Understanding the Inner Workings of a Radio: Antenna and Receiver Explained

[stickythighs]

How does the antenna and receiver on a radio turn electromagnetic radio waves into sound?

 

[mgb_phys]

Electromagnetic waves pass the antenna, this field alongthe length of the antenna causes charges to flow, this generates a current and so a voltage atthe base of the antenna that varies with the received signal.
This voltage is amplified, demodulated ( depending on the type of radio) and the signal extracted. The signal isthen used to drive the speaker.

 

[stickythighs]

mgb phys, your explanation doesn't help much. I'm still very confused.

Can anyone else explain this to me?

 

[turbo]

Start using Google. You're asking questions that would take hours of typing to explain at a level that you can comprehend.

 

[stickythighs]

Start using Google. You're asking questions that would take hours of typing to explain at a level that you can comprehend.

Are you implying that I'm stupid?

 

[turbo]

Are you implying that I'm stupid?

No, but you're asking to be spoon-fed, and nobody here has the time to type a whole book about radios. It's all been done before and you can Google for the information. There are a lot of complex concepts to grasp before you can understand the operation of a radio - you shouldn't expect forum members to try to tutor you in basic electronics (which would definitely be required before you can understand how radios work). There are probably hundreds of decent tutorials on the Internet already. Just Google on relevant terms.

 

[Dale]

It also would help if you picked a specific part of the chain that you are most interested in or confused about. You can get a decent explanation of anyone of those parts here pretty easily, but asking about the whole thing naturally leads to answers like mgb_phys gave.

Also, please give your background, you didn't understand mgb_phys' explanation, but got a little upset by turbo's comment. If we know your background we can generally tailor answers appropriately.

 

[mgb_phys]

I was trying to give a general overview so you could ask for paricular deails.
I's always tricky on here to know how much detail someone needs without writing a texbook for each post.

 

[Integral]

I thought that mgb_phys first response was excellent. That is a verbal block diagram, quite suited to the breath of the question.

I believe that after about 13 weeks of 8 hours a day 5 days a week training in the Navy I achieved a fairly good understanding of the question. You want a explanation in a single post?

 

[DaveC426913]

Yeah, st, can you be more specific about what parts you understand and what parts you don't get? Use mgb_phys' post as a guide.

I would guess that the most mysterious part is the modulation/de-modulation. In a nutshell, the low frequency music/voice signal is "piggybacked" on the carrier, which is a much, much higher frequency. Wiki can probably give you a better description of this process than we can write up here. Wiki frequency modulation (FM) and amplitude modulation (AM).