Archives for January 2018

As promised this blog will share a lot of failures in 2018 as I embark on my quest to understand radio.  I want to understand through building, testing, and measuring.  I want to be able to understand what is happening in a schematic and why a particular circuit might be better suited for different applications.  I want to understand what a 2N2222 is and why its different from a 2N3904.  I am hoping a few readers along the way join me in this adventure of building and learning.

OK — now that the disclaimer is out-of-the-way you might ask yourself, but where should I begin?  I mean I don’t even have a junk box!

Good question.  Me neither!  The moment I realized that this could be overcome was after listening to Bill Meara (N2CQR) and Pete Juliano (N6QW) on the SolderSmoke podcast #201.  Bill encourages his audience to build a receiver that uses a ceramic resonator and states that he will do a blog series on the steps.  Here is step one where he lists all the parts you should buy a quantity of to start your junk box.  These parts are also used to complete the project.  I reached out to Bill to say thanks for the inspiration.  He forwarded my message to Pete who suggested this post when looking for parts to start a junk box.

But where do I order all these parts from?

Mouser,  Ebay,  Digikey, and Diz the Toroid King are all good sources.  I like Mouser because they are local.  While my order isn’t keeping anyone employed really. . . It feels good to support a local business.  Diz is the place to get toroids.  I also like to go to a local electronics shop called Tanner’s.  They don’t do web orders, but its a great store in person!  A modern-day, well run, old school radio shack style store.

I’ve ordered a bunch of copper clad board, capacitors, resistors, transistors, diodes, LM 386, NE602, NE555 timers, etc.  I’m now waiting for them all to arrive and then the building shall begin.

More to come. . .