ham radio

New in the Maker Shed: Telegraph Decoder and Calculator Kits from Spikenzie Labs

New in the Maker Shed: Telegraph Decoder and Calculator Kits from Spikenzie Labs

Spikenzie Labs has a reputation for making innovative, wonderfully designed kits and their new Telegraph Decoder and Calculator Kits are no exception! Both are available now in the Maker Shed.

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Explore the Airwaves with Weekend Projects

Explore the Airwaves with Weekend Projects

Build a completely batteryless AM radio receiver, and explore the airwaves with Weekend Projects. This radio only requires a few hours to assemble, and you’ll be able to tune in to transmissions within a range of around 25 miles.

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Tesla Special Event Ham Radio Stations, November 5th

Tesla Special Event Ham Radio Stations, November 5th

November 5, 2011 is the 66th anniversary of the first FM transmission in 1935 from Yonkers, NY, by Carmen “Randy” Runyon W2XAG. On Saturday, a network of Tesla special event ham radio stations will be on the air helping to raise awareness of the effort to purchase the Wardencyffe laboratory and restore it into a science museum.

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Manhattan-Style Circuit in a Copper Cladding Chassis

Manhattan-Style Circuit in a Copper Cladding Chassis

Yesterday, we posted about a technique used in ham radio to solder together project boxes/radio chassis using PCB copper cladding. Some folks, in comments and on the twitters, were wondering how well this works. Take a look.

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Impressive Tuner Coil

Impressive Tuner Coil

Craig Smith of Firefly Workshop (South Milwaukee, WI) With my crystal radio projects, I recently made a dual coil variometer tuner. Connected to a diode, crystal earphone, antenna & ground wires (no batteries) I tuned in 1540 KXCL Waterloo Iowa from 270 miles away here in Milwaukee. The coils were wound on a segment of […]

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Morse For The Hard-Core: Replace Your Keyboard with a Key

Morse For The Hard-Core: Replace Your Keyboard with a Key

Here’s a fairly radical way to motivate yourself to learn Morse, from Australian Ben Buxton. Got to agree with tipster Alan Dove, who described the build as, “a project involving Arduino programming, a mint tin, a USB interface, and International Morse Code, resulting in unassailable geek cred.” The USB key interface is built into a mint tin and provides a dual input port for a standard USB keyboard to access non-Morse characters. A numeric display on the tin displays your coding speed, and tapping out “SOS” without letter spaces brings up the settings menu. Software, schematics, and build notes at Ben’s site. [Thanks, Alan!]

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