others
- remote antenna switch
- remote antenna rotor
- control systems and protocols (assuming ethernet rather than radio link)
- encrypted authentication
- voice over IP
- remote serial ports for above hardware
A few of the control ideas are similar to a repeater controller.
Repeater projects[edit | edit source]
The club repeater could use some enhancement.
- Voice over IP and remote control / remote link setup (for repeater or HF)
- weather station linkup for repeater
- voice synth and/or DVR for repeater
- build a repeater controller from scratch using an embedded system
- deep sdr enhancements
[edit | edit source]
- form jump team, build kits
- put emergency antennas on all shelters (Arrow J-pole recommended)
- practice events, emergency power testing, etc.
Antenna projects[edit | edit source]
More antenna links
- Portable transmission line J-pole
- Copper loop (plumber's delight) for 2 meters (QST December 2002, pg 46)
- Fox hunt antennas
- Tape measure yagi
- small loop
- stepped attenuator
- Portable antenna tripod and ground plane
- 2.4ghz high gain antennas
- full wave 2m loop
- discone antenna
- Moxon directional antenna
- Texas potato masher single rotor LEO tracking antenna (donated to club June 2005 tailgate)
- Maximum gain portable HF yagi QST sept 2007 pg 34
- Baloon-Lift Loop Antenna (for field day) QST July 2007
- Arrow J-poles
- Arrow dual band J-pole (10 gets a price break)
- Arrow Foxhunt antenna
- foxhunt VHF loop. Very pretty, but price is a bit high especially for a receive only antenna. (Perhaps we should try to build some?)
Satellite projects[edit | edit source]
- dish mounting bracket
- dish rotor control system
- automated satellite and rocket tracking software
Weather station[edit | edit source]
lightning detectors and mapping[edit | edit source]
- lightning radar
- (commercial version) Boltek Storm Tracker
- APRS West Central Florida Real Time Lightning Display
Embedded systems[edit | edit source]
Project sources[edit | edit source]
- ARRL Handbook (available in UCF library and club library)
- ARRL Antenna Book (club copies available for loan)
- QST magazines (in club library)
- internet
- Amateur Packet Radio has many kits, many PIC based.
- Elecraft Price List and Order Page