We love seeing more amateur radio products on Tindie! As an amateur radio operator, projects like this all-band radio with a beautiful display jumped out at me. It’s created by a ham in Malta, who stocks all sorts of cool radio gear in his Tindie store. This radio is based on the radio-on-a-chip SI4735, which supports AM, FM, longwave, shortwave, and USB/LSB for the amateur bands. You can tune in all sorts of stuff with a half-decent antenna.
Powering the whole setup is the ESP32, which packs enough punch for great GUI interfaces like this project uses. It has an onboard stereo amplifier and a lot of DSP features for getting clear signals out of the mud. The touchscreen interface looks awesome, and the list of features on the store page is astounding.
It also has an external BNC connector for connecting to your existing antennas if you have some, or if you want to expand later on the option is there. Antennas are the real make or break if you’re trying to tune in stations that are distant or that have adjacent stations. Make sure to read up on antennas if you want to get the most out of this radio!
Having a small, portable shortwave receiver like this is a great way to get into the radio hobby. Tuning around and finding all the activity going on in the bands might just give you the itch to go and get an amateur radio license. There are more free resources out there than ever before for learning about radio, so see if radio is for you by picking up one of the feature-packed, extremely affordable receivers!
