How Radio Works
An interactive book about invisible waves — and how they carry voices, music and Wi-Fi through the air.
Table of contents
What is a wave?
Amplitude, frequency and phase — the three knobs every radio ever built turns.
From ripples to radio
Electromagnetic waves, the spectrum, and why your Wi-Fi never collides with FM radio.
Carrying a voice: AM
Hide a message in the height of a wave — the oldest trick in broadcasting.
A steadier ride: FM
Wiggle the frequency instead of the height and static mostly disappears.
The third knob: phase
Shifting a wave in time is invisible to the ear but perfect for machines.
Bits on air
OOK, ASK, FSK, PSK — turning ones and zeroes into wiggles and back.
Manchester encoding
Why clever transitions beat plain levels when nobody shares a clock.
Constellations & 64-QAM
Mix amplitude and phase to pack six bits into every symbol.
Sharing the air
Collision avoidance: how dozens of devices take turns without a referee.