Cheap and Easy Radio Things You Can Do
- Build something
- Simple Direct Conversion (DC) receiver
- Pixie transceiver
- Crystal radio receiver
- Antenna tuner
- Antennas
- Even cheap, flimsy materials and techniques make for easy indoor antenna fun
- Simple antennas can significantly beef up the performance of your HT
- Get an RTL-SDR dongle
- Use a web SDR receiver
- Check out the AM radio stations your car radio will receive
- Nightime: From all over!
- Daytime: You'd be surprised!
- Check out one of the radio/electronics podcasts
- Model antennas or circuits (using free software)
- Monitor digital QSOs (using free software)
- (Plug a microphone into your computer soundcard, and hold it up to your receiver's speaker.)
- Visit thrift stores (and rummage sales) to shop for tinkering fodder
- Estimate the coverage of your VHF signal
