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...

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...

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...

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,...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Very high frequency (VHF) radios work on a premise of reception known as line of sight. Line of sight is the ability of the radio to receive signals in a straight line depending on the environment...

Shortwave radio is still alive and kicking. Because shortwave bounces off the upper atmosphere rather than slicing through it, shortwave broadcasts in theory can reach locations around the world....

The government has not issued a mandatory switch over from analog to digital for radio stations, but you can still take advantage of it by getting a digital FM radio. Analog FM was invented by...

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) grants licenses to hobbyists allowing transmission of radio waves for personal, non-commercial use. These licensed amateurs are called ham radio...

It's easy and inexpensive to build a home made antenna for the fm radio band. If you have the simple two wire connection on your radio then this antenna will work fine. The lengths are not...

All sound energy is in the form of a wave. The frequency of a wave is the measurement of the number of cycles that it undergoes in a given time frame. Hertz is a measurement of frequency that...

Build a radio that needs no artificial power source. You use the natural power of radio waves to power your radio, and you can easily construct your own homemade radio in your home, office or...

A shortwave radio is similar to an AM/FM radio in that it has a tuner knob or digital tuner keypad. You can sometimes play with the tuner until you find something you like. Oftentimes, however,...