Rocking the Rambler
Remember the dash of my buddy's 1966 Rambler from http://www.jezra.net/blog/The_Wrench? Well, that dash has a stock AM radio that looks really nice. Unfortunately, there aren't very many AM radio stations in the area that play music worthy of listening to in a 1966 Rambler. So, for my buddy's birthday, I decided to make an AM transmitter that would deliver music of his choosing to his radio in sweet sweet monophonic sound.
Schematic
A quick internet search for "simple AM transmitter" let me to http://justtechnika.com/articles/circuit-diagram-simple-digital-am-transmitter/, which seemed to be exactly what I needed. About $5 later, the components needed to make three of these things were on their way to my home from digikey
After a few minutes of figuring out where things needed to go, I had a working prototype on a development board. I accidentally left out the 1000 micro farad / 25 volt capacitor. Oh well, it still works.
Test the prototype
The first test of the prototype took place with my alarm clock AM radio and I really needed to test this on the real thing.
Hey Buddy, bring your car over here!
The transmitter worked like a charm as long as the transmitter antenna was touching the radio antenna. (this is a good thing)
The real deal
A month or so after I started this project, I had a finished circuit ready to deliver to my buddy and a small burn on my finger. Damn soldering iron. The finished product is about 5x3 centimeters in size and a power switch has been added.
Hopefully the circuit doesn't sit around his apartment gathering dust.
hint hint
Hey Buddy! We should hella install that transmitter this weekend
When this gets installed, we are planning to connect the transmitter directly to the antenna where it plugs into the radio.