{"id":317,"date":"2014-10-18T07:17:52","date_gmt":"2014-10-18T06:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/\/?p=317"},"modified":"2015-01-18T19:35:16","modified_gmt":"2015-01-18T19:35:16","slug":"velleman-fm-radio-kit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/?p=317","title":{"rendered":"Velleman FM Radio Kit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being far from home and living in London is very interesting. As a hacker, maker,\u00a0 and hobbyist from the US, a Radio Shack or an order from Mouser, Adafruit, etc is taken for granted. Things are different here.<\/p>\n

There is not a Radio Shack nearby. The nearest equivalent is Maplin and these stores are everywhere. Every time I walk by one – I ‘pop in’ as they say here.<\/p>\n

Last Saturday I ‘popped in’ to one and found a very interesting electronic kit. The Velleman Digitally Controlled FM Radio (MK194<\/a>). Velleman <\/a>is a Belgium based company that makes all kind of neat stuff. The kit was on sale for \u00a312. How could I resist?<\/p>\n

This kit is about as close as you can get to re-living the good-ole’ days of Heathkits<\/a>. In the 60’s and 70’s Heathkits were all the rave among us geeks. I built a digital alarm clock that worked for more than 25 years. What is the big deal? Well, I was 14 years old when I built this clock. And it served as my alarm clock until I was 39. Every day – it was there. The power supply finally failed and its service ended.That my friends, is the definition of loyalty. Hand built and reliable.<\/p>\n

Anyone that ever built a Heathkit remembers the yellow assembly manuals. They are legendary for their quality. Oh the joy of a Heathkit!<\/p>\n

\"Heathkit<\/a>

Heathkit Digital Clock<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The radio kit took me about 90 minutes to assemble. The assembly instructions <\/a>are on a single page and are clear enough to prevent mistakes. When I installed the battery and turned on the radio it fired right up.<\/p>\n

\"Radio<\/a>

Radio – Top<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Radio<\/a>

Radio – Bottom<\/p><\/div>\n

The sound of the radio is surprisingly good. There are some tricky solder joints so this kit is probably not for beginner kit builders without a mentor.<\/p>\n

I highly recommend this kit.<\/p>\n

Sopwith<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being far from home and living in London is very interesting. As a hacker, maker,\u00a0 and hobbyist from the US, a Radio Shack or an order from Mouser, Adafruit, etc is taken for granted. Things are different here. There is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-kits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381,"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismellsmoke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}