R-DCARE
Rural Digital Communications & Amateur Radio Education Programme
A 12-month practical amateur-radio education pilot taking reusable training equipment and hands-on learning to young people across Bangladesh.
Project overview
R-DCARE will deliver ten structured full-day workshops through education and youth settings in Bangladesh. Participants will learn by doing: exploring radio equipment, spectrum and software-defined radio, building and measuring antennas, understanding portable power and resilient communications, and practising safe and lawful operating procedures.
ARDC funding is focused on a reusable portable amateur-radio training equipment pool, not general office IT. The same equipment will travel to every workshop and remain available for continuing education after the grant.
LearningExperimentingDoingOpen AccessHands-on workshop model
Core learning
- Amateur-radio and digital-communications fundamentals
- Radio safety, ethics and lawful operating practice
- Stations, antennas, feedline, power and propagation
- Emergency/resilient communications awareness
Practical stations
- Receive-only SDR and spectrum visualisation
- Antenna construction and NanoVNA/SWR measurement
- Portable-station setup and power systems
- Digital modes / LoRa / APRS demonstrations where suitable
Reusable technical equipment
| Package | Purpose |
|---|---|
| HF/VHF/UHF station equipment | Operating, bands/modes, station setup and demonstrations. |
| Portable VHF/UHF radios | Small-group familiarisation and supervised practical activity. |
| SDR & digital equipment | Signal visualisation, receive-only experiments and digital communications. |
| Portable antennas & supports | Field setup, propagation concepts and repeatable multi-venue use. |
| Antenna-building materials | Build-test-learn practical activity. |
| RF test equipment | NanoVNA/SWR/impedance learning and antenna measurement. |
| Portable power | Field communications and power-system learning. |
Proposed locations
Ten hosts will be selected and confirmed in writing before delivery, prioritising safe delivery, geographic spread and economical travel clustering.
Mymensingh • Jamalpur/Melandah • Faridpur • Naogaon • Netrokona • Sherpur • Sylhet • Gazipur • Khulna, with comparable backup hosts if required.
ARDC request — US$7,684
Reference conversion used for this proposal: £1 = US$1.34994 on 13 August 2026. UK retail pricing, including Amazon UK where suitable, is used as a planning basis. Final procurement will use competitive checks and equivalent technical substitutions where appropriate.
| Budget item | USD |
|---|---|
| HF/VHF/UHF base & portable radio equipment | $1,750 |
| SDR & digital communications equipment | $500 |
| Antennas & portable antenna systems | $650 |
| Antenna-building materials & practical electronics | $450 |
| NanoVNA / SWR / RF test equipment | $300 |
| Portable power equipment | $350 |
| Coax, connectors, adapters, cables, tools & cases | $350 |
| UK → Dhaka shipping/freight | $450 |
| Import/customs/handling contingency | $250 |
| Part-time Project Coordinator | $800 |
| Technical trainers/facilitators | $550 |
| Bangladesh travel & equipment transport | $750 |
| Participant practical/learning materials | $250 |
| Local workshop assistance | $100 |
| Monitoring/evaluation/documentation | $100 |
| Communications/administration | $84 |
| Total | $7,684 |
How success will be measured
Open access & sustainability
Project-created curriculum, worksheets, presentation materials and non-sensitive learning outputs will be published free of charge under CC BY 4.0. Durable equipment will remain recorded in the Melandah Foundation asset register and will be used for future amateur-radio education, training and demonstrations.