Build Your Own Transistor Radios A Hobbyist's Guide to High-Performance and Low-Powered Radio Circuits

A do-it-yourself collection of innovative, high-quality projects for electronics enthusiasts Build Your Own Transistor Radiospushes the envelope of DIY radio designs. Ronald Quan, an electronics engineer with more than 65 patents, presents a range of projects, suitable for advanced beginners and more experienced engineers, that go far beyond the standard crystal sets of the past. This book covers traditional radios -- TRF (Tuned Radio Frequency), reflex, regenerative, and super-heterodyne topologies as well as front-end circuit designs for SDR (Software Defined Radio), the emerging future standard for radio technology. Using widely available materials and the book's easy-to-follow plans, you can make radios that run for years on a single battery (even an organic "potato" battery or minimal solar cell array). Other projects include simple TRFs with enhanced reception performance; reflex radios that amplify both audio and radio frequency signals in a single unit; a "green" superheterodyne receiver, comparable in quality to commercially manufactured sets, but with vastly extended battery life; and other high-performance, low-power-consumption designs. Provides practical circuits for the hobbyist that use easily available off-the-shelf parts Bridges theoretical knowledge with intuitive explanations and practical examples Presents explanations of circuit designs and an introduction to signal theory--no advanced math training necessary! Gives alternative circuitry choices and recommended parts hacks Covers fundamental radio circuit design principles you can apply to other radio types, such as ham, shortwave, and longwave Comprehensive coverage: Overview of Various Radio Circuits; Calibration Tools and Generators for Testing; Parts and Improvised/Hacked Parts for Building the Radios; Building Simple Test Oscillators and Modulators; A Low Power TRF Radio; Reflex Radios; Low Power Regenerative Radios; Superhet Radios; A Low Power Superhet Radio; Exotic Superhet Radios; Inductorless Radios; Software Defined Radio Circuits; Oscillator Circuits; Mixer Circuits and Harmonic Mixers; Sampling Theory and Sampling Mixers; IQ Signals; IF Circuits; Detector/AVC Circuits; Amplifier Circuits; Resonant Circuits and Band Pass Filters; Image Rejection; Noise

Ch 1. Overview of Various Radio Circuits
Ch 2. Calibration Tools and Generators for Testing
Ch 3. Parts and Improvised/Hacked Parts for building the radios
Ch 4. Building Simple Test Oscillators and Modulators
Ch 5. A Low Power TRF radio
Ch 6. Reflex radios
Ch 7. Low Power Regenerative Radios
Ch 8. Superhet Radios
Ch 9. A Low Power Superhet Radio
Ch 10. Exotic Superhet Radios
Ch 11. Inductorless Radios
Ch 12. Software Defined Radio Circuits
Ch 13. Oscillator Circuits
Ch 14. Mixer Circuits and Harmonic Mixers
Ch 15. Sampling Theory and Sampling Mixers
Ch 16. IQ signals
Ch 17. IF Circuits
Ch 18. Detector/AVC circuits
Ch 19. Amplifier Circuits
Ch 20. Resonant Circuits and Band Pass Filters
Ch 21. Image Rejection
Ch 22. Noise
Ch 23. Learning by doing