Grit and Perseverance
 AM Radio BuildThe only way to know if a design will work for sure is to test it. |  Try againIf the first one doesn't work, try something else. |  PerservereIt took a lot of testing and trying different things until I approached a solution. |
|---|---|---|
 Radio SchematicThis was my first working schematic. The two inductors after the antenna is misleading; I couldn't find a symbol for a variable inductor. |  TroubleshootingThe oscilloscope was and invaluable tool for troubleshooting |  Finding a signalTuning the circuit to find a signal was not easy, but I had a strategy |
 Picking up an AM signalHere is the 570 khz signal being picked up by my radio and shown on the oscilloscope. |  PCB DesignNaturally, I moved on to a PCB design |  Initial PCB DesignThe first design didn't work on the PCB. It was due to a defect in the board. |
 Second PCB DesignThis one had a short where there shouldn't have been one. |  OutsourcedI ordered from a third party and the board worked perfectly right away |  Modular ConnectionsI attached pin connectors so troubleshooting and fine tuning was easier |
 Final ProductProud to present a working AM radio |
AM Radio
2015
One intern, an electronics lab tech, a senior TA with a masters degree, and a 4 month co-op term all teamed up to build this, but couldn't do it. I was assigned this task and in the span of 3 weeks, I tuned in to the 570kHz AM band to hear the baseball game during the series. It was not that I am particularly gifted at electronics--this was my first real electronics project. It was that I knew what I had to do to make it happen and I wanted to make it happen badly.
The clever part of this design was that I used a variable inductor after my antenna which doubled as a transformer. The variable inductor was in parallel with a variable capacitor, which made it easier to tune and thus increase my quality factor on the signal.
Also, to whomever is reading this, I would like to share a very valuable lesson that I took from this. Not all grounding is created equal. Proper grounding is very important, especially for signal applications.