DIY Comms and Control for Amateur Space

Chapter 2. Radio

Transceiver Concepts

Communications hardware is the same concept as sensor hardware from Book 3, DIY Instruments for Amateur Space. Sensors read in energy—light, electric fields, temperature, vibration, any source of energy—and convert it to an analog voltage, which is then digitized by your computer chip. Comm transmission runs this the other way. It takes a digital data value, converts it to an analog voltage, then pumps it out through an antenna as energy—in this case, as radio waves.

Receiving signals is even easier. A comm receiver is just a sensor. It picks up radio signals and converts them to data. The only difference between a general radio wave sensor and a comm antenna/receiver setup is that the comm setup is tuned ...