4 Nov
2005
4 Nov
'05
10:32 a.m.
On 11/4/2005 at 10:30 AM woodelf wrote:
> The second point emphasizes on the
"digitalization" issue:
> in the near future there won't be any analogue AM or FM
> transmissions/transmitters any more; even SW band migrates
> to DRM now - so success won't be reached anymore with the a variable
> cap, a coil, a diode, a high-owmed head phone
> and a reasonable long wire as the antenna. Surely there will be high
> integrated circuit modules that decode all the stuff, but
> electronics hobby is not really interesting when reduced to adding a
> battery to a black box.
I hear you! I was a big SWL addict, but a lot of broadcasters have
discontinued SW broadcast in favor of satellite or internet feeds. I don't
blame them--SW is capricious at best when it comes to reception, but
deserting the SW broadcast bands is still pretty sad.
At home, since I'm hooked 24/7 to the net, I feed the same stuff (and more)
to the home FM receivers that I used to listen to on SW. Stereo, yet.
I've still got about a dozen tunnel diodes in my hellbox that I've never
used. Maybe it's time to build a little receiver using one just for the
heck of it.
Somewhat related, there's an interesting site that talks about building
your own negative-resistance devices from odds and ends:
http://home.earthlink.net/~lenyr/
Cheers,
Chuck