The low-cost PCB style AM-FM Radio with a Hidden Feature!

This is my review of the low-cost 'DIY-3B' PCB style personal radio receiver bought from AliExpress.
It's quite unique in that they have managed to squeeze in AM as well as FM reception and after digging a little deeper, it revealed a hidden feature that some of you may want to experiment with and extend the range of frequencies covered by this little radio.
If this is of interest to you then please take a look at my channel for reviews of budget friendly multi-band radios and other good stuff!
Thanks for watching
TWCG
Video images and graphics courtesy of www.pixabay.com

[@englishrupe01]

Great review....many thanks. Very interesting to know that it uses the KT0936 chip, as i already have a few of these that i was going to explore. So, if i get one of these and mess up a SW hack, i can always replace it. Thanks for showing.

[@TheWobblyCameraGuy]

Hi, many thanks for your kind feedback. I would be really interested if you manage to break into this little PCB radio and you manage to hack the shortwave capability - good luck 👍

[@RUNDEN_]

This little device looks NEARLY perfect for what I need!
I am looking for a physically small PCB for FM reception with an analogue tuning dial so that I can fit it into my car's old 1960s AM radio to upgrade it to have FM capability!
I can step down the 12v voltage of the rest of the radios internals to 3v, and physically hook up the tuning potentiometer to the radio's tuning dial and that would be all good
...however this board uses the headphones connection as the antenna, which in my case works against this. When integrated into the car radio, it's going to be soldered directly to the line level audio connection the MW/LW radio board uses, which will be a very short connection and will be housed entirely within the metal case of the radio, and will of course be susceptible to any other noise from the internal electronics of the old vintage car radio.
Do you know if there's any way I can separate the antenna connection this board uses from the 3.5mm jack so that I can hook it up to the cars dedicated antenna instead?

[@TheWobblyCameraGuy]

Hi, thanks for getting in touch. That’s quite a project you are undertaking there! OK so the answer is possibly. I have looked at the data sheet for this chip and I think that you can connect an FM antenna (throw out wire maybe?), to PIN 3 = RF INP (also referred to as FM_IN), but it must be via a small capacitor. The data sheet shows a 100pF capacitor although the one on the PCB radio kit is shown as 27pF. My suggestion would be to purchase one or two of these kits and simply experiment! The audio O/P could be connected to a little audio amp via a very short lead (to negate the lead doubling up as an aerial), for test purposes. I have made a video on a little $2 audio amp kit from AliExpress that you might be interested in. I have also provided a link to the data sheet for this chip where the connection details are shown towards the rear that may prove useful. Please let me know how you get on as I would be very interested. Good luck 👍
www.docdroid.net/jLmx4at/kt0936m-b9-v22-english-pdf