Category: Communications & Receivers

(Continued from Part 2.  This concludes the article.) In Part 1 and Part 2, we hit a few of the “How it works” or “Why it works” stuff.  Proven by experience, or our family ham antenna business would have failed immediately.  So, what do you have laying around the house, farm, garage – that can be turned into a high performance antenna for just listening? In the basement / garage, Metallic stuff, old copper pipe that burst from freezing, Telephone wire, cable TV wire, Ethernet cable (4,6,8 strand stuff), Iron pipe… will work, again not as good. Old extension cords! …

(Continued from  Part 1.) A typical Trucker’s dual-mount CB antenna has 2 coaxes down to one connection to the radio.  We want the signal from both antennas, unified exactly for a nice strong signal / in phase voltage pulse, into the radio. Because the antennas are on the sides, like mirror mounts, the strongest, best signal (in phase), will come from the front and rear of the truck, while signals from either side, will cancel each other out (a little bit). The same thing happens with our Vertical antennas, 2-3-4-5-6-7-8 of them.  We want to get rid of the noise …

As an introduction, I started building Vertical & Yagi Beam antennas in the early 1980s for CB radio.  When the FCC dropped the ‘Morse Code’ requirement in 2007, many ‘tone deaf’ people like myself, transitioned to ham radio. My entire family are either General or Extra Class hams.  Having this license and operating ability is an essential ‘Life Skill’, like the ability to read, write and speak the native language. No tool is useful, in unskilled hands – unless you’re planning on selling/bartering it away, right?  Our family and I have taught Technician, General, and Extra classes – but, none …

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) In a previous article I had described a possible need for having some form of radio communications receiver in a TEOTWAWKI situation. It is just good policy to have something you can hide, run on very low voltage, and in the case of this radio, a battery that you can recharge using a solar panel to generate a charge into a battery bank. This radio is an AM receiver set only. However, the chip set can work at much higher shortwave (SW) frequencies and I am researching the possibility of using it …

Introductory Note: I purchased this kit for this article and I do not represent the Elenco Company. They have not paid me or provided any materiel for writing this article. This article is a review on the Elenco Model AM-780K AM radio kit. It was designed for students in an electronics lab class, and when I was working on my associate’s degree in Electronics Engineering the college I was attending issued us both the AM radio kit from this company as well as the AM/FM version of it. The knowledge I want to pass on here is that should you …

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Once you have cut, stripped, and made the proper ring terminal connections to the wires, then the  next job is to solder them to the various locations as required; this will involve soldering the 6.0” wire and two other wires twisted together as one wire onto the variable capacitor of the kit. I used a dab of Kester 186 solder flux on the wires before I tinned them and then after I crimped the wires onto the terminals, I put a very small drop of the flux on the crimp connection and …

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Some Additional Notes

Introductory Disclaimer: I have not been paid for writing this article, and I own the radio being reviewed. Scenario: The world has gone mad, it is now TEOTWAWKI and it’s just not a pretty picture folks. And if that wasn’t bad enough, what with the power grid being down, looters and such, and some bozo declaring martial law effectively shutting down all radio, internet, and anything capable of receiving any information except what “THEY” want you to hear … hard to imagine? If you can find a holocaust survivor, or anyone who lived during WWII ask them if that sounds …