Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I discussed the concept of a VFO, a Variable Frequency Oscillator. It's an essential building block for our amateur radio community. In describing the idea behind it, while making an error in one of the CB radio frequencies, thanks to Ben VK6NCB for picking that up, I skirted around how a VFO actually works. In reality the VFO is a collective term that describes a whole range of different methods to vary a frequency. Naturally I continued my exploration and discovered a whole range of documentation on the subject. I even started writing about how one common method, a Phase Locked Loop or PLL, works and how a VCO, a Voltage Controlled Oscillator, operates as part of that. I'll come back to those shortly. In doing my reading, since, as is often the case, I use my weekly contribution to the world as a method to learn things. I'll investigate a topic and attempt to describe who came up with it, what it means, how it works and what its place is in the world, the who, where,