THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF FM RADIO TRANSMITTER, A RESEARCH PROJECT TOPIC ON MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
ABSTRACT
An FM transmitter is an electronic device which, with the aid of an antenna, produces radio waves. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the antenna. When excited by this alternating current, the antenna radiates radio waves. Frequency modulation (FM) transmitter generates the radio waves by varying the radio signal’s frequency slightly. FM transmitter is basically a VHF colipits oscillator capable of transmitting sound or music to any standard FM receiver. The circuit works on a D.C source which makes it for a pure rectification. FM transmitter also has a capacitor microphone which picks up very weak sound signals. This FM transmitter was designed using transistors and other component such resistor, inductor and capacitors. This project transmits frequency on 100MHz± 5%. The transmitting distance is l00metres. It is powered with 9volts D.C battery using suitable F.M receiver tuned to the transmitting frequency of this project. F.M Transmitter can be used as cordless microphones, mobile phone and for public address purposes. The distant of transmission is limited to 100m and fixed frequency of transmission, away from all other radio station. This gives best range and least interference. The antenna is attached to the outside of the transmitter, as in portable devices such as cell phones, walkie-talkies, and garage door openers. In more powerful transmitters, the antenna may be located on top of a building or on a separate tower, and connected to the transmitter by a feed line, that is a transmission line.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Information transmission is very vital to human life just as the early men used sticks to produce sound which indicates the location of each other as they wander about also down to the middle era when town crises come into play for the same information propagation to be transmitted from one point to another with the aid of radio communication which necessities the application of radio transmitter and receiver.
Frequency modulation (FM) is a technique for wireless transmission of information where the frequency of a high frequency carrier is changed in proportion to message signal which contains the information (Chen, 2002). FM was invented and developed by Edwin Armstrong in the 1920’s and 30’s. Frequency modulation was demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the first time in 1940, and the first commercial FM radio station began broadcasting in 1945 (Mohn, 2007).
A radio transmitter is device whose major function is to send information (intelligence) from one point to another in most cases the information to be transmitted are voice music and code signals. However the transmission of radio signal is done with the aid of electrical resonance this is when the frequency of the receiver is equal to the incoming one from the transmitter resonance is observed which is the totality of radio communication, frequency modulation (FM) transmitter is less distorted than other wave bands like amplitude modulation and short wave band. The frequency on the tuning dial ranges from 88MHZ to 108MHZ (Louis, 2008).
In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation (FM) is the encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. This contrasts with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier wave varies, while the frequency remains constant.In analog frequency modulation, such as FM radio broadcasting of an audio signal representing voice or music, the instantaneous frequency deviation, the difference between the frequency of the carrier and its center frequency, is proportional to the modulating signal. In radio transmission, an advantage of frequency modulation is that it has a larger signal-to-noise ratio and therefore rejects radio frequency interference better than an equal power amplitude modulation (AM) signal. For this reason, most music is broadcast over FM radio.However, the concept of FM is essential to a wide gamut of radio frequency wireless devices and is therefore worth studying (“The Future of Radio”, 2008).
