Projects

At the Melbourne Electronics & Radio Club (MERC / VK3FSK), we believe that the best way to learn amateur radio is to build something. Whether you are studying for your first licence or looking to deepen your technical knowledge, hands-on projects are one of the most rewarding — and effective — ways to develop the skills that matter.

This page is a starting point for members and prospective members who want to get their hands dirty, learn something new, and share their experiences with the club.

Why Projects?

Amateur radio has always had a strong tradition of "homebrew" — building your own equipment, experimenting with antennas, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible with radio. That tradition is alive and well at MERC.

But beyond the fun of building, there is a very practical reason to take on a project: you remember what you build.

Studying for an amateur radio licence examination can feel abstract when you are reading about impedance, propagation, or circuit theory in a textbook. But when you have wound a toroid, trimmed an antenna to resonance, or watched your first FT8 contact appear on screen, those concepts become real. The theory clicks into place because you have lived it.

Projects and the Australian Licence Pathway

In Australia, amateur radio licences are issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) at three levels — Foundation, Standard, and Advanced — each requiring a successful assessment. MERC is an accredited assessor, meaning you can sit your assessment right here at the club. Projects can directly support your preparation at every stage:

Licence Level	What the Assessment Covers	How Projects Help
Foundation	Basic operating procedures, RF safety, simple circuit theory, antennas, frequency and wavelength	Building a dipole antenna makes frequency and wavelength tangible. An RTL-SDR setup teaches you to hear the bands before you transmit on them.
Standard	Propagation, more advanced circuit theory, operating modes, VHF/UHF, digital modes	Assembling a QRP kit teaches you how a transceiver works from the inside out. Building a Yagi gives you a practical feel for gain and directivity.
Advanced	RF design, amplifiers, transmitter theory, electromagnetic compatibility, regulations	Homebrew transmitter and amplifier projects directly engage with the material examined at this level. SDR development builds deep signal-processing intuition.

If you are preparing for an assessment, consider pairing your study with a project from the list below. You will find the theory far easier to absorb — and far harder to forget.

Suggested Projects by Licence Level

Foundation Level

These projects are accessible to complete beginners and require no transmit licence to complete. They are ideal for anyone considering sitting the Foundation assessment, or for licensed Foundation operators wanting to build confidence.

• Simple wire dipole or inverted-V antenna — Learn about frequency, wavelength, feedlines, and SWR in a very practical way. A dipole for the 40m or 80m band can be built for a few dollars and strung between two trees.
• Crystal radio or AM receiver kit — One of the oldest projects in radio, and still one of the best for understanding how a receiver works. No power supply required — it runs on the energy of the received signal.
• RTL-SDR receive station — A low-cost USB dongle (around $30–$40) turns your computer into a wideband receiver covering roughly 25 MHz to 1.7 GHz. Explore the HF, VHF, and UHF bands, listen to aircraft (ADS-B), and get a feel for the radio spectrum.
• Weather satellite image reception — Using an RTL-SDR and free software, you can receive and decode live images from NOAA weather satellites passing overhead. No licence required to receive.
• APRS receive station — Set up a receive-only APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) station and watch local amateur radio operators, weather stations, and even the International Space Station appear on a map.

Standard Level

These projects suit Foundation licensees looking to upgrade, or Standard licensees wanting to develop their practical skills further.

• QRP transceiver kit (e.g., Pixie, uBITX, QCX) — Building a low-power CW or SSB transceiver kit is one of the classic amateur radio rites of passage. Kits like the QCX from QRP Labs are well-documented and produce a fully functional radio. You will learn about oscillators, mixers, filters, and amplifiers along the way.
• VHF/UHF Yagi antenna — A Yagi for 2m or 70cm can be built from aluminium tubing or even coat-hanger wire. Use it to work the VK3RGL repeater, chase satellites, or improve your signal on the weekly net.
• Portable "go-box" station — Build a self-contained portable station in a case or backpack, ready for Summits on the Air (SOTA), World Wide Flora & Fauna (WWFF), or emergency communications exercises. A great way to learn about power management, antenna deployment, and operating in the field.
• Digital modes station (FT8, JS8Call, Winlink) — Connect a radio to a Raspberry Pi or laptop and explore digital modes. FT8 in particular is remarkable for making contacts with very low power and modest antennas — a great confidence builder.
• 2m/70cm ground plane antenna — A simple vertical ground plane for VHF/UHF is a quick build that teaches you about vertical polarisation, radials, and impedance matching.

Advanced Level

These projects are suited to experienced operators looking for a serious technical challenge, or those preparing for the Advanced ACMA recognition certificate.

• Homebrew HF transceiver — Designing and building a complete HF transceiver from scratch is the ultimate amateur radio project. Start with a single-band CW rig and work up from there. Projects like the BITX40 or designs from ARRL publications are good starting points.
• Magnetic loop antenna — A tuned magnetic loop for HF is a compact, high-Q antenna well suited to restricted spaces. Building one teaches you about radiation resistance, Q factor, and high-voltage RF — all Advanced exam topics.
• Linear amplifier — Building a valve or solid-state HF amplifier involves RF power design, impedance matching, thermal management, and regulatory compliance. Not for the faint-hearted, but enormously educational.
• APRS digipeater or iGate — Set up a node that receives APRS packets and forwards them to the internet (iGate) or re-transmits them for wider coverage (digipeater). A great club infrastructure project.
• Club repeater controller — Design or modify a repeater controller, adding features such as CTCSS, courtesy tones, autopatch, or linking to other repeaters via EchoLink or AllStar.
• Software-defined radio (SDR) development — Go beyond the RTL-SDR dongle and explore platforms like the HackRF, LimeSDR, or GNU Radio. Implement your own receiver, transmitter, or signal processing chain in software.

Getting Involved

You do not have to work on projects alone. MERC meets every Friday evening at the 1st Keilor Village Scout Hall, Keilor, and members are always happy to help with a project, offer advice, or just admire your handiwork.

Bring your project along to a meeting — whether it is a half-finished kit, a question about an antenna, or a completed build you are proud of. We would love to see it.

If you have completed a project and would like to write it up for this wiki, please get in touch with the club. Sharing your experience helps other members learn and adds to the collective knowledge of the club.

Club Software & Code on GitHub

MERC maintains a public organisation account on GitHub at github.com/vk3fsk, where members share software, firmware, and other code-based projects. Whether you want to use a project as-is, adapt it for your own station, or contribute improvements, everything there is open source and free to use.

Repository	Description	Language
morsewalker-ozstyle	A CW pileup trainer supporting POTA, SST, and CWT operating modes, with beginner-friendly features including adjustable speeds and Farnsworth spacing. This is a fork of the upstream Morse Walker project, modified specifically for VK operating conditions.	JavaScript
arduino-FT991A-CAT-library	An Arduino library for controlling a Yaesu FT-991A transceiver via CAT (Computer Aided Transceiver) commands using the ASCII protocol. Useful for automation, logging integration, and homebrew station control projects.	C++
esp32-pixie-vfo	A simple HF VFO built around an ESP32 microcontroller, SI5351A clock generator, SH1106 OLED display, and a rotary encoder. Designed as a companion VFO for the Pixie QRP transceiver kit.	C++

If you have a project you would like to share with the club, or if you spot a bug or have an improvement to suggest, head over to the relevant repository and open an issue or pull request. New project repositories can be added to the organisation — speak to a committee member at a Friday night meeting.

Resources

• RTL-SDR Blog — Guides, tutorials, and hardware for getting started with software-defined radio.
• SOTA Maps — Find summits for Summits on the Air activations in VK3 and beyond.
• World Wide Flora & Fauna (WWFF) — Parks and nature reserves for portable operation.
• ARRL Handbook — The definitive reference for amateur radio construction and theory.