Super Simple FM Transmitter

Link to MAKE Project here...

FM transmitters can be complicated to build, but not this one — it’s about the easiest you can possibly make. And though the science of radio is well understood, there’s a magical, emotional quality about it that we don’t often stop to appreciate. You will not forget the first time you pick up a transmission broadcast from a device you soldered together, yourself, from a few bits of copper, carbon, plastic, and wire.  



This design was originally popularized by Japanese multimedia artist Tetsuo Kogawa. The circuit itself is a slight variation on Kogawa’s simplest FM transmitter design, and the method of building it is sometimes referred to as “Manhattan style.” It uses a piece of copper-clad circuit board but, rather than etching the circuit traces through the copper layer, a large piece of continuously-plated board is used to make all the circuit’s ground connections, and small sections of plated board are glued to the surface to form nodes or “pads” that are insulated from ground.  Besides being a convenient way to assemble circuits using minimal tools, this building method encourages you to think about circuits in an interesting way — as groups of connections that are either grounded or “floating above” ground.