Once again the Youth Program Workshop was a success! On the first day, the youths put together FM Radios. These kits helped them begin their study of electronics. It only took them a couple of hours to put the radios together. No soldering was done – just frequency to voltage converters. The MX-901F FM Radio covers the standard FM broadcast band of 88 to 108 MHz. First, the antenna picks up a very weak signal, the stations’ transmitted radio wave, which produces an equally weak current in the antenna wire. A tuning coil and a variable capacitor select the desired station. Each station is then amplified by the 2-transistor amplifier circuit.
The youths’ faces lit up when the weak current that flows in the antenna increased step by step, by the electronic process of amplification and then the frequency to voltage converter changed the signal to an audio signal. The AF signal is amplified by a 2-transistor amplifier and sent to the earphone. The earphone changes the AF signal to sound waves and you can hear the music transmitted by the radio station. Before each youth left that morning, each radio was working and they were jamming to their own kind of music. Way to go kids!!!!
The second day, Duane Bagdons from International Certification Services, Inc., brought in speakers from the local Amateur Radio Club to demonstrate some radio communications to the youths. The kids each got hands-on experience with the radios which they enjoyed tremendously.
The third day, the kids took a tour of the exhibit floor. We stopped at various displays where the kids saw fantastic demonstrations from many exhibitors and heard great stories told by the demonstrators about why they got into the business. Just one of the many exciting items shown was a globe that displayed planets and countries (see photo below). Everyone had a fantastic time of seeing and learning from the exhibitors. Thank you to all the exhibitors that made this day so exciting for the youths.
We look forward to some more excitement during the EMC 2010 Youth Program in Fort Lauderdale, Florida!
EMC
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A tour of the exhibit hall at EMC 2009 was one of the highlights of the Youth Program. Many exhibitors
provided demonstrations of new products and shared stories of how they entered the field of EMC. |
