Why radio doesn't work

Construction phase

Ok,  you have studied physics, learnt about resonant circuits, learnt how radio waves are propagated and you are fascinated by radio waves and how they can transport data signals (such as audio or video) over long distances. You have attempted to build a small transmitter (to broadcast illegally) or receiver circuit. You followed the plans and made a circuit board, spent hours soldering everything together. When you powered the circuit up, nothing happened. You did whatever you could think of to get the damn thing to work, but it would just sit there, not working.

Sounds familiar? Well, nothing strange going on here, it's just the realization of Murphy's law!

1. Radio itself is a flawed concept, it does not work

When I mention radio, i mean the sort of radio you read about in physics text et ceterea. the kind of radio that is easy to understand and should be easy to buil circuits for. Well, I am about to present for you the reality and the truth behind radio.

2.Radio is precisely the sort of thing that works in theory, but never in practice

This second rule follows as a direct consequence of rule 1 above. It is simply not possible to build a working receiver / or transmitter, since it is impossible to get the circuits to work. Radio circuits follow the same principle as gear wheels, which leads us to rule number three.

3. It works as long as the whole construction is massproduced and made by machines.

This might seem like a contradiction, but it is in fact not. Have you ever tried to build a radio circuit and did it work? Do you have a radio at home which works? Beginning to understand now, what I am talking about. To novices, television and such similar utilizations of radio signals appears to be magic, and this initial intuitional understanding of the subject is crystal clear and spot on - it is exactly that - magic, and you shall under no circumstances try to build anything on your own - you are doomed to fail.

And then there is this mess with resonant circuits. Tank circuits (LC) and their alikes, they never work either. Oscillators are impossibilities and all other crap too. Simple common emitter amplifiers though are nice little constructions, they work and are reliable even in practice.

Note that this page only presents my opinion and may change when I get my morse transmitter / receiver to work.

/Raxx


Acknowledgements

Thanks goes to Henrik Fahlquist for the invention of the gear wheel theory