Experimenters’ Corner

Experimenters’ Corner is a RadCom column that was introduced in November 2025. It is written by RSGB Board Director Mark Jones, G0MGX. The column covers everything from home-brew construction techniques and 3D printing to software development and cost-saving tips.

You’ll find a summary of each column below. RSGB members can view each article by clicking on the month.

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March 2026

Mark Jones, G0GMX has built and tested many different designs and configurations of antennas. He admits he’s no expert but has no hesitation in putting new things to the test. He presents a “bodger’s antenna experiment” in a bid to encourage fellow radio amateurs to try something new. It is, he says, “part of the fun of our great hobby”.

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February 2026

Having written in his previous column (January 2026) about his experience of using a frequency counter on an ST Microelectronics (STM) ‘discovery’ board as an introduction to low-cost boards available from STM, Mark Jones, G0MGX takes a more detailed look at low-cost touchscreens from the Chinese manufacturer Elecrow.

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January 2026

Created only six years ago to aid communication during hobbies where reliable internet is unavailable, Meshtastic is a long-range, low-power mesh network that allows users to send text messages and location data over private networks without Wi-Fi, mobile networks or the internet. There are videos aplenty on YouTube showing how to create a Meshtastic node using low-cost boards. However, Mark  has been experimenting with an alternative way to create a node. He assesses the results.

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December 2025

After building a project to receive telemetry packets from TinyGS low Earth orbit satellites, Mark takes a more detailed look at the modulation and constructs an experimental transmitter and receiver to send text between the two. For the project, he presents a simple experimenter’s Arduino project using an original Arduino Uno board and the Adafruit RFM95W transceiver to make a Tx/Rx pair of LoRa modules.

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November 2025

The TinyGS ground station application is an attractive start-up project for anyone looking to experiment and find out more about the technology associated with the LoRa modulation standard. In his inaugural column, Mark delves into LoRa’s background, looks at examples of its use in amateur radio and other areas and explains how to set up your own TinyGS project at home.

If you have suggestions for topics that you would like Mark to include in Experimenters’ Corner, please email them to g0mgx@rsgb.org.uk