I have been part of the Low-Frequency Radio Lab at Georgia Tech for almost a year now. The lab is focused on developing receivers and preamplifiers to capture reflected radio waves from the ionosphere and understand the science physics of that portion of the earth’s atmosphere. Since the beginning of my Freshman year, I have focused understanding and designing the electronics of the receiver and pre-amplifier. I started by assembling the boxes of the receiver which included an NI-DAQ, power supply converter, low-pass filter, and USB and ethernet peripherals. The preamplifier contained an antenna input jack, transformer, and amplifier circuit. I honed a lot of my hands-on skills, including crimping and soldering. 

During the second semester, I began understanding the inner-working of the preamplifier box, which had the signal amplifier that used BJT transistors. I learned about BJTs in their full-blown form and understood how constant frequency response amplifiers are designed. I also learned about the specific looped antenna that was being used to capture the current radio signals of focus, which are the Navy VLF signals that are in the few kilohertz range. I used my Electromagnetics knowledge from class and read up on some antenna theory to grasp these concepts.