Hi, I'm very new to electronics, but im also very interested in it . I would like to either make a simple receiver for 137mhz, or make an amplifier that can amplify a very weak signal. I would like to receive a signal from a weather satellite (APT). I have tried with my scanner but the signal is too weak, hence the amplifier. But also the bandwidth of the scanner is limited, hence the receiver. The receiver would need to be tunable from 137mhz to 138mhz with 50khz bandwidth.
I have a few questions regarding this. Has anyone attempted such a project, if so was it successful? How hard would these project be. Can you suggest any good reading for such projects. I already know very basic radio theory and have messed around with a few circuits, but I'm still very new to electronics but would love to be able to create these projects.
The pre-amplifier for a receiver is fairly simple to build, but could be a bit tricky for someone with not much experience.
A complete receiver, built from scratch would be quite an ambitious project for a beginner.
However, have a look here:http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_30849/article.html
This may be what you want.
Thanks JimB for your response. Thanks for all the usefull links. I guess I should try to build an amplifier first on my breadboard. I would eventually like to build a receiver to get the needed bandwidth. That project looks perfect, but has many features that make it complicated. Do you have any advice on an amplifier?
Ok thanks everyone for your input. I guess I have a long road ahead of me yet. I would love to be able to design circuits, even very simple ones. I need to learn a lot yet, but with no electrical education it may be hard. I will have to get books and so on. For my amplifier would I need to place a band-pass filter near the input from the antenna, and then let the passed signal be amplified? If so does the filter need to be tuned to 137 - 138 mhz or will this amplify too much noise?. Is it possible to create a circuit which will only pass the selected channels?