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Contains information about building a small radio transmitter, which has a PCB 1.75" x 2.5" (45mm x 68 mm) and has a range of about 30 yards or so. The documentation with the circuit says the freq range is 100-108 MHz, but I have found it to be more like 85-100 MHz.... [read more]

Is the battery empty, or is there something wrong with the device? That’s always a difficult question when your walkman or some other battery-powered device appears to be dead when you switch it on. Before you take it to the shop for servicing, the first thing you should do is to test the battery or batteries. Of course, this means you need a reliable battery tester, but it also means you can limit the damage to the cost of a battery or two and a one-time investment of time and money in building a suitable tester.... [read more]

The losses in a bridge rectifier can easily become significant when low voltages are being rectified. The voltage drop across the bridge is a good 1.5 V, which is a hefty 25% with an input voltage of 6V. The loss can be reduced by around 50% by using Schottky diodes, but it would naturally be even nicer to reduce it to practically zero. That’s possible with a synchronous rectifier. What that means is using an active switching system instead of a ‘passive’ bridge rectifier.... [read more]

This simple circuit tests speakers, microphones, transformers and voltage. It's basically a very low frequency oscillator that produces extremely short 'fruity' pulses. The type of sound produced is very easy to hear and to determine the precise direction it is coming from, thus making it ideal for checking the phasing in multiple speaker installations. It is also very useful for car stereo installations as well as public address systems where it can drive dozens of speakers directly on a 100V or 70V line system.... [read more]

The amplifier's gain is nominally 20 dB. Its frequency response is determined primarily by the value of just a few components-primarily C1 and R1. The values of the schematic diagram provide a response of ±3.0 dB from about 120 Hz to better than 20,000 Hz.Actually, the frequency response is ruler flat from about 170 Hz to well over 20,000 Hz; it's the low end that deviates from a flat frequency response.... [read more]

A very simple device allowing a quick check of common Infra-red Remote-Controls can be useful to the electronics amateur, frequently asked to repair or test these ubiquitous devices. A reliable circuit was designed with a handful of components: the LED will flash when any of the Remote-Control push buttons will be pressed. The side of the Remote-Control bearing the IR emitting diode(s) must be directed towards the Photo Transistor (Q1) of the checker circuit: maximum distance should not exceed about 20 - 25cm.... [read more]