Instant station, hacking 1.0 MHz Crystal Oscillators

The idea of a full blown radio station inside a little aluminum can is intriguing, if not somewhat unrealistic.
      Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, the dedicated experimenters over at makeRF.com have hacked the can with simple mods to deliver a 1/4 watt AM radio transmitter.
     With a properly loaded wire antenna and a good RF ground, the modded can transmitter just might get out a bit.
     makeRF.com put together a nice, three-part tutorial to walk you through the project. Next, we'll link you back to some of our most popular posts on antennas and grounds to complete the picture.

1. Fun with crystal oscillators, part 1
2. Fun with crystal oscillators, part 2
3. Fun with crystal oscillators, part 3

Want to give it a try but not sure where to get the cans and other parts? Amazon has the can!

• 1.0 MHz Full Can Crystal Oscillator, used in the above project
• LM386 Low Voltage Audio Power Amplifier (Quantity 5 each, in case you fry one), used at the modulator above
• Small Electronic Circuit Test Board Breadboard, a great protoboard for this project
• Color-coded, insulated Breadboard Jumper Wires 140Pcs, to make the connections easily
• Line matching transformer, for the modulator above

Be sure to check out the posts on simple shortwave transmitters, too.

Looking at the MK-XI BCB Transmitter

Here we have a nice solid state unit (solid state? what, am I 100 years old?) using an oscillator can for crystal control.
     Easily assembled on perf-board (Mmm, gotta love the forgiveness of AM BCB!) with a delightfully short parts list, this little unit has been discussed and modded for the last four years or so over at Antique Radio Forums.
     The latest mods include adding a little built in MP3 player and a variety of cases - sweet!
     Because this is such a simple circuit, the usual shortcomings will apply - no real buffer amp and little input isolation will make it a jumpy tune up but gee, with so little to invest, why not try it?
     One more thing to think about trying might be to bump that can up to the Part 15 shortwave freqs and see what this circuit can do at 13.5 MHZ.
     I'd probably drop L2 altogether and use an 18' longwire, the approximate quarter wave at that freq, and drop L1 way down and see what it can do.
It looks like this little circuit is highly amenable to experimentation as there are no less than 44 pages of discussion about this circuit, so check it out