September 10, 2004. When you visit the Vortex Joe museum, Joe N3IBX always likes to give his visitors something to take home. I had visited Vortex Joe many times without taking anything and finally, on this visit, I decided to take this "glow in the dark" transistor radio. It started as a joke but when I got home I actually made it useful as a remote ham band monitor.
1: Joe N3IBX shows off the AM-FM transistor radio.
2: This solid state radio has three "glow in the dark" LED lit plastic tubes and a heat sink that looks really cool in a darkened room.
3: Some time back I purchased an inexpensive FM transmitter that I hooked up to line output on my Drake R8B receiver.
(4 ohm or 8 ohm audio output will also work). The cheap transmitter produces very clean audio on 88.7 mHz FM.
4: Whatever a signal is received on the Drake, the audio is reproduced faithfully on the remote FM receiver.
5: Late at night when the Old Buzzard AM'ers get on 75 meters, their transmissions can run for a long time. A roundtable may take 20 minutes to get back to you and there are times when nature calls. Without missing a comment I can leave the shack, go to the adjacent garage bathroom and listen in on the band.
It works throughout the house, not too shabby.
