Journey to the Bottom of Your Rig, Radio Fundamentals explored. Original article by Houston, Long, Keating, et al, now with comments by Tom Farley

Pages: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) Modulation page // Oscillator Page

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We're most all the way through our receiver now. If y'all want to rest, you can sit down on those resistors below. Warm, ain't they? That's because some juice goes through them and resistors just use juice up as heat. So, get comfortable while I tell ya about the next mind-boggling circuit!

By the way, that second frequency is made by a circuit called a local oscillator; local because the signal is made right in your rig as opposed to the incoming signal which comes from tens, hundreds, or even thousands of miles away. It's also an oscillator because electricity oscillates back and forth in this circuit. It goes back and forth so fast that it becomes a radio frequency.

So, now we have a much slower signal coming out of the mixer, at usually 455 thousand cycles a second. Once again we kick up the voltage by running this frequency through an I.F. (intermediate frequency) amplifier, which also purifies the signal and selects just the frequency we want. It surely is easier to amplify a signal at 455 thousand cycles a second than 27 million, for sure!

We're most all the way through our receiver now. If y'all want to rest, you can sit down on those resistors below. Warm, ain't they? That's because some juice goes through them and resistors just use juice up as heat. So, get comfortable while I tell ya about the next mind-boggling circuit!

From The Big Dummy's Guide to C.B. Radio, courtesy of The Book Publishing Company P.O. Box 99,Summertown, TN 38483 (888) 260-8458, (1976). Editors: White Lightning (Albert Houston) WB4BWR, Stringbean WA4LXC (Mark Long), Minnesota Mumbler WB4KDH (Jeffrey Keating), Ratchet Jaw K4IAP (William Hershfield), Buffalo Bill WA4KCF (William Bradley) Illustrations by Mark Schlichting and Peter Hoyt.