Pen FM Transmitter bug projects have been very popular. The idea of being able to hide a transmitter in a pen is very appealing. In an effort to reduce the size of this design, we have used surface-mount components. Firstly, the thought of using the coil in the tank circuit for transmitting RF was a little far fetched, but we used it as an example for those who were interested in experimenting with our circuits. Now we have gone back to a conventional antenna, the whip. The whip or straight-line antenna can be coiled, wound longitudinally or folded. The way it is wound makes a big difference to its effectiveness, but when you are limited in space, you have to accept these limitations.
Even though we have used this antenna set up in our previous pen bugs we have considerably improved the circuit to the point were it has low battery consumption, but high RF output. The size of this design has been reduced considerably by using surface-mount components.
Build Accurate LC Meter and start making your own coils and inductors. This LC Meter allows to measure incredibly small inductances making it perfect tool for making all types of RF coils. LC Meter can measure inductances starting from 10nH - 1000nH, 1uH - 1000uH, 1mH - 100mH and capacitances from 0.1pF up to 900nF. The circuit includes an auto ranging and reset function to make sure the readings are as accurate as possible ... [more]
