Personal Radios

Modern radios typically contain two antennas. The FM antenna is the metal rod that extends and swivels. The AM antenna is normally inside the radio. An AM antenna is made up of wire wrapped into a...

Professionals and amateurs have used a uniform set of procedures for non-commercial radio communication since the early 20th century. These procedures are in place to improve the overall efficacy...

Electricity is an omnipresent force in modern life; an invisible force that is always there powering our homes and machines, improving the productivity of our daily lives. Made up of a series of...

Duracell is a well-known American battery-maker with a quality reputation. Their product line embraces a variety of battery sizes aimed at meeting the requirements of almost any personal...

C. Crane, based in Fortuna, California, has been operating for 30 years. Its radio product line includes AM/FM, shortwave, Wi-Fi Internet and High definition (HD). The AM reception on the...

Replacing damaged speakers is a great way to extend the life of an old radio or update its sound. Speakers generate sound through the vibration of the speaker cone, and even if the speaker is not...

One of the bad things about advances in audio and video technology is that you have to repurchase your entire library of songs or videos when the next generation of technology appears. If you...

There are a couple different styles of electronic book readers out there. The types of screens used and how the books are purchased and added to the electronic book reader are some of the...

The citizen band (CB) radio, which uses frequencies between shortwave and the 10-meter amateur bands, was established by law in 1949. The "RF Gain" control on a CB radio allows you to adjust the...

How many times have you driven someplace new and wanted to hear a particular kind of music? The problem is you don't know where to look. Scanning through the entire FM radio spectrum can be...

Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the radio frequency between 300 megahertz and 3 gigahertz (3,000 megahertz) or from 1 to 10 decimeters (10 centimeter to 1 meter). UHF is most widely known as the...

The internet these days offers many internet radio stations where you can listen to your favorite music. Internet radio stations like Pandora, lastfm and imeem have become very popular because...

It is difficult to go through a day without seeing something powered by a battery, including our cars and wristwatches. Two types of batteries are quite common in the consumer market: the AA...

The Delphi MyFi is the result of a joint effort by XM Satellite Radio and the Delphi Corporation to create a devise whereby XM subscribers could listen to satellite radio virtually anywhere...

Shortwave radio is a fascinating hobby where a listener (DX'er) can pick up radio broadcasts from the other side of the world. While many of today's shortwave radios have decent antennas and can...

When a weather emergency occurs, having up-to-date information is critical. Knowing what has happened, what areas are affected and where to go for help are important. The U.S. government operates...

AM radio broadcasting uses amplitude modulation. Because of AM radio's low frequency and clarity, it mainly broadcasts news, talk radio and sports shows. AM radio signals are disrupted by tall,...

A NOAA radio can help keep you safe in severe weather. Although the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does not endorse a particular brand, the Midland WR-100 weather radio receives...

Fine-tuning the reception of an FM radio station is, thankfully, much easier than doing the same for an AM radio signal. Making a homemade FM antenna is a process that's both easy and cheap.

One of the disadvantages of using a stand-alone scanner radio is that you have to be within radio reception range of the transmitter. Well, what if you want to hear police, fire or other...

When a sound is first played, it is picked up by a microphone and translated into a sine wave that represents the sound. The carrier waves start out with no information inscribed in them until...

The Hallicrafters Company produced some of the most desirable amateur communication radios of the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Hallicrafters produced the classic SX-28, SX-42 and SX-101 communication...

In the world of sound design, Fisher stereos loom large. Fisher Radio produced high-end stereo receivers that utilized state-of-the-art technology and beckoned the era of high-fidelity sound.

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are boards made of insulating material. These boards are designed with electrical conductors on their surface. The greater portion of the board, being insulation, is...

The way to make energy from a vacuum tube is by solar heating. Sunlight can be converted into heat energy using a vacuum tube. The sunlight enters through a glass enclosure, past a vacuum layer,...

A listening device may be perfect for individuals who have trouble hearing in certain situations--church, sporting events or other group gatherings, for example--but don't want to wear hearing...

It is probably a good estimate to say that millions of trips to the mailbox a day are wasted throughout the U.S. and other countries because the mail has not yet arrived. For those of us who need...

If you are looking to enhance your home sound system, then upgrading to 7.1 surround sound may be a suitable option. 7.1 surround sound best serves those who are looking to get that real life...

Scanning arbitrarily to discover active frequencies can provide you with hours of fun. However, one of the most useful features of a scanner is the device's ability to quickly allow you to get up...

Family Radio Service (FRS) frequencies don't require any kind of service fee or license. The radios can be used anywhere in the US and also other areas. The radios themselves are cheap and easy to...

The Roger Beep is also sometimes called the Talk Confirmation Tone or End-of-Transmit Tone. It's the beep the Family Radio Service (FRS) device makes when it finishes transmitting. It is carried...

A scanner is a radio frequency-receiving device designed to pick up noncommercial broadcasts, like public safety--fire, police and ambulance; weather forecasts broadcast by the National Weather...

Radio communication is among the easiest forms of communication to produce and can be the most useful method of communication in times of area-wide trouble. The phenomenon has been with us for...

In 1956, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to three American Physicists, Walter Houser Brattain, John Bardeen, and William Bradford Shockley. These physicists designed the first transistor in 1947,...

A VHF radio is a two-way radio that is often used on watercraft to send and receive messages. It operates on a high frequency and is sometimes used in satellite communication. Problems can occur...

Radio communication is the process by which radio signals are produced, processed, and then transmitted to a radio unit. Radio communication derives its roots from the telegraph machine, when in...

A transistor is made of at least three external terminals on a piece of semiconducting material. The three terminals are labeled as the base (b), collector (c) and emitter (e). The most important...

Communication using radio waves has been possible and popular since Guglielmo Marconi's invention of the first practical radio transmitter and receiver in 1895. Although in many ways, radio...

Much of the world is still not wired for the Internet and is far enough away from cellular towers that digital cellular data communications are either unavailable or unreliable. And satellite data...

Cassette tapes consist of a thin plastic film (tape) that is coated with thousands of microscopic magnets. When a blank tape is produced, the magnets on the tape are oriented in a random mix of...

A first-generation Dell Digital Jukebox Music Player is available in two sizes: 15 MB, and 20 MB. Aside from its simplicity and lightness in design, it also has the capacity to store a wide range...

HD Radio is a digital version of traditional radio stations. Whereas radio stations are typically transmitted in an analog format, HD radio enables stations to broadcast their signal digitally,...

Bluetooth can be an easy way to transmit music from your MP3 player or cell phone directly to your car stereo without using wires. A Bluetooth car stereo can also sometimes let you receive phone...

Solar powered shortwave radios are a convenient and Earth friendly way to stay connected with what is going on locally. These radios enable you to play them without having to use sources of energy...

During WWII, hundreds of soldiers were stuck in trenches and foxholes. To pass the time and to get information, the soldiers came up with brilliantly simple methods of constructing radios that...

Yaesu hand-held scanners are used by ham radio users. Following these steps, you can program one of the most common Yaesu models, the VX-170 radio/scanner. With the vast array of scanners and...

The radio's playing your favorite song, but before long, you just want to pick it up and toss it at the wall. The reason? You can't hear the song because of the static! Static is one of the...

In the early 1990s, British inventor Trevor Baylis saw a television program about the spread of AIDS in Africa. The program discussed halting the spread of the disease through educational radio...

The purpose of a radio frequency (RF) modulator is to manipulate information encoded onto a carrier wave. Many of our technological gadgets--like video cameras, radios, and televisions--can...

People have been enjoying the sounds from stereo systems for years, most likely without giving a thought as to what that means or how long it has been around.