UVARC Maker Net Recap — August 17, 2026
Another solid Monday night on 146.780 MHz! Here's what the homebrewing crew got into this week.
Check-ins:
Bench Reports
Kyle (AJ7KY) shared a bench report about a new antenna mast he purchased. Extra details posted on Slack for anyone who wants to dig in further. Pulled from slack channel: "It extends to 24 ft. They also sell a 30 ft version. It's fairly sturdy for weighing 2lbs 12oz. It's 4'7" closed, so it's too big to put into a backpack."
Carl (K0WLY) had a rough-but-productive week: a radio repair went sideways when a protective mod damaged the very channel he'd just fixed, so he swapped the parts into a spare unit instead — that one's now living in his vehicle. On the upside, his SOLIDWORKS for Makers license is back online, the enclosure for his CW Keyer (CWK) project is finished, and new firmware features are in progress.
Spencer (KM7BLA) has been 3D printing MOLLE panels and connectors in PETG for his vehicle. Verdict: PETG prints fast but doesn't hold up to sun/heat — panels warped. He's eyeing ASA as a more heat-resistant alternative; newer nylon filaments (printable on machines like the Bambu A1) also came up as a possible fix.
QRP Labs QMX Group Build
Kyle (AJ7KY) is organizing a group build of the QRP Labs QMX/QMX+, a compact 5–10W portable HF transceiver, with experienced builders on hand to help with the tricky parts. The next session is Saturday, August 29 at 11:00 AM at Kyle's place — look up AJ7KY on QRZ for the address. More builds are planned for September/October.
Separately, Jeff (K7SJC) finished up a small QRP DIY CW kit and will be giving it away at the next club meeting.
SMD Soldering Presentation Coming to UVARC
Jeff (K7SJC), fresh off giving a surface-mount soldering presentation to the Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society, is bringing the same show-and-tell session to UVARC — hot air stations, binocular microscopes, ceramic tweezers, and his Hakko iron included. No equipment needed from attendees, just curiosity.
DIY Direction Finding: A Homebrew ARDF System
The highlight of the night was KN0JI's update on a direction-finding project his son has been building — a low-cost (potentially near-zero-cost) alternative to commercial Doppler DF gear. The concept: distributed receiving stations (Baofengs hooked to laptops via programming cables in early tests) feed signal-strength and location data into a custom app that triangulates the transmitter in near real time.
Early tests with a 15 mW "fox" transmitter nailed the location almost instantly, with later versions narrowing accuracy to about a 15×15 ft area — and down to roughly 3×3 ft using mobile radios (a Kenwood TM-710A and Yaesu FT-8800R). Bruce (N7BEB) dug into the physics with KN0JI, confirming the system leans on RSSI plus antenna, elevation, and location data, and pointed out that with enough participating stations the math can solve for a transmitter's location without needing per-station calibration at all.
The practical pitch: if interference shows up on a repeater or net frequency, participants fire up their radios and the app, and the group gets a fix within seconds — no dedicated DF hardware required. There's early talk of extending the concept onto mesh networking so it doesn't depend on internet-connected laptops.
Mesh Networking Article — Coming in October
KN0JI is writing an article on setting up MeshCore from scratch, tying in lessons from the ARDF project. It's targeted for the October issue, since Maker Net feature articles run on even-numbered months (nothing planned for September). Bruce (N7BEB) mentioned a Salt Lake City group doing mesh propagation testing that's worth a look for anyone interested, and noted Meshtastic seems to be giving way to MeshCore. If you're into mesh, the conversation is continuing on the UVARC Slack.
Magic Smoke Award
This week's award goes to net control himself — Carl (K0WLY) — for turning a working radio channel into a non-working one mid-repair. No one else reported anything worse!
Got write-ups, links, or photos to go with your report? Send them to k0wly.ham@gmail.com and they'll be added here. Join the conversation on the UVARC Slack #makernet channel, and catch the full audio on this blog. See you next Monday at 146.780!
73 and happy making — K0WLY
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