Radio Communication Electronics

Radio Communication Electronics

Whether you like to collect vintage radio electronics or you want to tune into world band broadcasts, there's sure to be something that will work for your needs. You might want to acquire a powerful solid-state receiver and then build your own antenna, or you might want to restore an older two-way system by individually checking each vacuum tube. There's no end to the fun you can have when you start to build your collection of radio electronics.

This means that you can receive transmissions on the 400-470MHz band without any additional equipment. Some ham-radio repeater stations operate on the 70cm band, which falls inside 400-470MHz. You'll also find interesting transmissions from other wireless services that share these frequencies. Since it's located in the UHF segment of the electromagnetic spectrum, this band has an extremely low noise floor. That helps stations operating on it to overcome natural as well as artificial interference.

If you're interested in listening to local radio communication but don't know where to start, then you might want to take a look at police scanners. Scanners let you listen in on local police, fire, and railroad telecommunications. Look for one that supports digital and trunking transmissions. These will let you listen to services that alter the method they modulate radio waves with.

Wireless communication can be tuned to any frequency, but there are specific legal and technical restrictions that prevent different communication services from transmitting on top of each other. Each communication service is restricted to a frequency band to preserve order at all times. Some of the more common communication bands include:

• Long, Medium, and Short AM Broadcast Bands
• Air & Marine Bands
• FM Broadcast Band
• Citizens' Band
• Unlicensed Radio Control Spectrum

Advances in miniature electronics have made it possible to communicate while in a motor vehicle. Mobile transceiver equipment fits inside of a car or truck to let people inside communicate with the outside world. Members of the ham-radio community can also use mobile amateur-radio transmitters. Police and fire services have their own bands for this purpose. If you're carrying a two-way radio around while you're walking, then this is correctly called portable rather than mobile operation even though the principle is essentially the same.

RF refers to any electrical usage of natural radio-frequency resources. Anything that puts out any kind of signal or uses any kind of transistor to receive a signal uses RF. It's a broad category that includes almost any kind of electromagnetic equipment. Whether you're collecting Motorola transceivers that use CTCSS tones or simple RC cars, you're still collecting RF equipment in a manner of speaking.