[Argus25]

Good news.

The thing I have always liked about 144MHz and nearby, the frequency is high enough that the antennas can be fairly compact and the components for transmitters/receivers still resemble their lower frequency counterparts (unlike UHF) and you can wind small coils with 3 to 8 turns of self supporting wire that fit well on a pcb and easily make coil taps. The circuitry is easy to get working (mostly) and the waveforms examined with a good scope. So its all just right for experimental work with transmitters and receivers of a home brew character. I have enjoyed making many small transmitters amplifiers and some receivers at this frequency. I've attached a photo of a 1 watt NBFM transmitter-receiver pair (one way) I made about 20 yrs ago for a audio signal transmitter project. These days I wouldn't build anything like this with screws through the face of the case etc and I'd have a more professional finish. The feet were made of the long handle of a carbon fiber reinforced kitchen spoon . But it was a lot of fun.