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DIY Stompboxes => Building your own stompbox => Topic started by: el duderino on May 27, 2004, 01:14:10 PM

Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: el duderino on May 27, 2004, 01:14:10 PM
so now i know how its done i just dont know how to do it!!!

help>>>>> :oops:

thanks
eamonn.
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: Marcos - Munky on May 27, 2004, 01:52:51 PM
Some germanium Fuzz Faces and Tonebenders pick radio stations.
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: Rain Dog on May 27, 2004, 01:57:49 PM
Guitar cables with broke shielding has always worked for me...  :roll:
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: Johnny G on May 27, 2004, 01:58:33 PM
basically make a box but design it badlly lol.

have a treble booster built into the circuit and set the treble cut off points on any high pass filters to somewhere in the RF frequency. you'll probablly pick up alot of noise along with it and im not totally sure how youd deal with that.

course you could just make a simple radio reciever, put it in a box and then you could have a pot for tuning it and one for mixing it with your original guitar signal
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: el duderino on May 27, 2004, 04:30:32 PM
how would i go about makeing a radio reciver??
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: Transmogrifox on May 27, 2004, 04:54:27 PM
usually a high gain distortion pedal manages to work for me 8)

Put a metal plate, or an antenna external to your pedal and connect it to the input of the first stage of a high gain distortion pedal.

usually you end up hearing AM radio stations as they can be demodulated by envelope detection...and a distortion pedal is usually very close to an envelope detector.  Just make sure that you don't use bypass capacitors in the gain stages to filter off RF.  There are a couple different ways that distortion pedals demodulate AM radio.  One is from homodyne, where you basically end up multiplying the radio signal by itself.  The AM signal gets amplified in the gain stages until it is limited at either extreme, so you have a uniform amplitude signal at that frequency, then the power supply rails have the RF signal in it if it is not well filtered.  This creates what is called a square law multiplier, and it "homodynes" the information on the high frequency carrier back to the baseband (audio range)...so in a sense, a guitar distortion pedal is a very rough version of a synchronous demodulator.

The other way AM radio is demodulated is by envelope detection.  If you have a distortion pedal that clips assymetrically, then low-pass filters, part of the AM signal's extremes is clipped more than the other, and its envelope (audio signal for AM) is filtered out and is heard through your amp.

So try to get an antenna connected to your power supply and to the signal line and you'll add a bunch of noise.

if you want to tune it, make an oscillator tuneable from about 800kHz to 2 MHz or so and stick that in the signal path.  You should be able to pull out some faint noisy radio stations with it if you have the antenna connected to your (unfiltered) power supply.
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: Hal on May 27, 2004, 04:55:53 PM
I get the bible chanel on my mosface thats on breadboard...
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: sir_modulus on May 27, 2004, 05:31:26 PM
Use my amp :lol:
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: R.G. on May 27, 2004, 07:36:24 PM
If you live under a transmitting tower, you don't even need the guitar. Some tooth fillings will do it.
Title: radio receiver
Post by: Rick on May 27, 2004, 09:22:47 PM
And don't forget the Jordan Bosstone - an excellent AM receiver !
(probably better than my JVC)
Title: How can i pick up radio frequencys with guitar???
Post by: niftydog on May 28, 2004, 12:23:46 AM
the simplest radio receiver is an antenna and a diode.

Hence, and length of wire could be said to be an antenna, and anything with a diode-type action makes a detector.  A circuit with limited freq. response would also help.  (limited to audio range)

I've heard that old wire fences do this well.