Weekly Net

Check-ins from the Weekly ARPSC Net

LIVE - Auto-updating every 10 seconds
Primary Repeater - WA8MAC
Callsign
TX Frequency
147.800 MHz
RX Frequency
147.200 MHz
Tone (PL)
100.0 Hz
AllStar Node
28277
HOIP Extension
15088
Mount Clemens (Voting RX in Warren & Richmond)
Check-In Summary
20
Total Check-Ins
10
Cities Represented
Last Updated
8:58:29 PM
Check-In List
20 stations
# Call Sign Name City Report 1 Report 2 Report 3
1 KE8WUO John Warren
2 N8WRO Tim Richmond
3 26/N8CAF Cliff Clinton Township
4 W8BPD Brian Warren
5 38/N8KJV Jason Warren
6 35/AD8MP David Saint Clair Shores
7 43/KE8RUH Anthony Grosse Pointe Woods
8 K8WA Bill Warren
9 KF8ETQ Darren Fraser
10 7/W8FU Sean Warren
11 41/KF8FQZ Lisa Warren
12 2/N8VDZ Mike Warren
13 6/N8WCB Dave Sterling Heights
14 KC8KJO Tom Memphis
15 N8HLY Tom Sterling Heights
16 KF8DRC Jack Rochester
17 WC8E Jeff Sterling Heights
18 N8XZ Ron Warren
19 KD8SFZ Donald Fraser
20 W8VD Wally New Baltimore
Check-Ins by City
1 Clinton Township
2 Fraser
1 Grosse Pointe Woods
1 Memphis
1 New Baltimore
1 Richmond
1 Rochester
1 Saint Clair Shores
3 Sterling Heights
8 Warren
This Week's Question

“What is one ham-radio-related thing you’re currently learning, researching, or planning to play with next?”

What's On Your Bench? — What We're Learning, Researching, and Tinkering With Next

Why Share What We're Learning?

You'll Learn Faster

Saying it out loud forces you to organize what you actually know. Three minutes of explaining your project will surface the gaps quicker than three hours of YouTube.

Someone Else Has Done It

Whatever you're trying, someone in this group has the part, the cable, the ugrade, or the war story. Tonight is when you find out who.

It Keeps the Hobby Alive

New operators stick around when they see other hams trying new things. Sharing your “what's next” is a quiet recruiting tool for the whole hobby.


Stuck for an Answer? Here's an Idea Menu

If “what are you working on?” makes you blank for a second, here are some directions other hams have been heading lately. Pick one that sounds interesting — that's probably your “next thing”.

HF Digital Modes

FT8, FT4, JS8Call, VarAC. Worldwide contacts on a wire and a few watts — perfect for crowded RF environments and modest antennas.

Satellites & the ISS

FM birds with an Arrow antenna, packet on the ISS, or experimenting with cubesats. Great way to make a contact while standing in your backyard.

POTA / SOTA

Parks On The Air and Summits On The Air. Pack a radio, a battery, and a wire antenna; head to a state park; rack up contacts. Cheap, fun, healthy, addictive.

SDR & Software Receivers

RTL-SDR, SDRplay, KiwiSDR, Web-based remote receivers. Listen worldwide for less than the price of a pizza, and learn DSP along the way.

Mesh / AREDN

High-speed amateur data networking using repurposed Wi-Fi gear. Useful for ARES/ARPSC deployments and just plain cool to watch link up across town.

Winlink & Packet

Email and structured forms over RF. Bread-and-butter skill for EmComm, and surprisingly satisfying to see a message hit a server from your kitchen table.

CW (Morse Code)

Yes, still alive and thriving. Apps like CW Academy, Morse Mania, and LCWO make it easier than ever to start. Twenty minutes a day and you'll surprise yourself.

Antenna Building

End-fed half-waves, J-poles, mag loops, hex beams, beverages. The cheapest dB-per-dollar upgrade in the hobby is almost always a new antenna.

APRS & Tracking

Position reporting, weather telemetry, balloon and rocket payloads, messaging on 144.390. A great low-effort way to keep RF in the air.

Pi-Powered Stations

Raspberry Pi as an AllStar / IRLP node, a digital hotspot (DMR/D-STAR/YSF), a Winlink RMS gateway, an SDR server, or a full headless WSJT-X rig. Endless rabbit holes here.

Contesting & Awards

ARRL Field Day, Sweepstakes, state QSO parties, DXCC, Worked All States. Pick a goal, chase it, learn an enormous amount about propagation along the way.

Fox Hunting / RDF

Body-fade with an HT, Yagis, attenuators, loops — track down hidden transmitters or stuck mics. ARPSC has a hunt scheduled at Stony Creek; come out and play.


When Net Control Calls on You

Keep it short, keep it real. There's no “impressive enough” floor — if you're learning it, it counts. A great answer hits three quick beats:

What it is

“I'm trying to get into FT8” — one sentence, plain English.

Why now

What pulled you in — a YouTube video, a friend, a hamfest find, a curiosity?

Where you're stuck

Your one open question. That's where the rest of the net can help.


This Week's Action Item

Before next Thursday's net, pick one of the things you heard tonight and take a single concrete step toward it. The bar is low on purpose:

  • Watch one ten-minute YouTube intro on a mode you don't know
  • Download an SDR or digital-mode app and just let it run for an evening
  • Order a single $20 part you've been putting off — an antenna, a cable, a kit
  • Find one person on tonight's net and message them about their project
  • Sketch the antenna you keep thinking about — just on paper
  • Look up the next POTA park within 30 minutes of your house

Where to Start Digging

Some launchpads for the most common “what's next” answers we hear on the net. Bookmark a few and come back to them on a rainy Saturday.

WSJT-X (FT8 / FT4)

The official site for the most popular HF digital modes — downloads, manuals, and source.

wsjt.sourceforge.io
Parks On The Air

Find a park, log activations and chases, see what's on the air right now.

parksontheair.com
AMSAT

Satellites, frequencies, pass predictions, and getting started on the FM birds.

amsat.org
RTL-SDR Blog

The de-facto starting point for affordable software-defined radio on Windows, Mac, Linux, or a Raspberry Pi.

rtl-sdr.com
Winlink Global Radio Email

Email over RF for EmComm and ARES/ARPSC. Software, RMS gateway list, and getting-started guides.

winlink.org
Learn CW Online (LCWO)

Free, browser-based Morse code training. Twenty minutes a day, character by character — no app store required.

lcwo.net
AREDN Mesh

High-speed amateur radio data networking using off-the-shelf hardware. Big EmComm potential.

arednmesh.org
ARRL On The Air

ARRL's beginner-friendly magazine and articles — great survey of what to try next.

arrl.org
APRS.fi

Live map of APRS traffic. Watch the local area for an evening and you'll spot a project worth copying.

aprs.fi
About This Data

This data is pulled live from the official ARPSC Net Log spreadsheet. Data updates automatically every 10 seconds during active nets.