Hello and welcome to my website! If you’ve stumbled here, then you must be at least somewhat interested in radio electronics. Radio has been a passion of mine for many years, and since joining the hobby my main goal was to be able to design and build my own equipment from scratch. Unfortunately, finding the necessary information and knowledge proved to be quite a challenge. The information was there, but scattered among countless websites, technical PDFs, and textbooks. Every question I got answered led to even more questions. I delved deeper and deeper in RF design theory, and eventually I could start making sense of designs I found in the ham literature, understanding what each component was there for.
Its always bugged me not being able to fully understand a certain circuit I would find on the internet or a kit I would buy from a fellow ham. I always needed to know why each component was used, and I became frustrated when I couldn’t make sense of the design. In the younger days of radio, hams were not only great operators, they also built their own equipment and advanced the radio arts. I want to recapture that spirit, and learn the ins and outs of my equipment. Fewer hams are interested in the more technical side of ham radio today, and that is understandable. The switch to integrated circuitry and surface mount components has made it very hard for hobbyists to keep up. The equipment required to make use of these components is more complex and expensive. Furthermore, the skills needed to design a radio with today’s technology have also changed. All-analog designs, with variable capacitors and bulky inductors are a thing of the past. Today’s radios not only require analog theory, but also software programming, micro-controllers, and digital circuit design.
The breadth of knowledge required is intimidating, and its easy to see why most hams either don’t bother with the technical matters, or mostly stick to proven decades-old analog designs. There is nothing wrong with that approach, and rebuilding old designs is a fun, educational experience. It’s great to see circuits designed by hams or RF engineers decades ago still live on today, their creations being built by newer generations of curious hobbyists. Our radio history is something to be cherished, and studying and rebuilding old designs is a part of amateur radio.
That said, it would be tragic not to take advantage of the great technological advances we’ve had in the past few decades regarding radio technology. Amateur radio was always at the forefront of technological advances, and while today these technological advances are mostly made in corporate and public research labs, we still have the possibility to use these tools in new and exciting ways, pushing the boundaries of our hobby. Things like Software Defined Radio, Direct Digital Synthesis, and Digital Signal Processing offer so much potential for our craft.
My goal with this website is to present nearly everything you need to know to design and build your own receivers and transmitters from scratch, using today’s technology. I am building the website I wish I had when I started out, starting with simple semiconductor theory, to full fledged transceiver design. A small disclaimer here, while I have compiled a good deal of information so far that I aim to publish as soon as possible, there is still a lot I need to learn. This is a living blog, and everything I learn I will try and create a simple, well-explained article on it.