Why clubs matter to the work.
Community Frequency is built around a simple idea: much of what makes amateur radio useful, experimental, and resilient comes from the people who practice the hobby together.
Amateur radio has always been a community hobby.
Clubs bring operators together to learn, experiment, build equipment, solve problems, share experience, and help one another become better radio operators.
That community matters especially when the work moves beyond simply operating a radio. New ideas, field experiments, unusual propagation, antenna work, emergency communications, digital modes, and other practical research are often explored by amateurs themselves — with knowledge passed between clubs and their members.
Where Community Frequency fits
Community Frequency is an independent research project looking at whether affordable, low-power mesh communications can help connect rural and geographically isolated communities in Peru where conventional communications infrastructure may be limited.
The technical work is focused on mesh communications, including Meshtastic and MeshCore. The project is using amateur-radio knowledge, field experimentation, and community experience to investigate a real-world problem.
The Peru 2026 mission is the first major research step. The detailed mission objectives and field plan are documented separately on the Peru 2026 page.
Why we are talking to radio clubs
Clubs are more than places to meet. They are repositories of practical knowledge.
A member who has spent years working with antennas may see something we missed. Someone experienced with propagation may suggest a better test. Another operator may have worked with emergency communications, solar power, portable stations, digital modes, or difficult terrain. Someone else may simply ask the question that changes the experiment.
That kind of collective experience is valuable research input.
How a club can participate
Share knowledge
Advice on RF, antennas, propagation, power, digital communications, Meshtastic, MeshCore, field testing, and experimental design can directly improve the research.
Share equipment
Loaners, evaluation hardware, antennas, batteries, GPS/GNSS equipment, tools, or other useful field gear can help us test more thoroughly without unnecessarily increasing project costs.
Share experience and connections
Connections to people involved in rural communications, emergency communications, community projects, Indigenous communities, international field work, or related technical research can open doors that equipment alone cannot.
Help us think critically
Perhaps the most useful contribution is an experienced operator willing to challenge an assumption, identify a weakness in a test, or point out something the project should measure.
The goal is useful evidence
Community Frequency is not trying to produce an impressive demonstration simply because a radio link can be made to work.
The research needs to determine whether a system can be reliable, affordable, low-power, practical to deploy, usable by people who are not radio engineers, maintainable locally, appropriate for the terrain, and useful for the community's actual needs.
A result that shows a technology does not meet those requirements is still useful research.
Support the research
Community Frequency is an independent project, and equipment and field work have real costs. If you or your club would like to help support the Peru 2026 research mission, you can contribute through the project's GoFundMe.
Want to share this with your club?
We prepared a short reference presentation that can be downloaded and used when introducing Community Frequency to club members. It contains the Peru 2026 problem, research objectives, equipment target, ways a club can help, and funding information.
Download the Club Presentation (PDF)
The PDF is designed for reliable viewing across phones, tablets, computers, and presentation software without depending on the fonts or editable slide layouts used to create it.
Community Frequency · People Connected Further.