This is only a preview of the November 2017 issue of Silicon Chip. You can view 45 of the 112 pages in the full issue, including the advertisments. For full access, purchase the issue for $10.00 or subscribe for access to the latest issues. Items relevant to "Build the Super-7 – a single-board AM radio receiver":
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Getting even more from
siliconchip.com.au
As a SILICON CHIP reader (thanks!) you’ve almost certainly visited the SILICON
CHIP website – siliconchip.com.au . . . You may have even spent some time on
line, looking for information. But we know that most people use only a tiny
fraction of any website – ours included. That’s usually because most people don’t
that know the features they want exist. Here’s how to get more – much more –
from the SILICON CHIP website. There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye!
W
e published an article on our newly-revised website back in April, 2013 – and as you might expect,
we have made a lot of improvements since then. Some of
them were issues identified over the years and now “fixed”,
Some are new features you’ve asked us for and we’ve been
able to include.
the online magazine “look and feel” as the printed edition, for familiarity if no other reason. But many (most?)
mobile devices, phones and tablets, don’t have the Adobe
Flash plugin.
The website automatically detects if you don’t have
this and switches over to an HTML rendering engine for
online issues.
In short, this means that you can view any of our online
(1) VIEW SILICON CHIP ONLINE ON MOST DEVICES –
issues on just about any device, as long as the screen is
PC, PHONE, TABLET, ETC
Along with viewing all SILICON CHIP articles online on sufficiently large.
Incidentally, we know that Flash support is supposed
PCs exactly as they appear in the printed edition, they can
be viewed on tablets/phones or on devices without Adobe to be ending within a year or so (it’s been annouced many
times!) but when (if?) it does, the webFlash (eg, on macOS).
By Nicholas Vinen
site will cater for this.
It was always our intention to have
siliconchip.com.au
Celebrating 30 Years
November 2017 35
Viewing issues is similar, regardless of whether you have
Flash or not. For example, when you click on the cover of
the current edition that appears on the “home” page (which
is the one currently available in newsagents) you will see
a list of articles in that issue on the left side.
Hover your mouse over an article name to see a short
description. Click on the name to jump to the first page. To
change to the next (or previous) page, click in one of the
corners of the magazine: the right-hand corners takes you
forward one or two pages; the left-hand corners takes you
back one or two pages (depending on whether you have
one page at view or two).
You can normally also use the left/right or page-up/pagedown keys on your keyboard to navigate the issue. If your
screen is small or low resolution and you’re having trouble
reading the magazine, try clicking on the “Fullscreen” button in the lower left corner.
Whether this helps depends on your screen layout; in some
cases it can substantially increase the screen area available
to the magazine while in other cases it makes no difference.
If you’re using the Flash plugin, next to the Fullscreen
button is a drop-down menu that lets you change between
three different display resolutions or switch to the HTML
version. Selecting a higher resolution makes the magazine
clearer but also means it takes longer to load.
If you have logged in to your account, your preference
will be recorded for the next time you view an issue.
The HTML viewer attempts to detect the size of your
browser window and optimise the image quality to suit
your screen.
If you have a screen in portrait mode, as is common with
mobile phones, it should switch to a single-page viewing
mode in order to maximise the viewing area of the page.
Browsing an online issue via HTML is similar to Flash –
you simply click at the left or right edge of the issue to flip
to the previous or next spread respectively, or you can click
on the name of an article at left to jump to its first page.
One extra thing we should point out is that from time to
time, we publish diagrams (especially circuits) rotated by
90° so that they will fit on the page.
Since you can’t necessarily rotate your display and rotating your head is quite uncomfortable, in this case, a link
should appear to the left of the page to allow you to open
This screen grab shows us browsing one of our online
issues using the Flash plugin. The contents of the issue are
shown at left, along with any shop items associated with
the article on screen. Note the double-page presentation.
36
Silicon Chip
a PDF showing the diagram right-way up.
If you have a mouse wheel or equivalent, you can zoom
in and out. When you zoom in initially, it may look fuzzy
but a higher resolution version should load momentarily,
sharpening it up.
Zooming on devices with touchscreens is one of the areas where we plan to improve the HTML viewer in future.
(2) SILICON CHIP SHORTLINKS
You’ve probably noticed that URLs (website addresses) in SILICON CHIP articles are now routinely converted
to “shortlinks” – a much shorter version which will take
you direct to the appropriate page without laboriously rekeying the URL.
These are in the form of siliconchip.com.au/Link/ABCD
They’re real convenient in the printed edition – and even
moreso in the online edition, because clicking on any
shortlink will take you straight to the webpage referenced
in the article.
Hyperlinks which redirect to articles (features or projects)
which have been previously published in SILICON CHIP
work exactly the same way but are in a slightly different
form; eg siliconchip.com.au/Article/ABCD will take you to
. . . this feature! Hyperlinks within articles should work
normally with the HTML viewer.
(3) LINKS IN ONLINE ADVERTS
SILICON CHIP advertisers are given the opportunity to make
any sections of their adverts links in the online edition. If
they do this, as you move your mouse over any links, the
image will change to the familiar “hand” logo; click on this
and you will be taken direct to the product/service being
advertised.
(4) ARTICLE SEARCHES NOW COVER ALL ISSUES OF
SILICON CHIP
Entering the contents of all issues was an exhaustive process but it is now complete, right back to to the first issue
from November 1987 (thirty years ago!). So you can search
all SILICON CHIP issues in one go.
(See section on “searching” – point 7).
Previous articles referenced are also converted to
shortlinks in the form of siliconchip.com.au/Article/1234
Now we are viewing the same issue (indeed, the same
pages) using the HTML version. You can’t see the difference
in an image this small but it isn’t quite as clear. However, it
will work on just about any device and browser.
Celebrating 30 Years
siliconchip.com.au
Note though that searching the content of the issues
themselves (“Word Search”, explained below) is currently
limited to issues from May 1997 onward. That’s 20+ years
of content – keep in mind that components, etc, from that
long ago will now be difficult or impossible to obtain.
(7) EXPANDED SEARCH PARAMETERS
Search for any project or feature article ever published in
SILICON CHIP, based on its title, author, PCB code or other
parameters, including some or any of the words contained
in that article.
Click on the “Articles” menu near the top-left corner of
most pages on the website (including the front page). You
will then be presented with a series of checkboxes and entry
fields. By default, the website will search all articles. You
only need to fill in one of the entry fields below; searching
within either the article title (“Name”), its synopsis (“Description”), by Author name (“Author”) or a kit or PCB code
(“Kits / PCBs”).
You can narrow your search to a particular type of article by deselecting some of the checkboxes along the top;
to select just one type of article, click the “None” button
to the right of the checkboxes to clear them all, then select
the one that you want. You can also narrow your search to
a particular project or feature article category by selecting
that category from the dropdown below the entry fields.
Here’s the trick to easily find the article you are looking
for: only enter one or two key words related to that article
in the relevant entry field.
If you enter a word which is not found in that particular article, even if the other words are present, it will not
result in a match. You’re better off putting fewer words in
the search box and then manually browsing through the
resulting list.
For example, say you are looking for a lead-acid battery
charger that we published as a constructional project. Your
best bet is to deselect the “Circuit Notebook” checkbox (to
avoid spurious results) and simply to put “charger” into
the Name search field. If you put “battery charger” or “leadacid battery charger” you may not find it because it might
have been named “sla battery charger” or “lead acid battery
charger” (no hyphen).
The resulting list will include the year and month of
publication, the name of the article, the author(s) and information on any PCBs or kits related to that article. Each
entry also includes a link to any items in the SILICON CHIP
shop relevant to that project. So this is quite a good way to
find items in our shop, as well as articles.
Sometimes you may not know the name of an article but
you may remember something specific that is referred to
within the article. In this case, you can use the Word Search
feature. Open up the Articles menu at the top of the screen
and choose the “Word Search” option. You can enter one
word, several words, or even a phrase or phrases within
quotation marks.
Note that the search function will, in some cases, find
This shows how you can zoom in while viewing an online
issue, for example, to get a clearer view of a detailed
diagram. On a PC or laptop, this is quite easy — you just
point the cursor and spin the mousewheel to zoom in/out.
The results of searching the Name field in the magazine
contents database for the term “Micromite”. This gives us a
list of 25 articles with links to access them directly, as well
as listing the associated shop items for each article.
(5) ARTICLE PREVIEWS
You can view a “preview” of any article from any issue
of SILICON CHIP from May 1997 to the present, or from the
now out-of-print (but still requested) “Performance Electronics for Cars”
To do this, simply click on the “Issues” menu at the topleft corner of most pages of the website (including the front
page) and you will see the covers of all the available online issues, along with the month and year of publication
and number of pages below. Click on any of these covers to
open up a preview of that issue. The first one or two pages
of most articles will be visible. For more information on
how to navigate through the online issue/preview, see the
“Online issue navigation” section below. Viewing “Performance Electronics for Cars” is similar – just click on Books.
(6) 20 YEARS OF SILICON CHIP CONTENT
View the cover and contents listing of any issue of SILICON CHIP from May 1997 to the present (not available on
devices with touchscreen-only interface).
As above, click on the “Issues” menu to view the covers of the issue and then simply hover your mouse cursor
or pen stylus just above one of the covers. After a couple
of seconds, a short summary of the major articles in that
issue will appear. If you’re interested in any of them, you
can click on the cover to view the preview, as described in
(1) above. This can be a handy way to find an article if you
don’t know its name but remember the approximate date
of publication.
siliconchip.com.au
Celebrating 30 Years
November 2017 37
matches within advertisements in more recent issues. This
depends on the format in which the advertisement was supplied to us – and whether the advertiser has themselves
highlighted products, etc.
(8) LIST ALL ARTICLES
You can list every project, feature article or review ever
published in SILICON CHIP
Click on the “Articles by category” entry in the Articles
menu to get a list of the (currently) 31 different categories
into which SILICON CHIP project articles are organised.
Click on one of the links and you will then be shown a
list of all the matching articles, in a format identical to the
contents search already described above.
(9) SEARCH INDEXES FOR ELECTRONICS AUSTRALIA
AND ELECTRONICS TODAY INTERNATIONAL
We’ve talked about finding SILICON CHIP articles but there
is also the an abbreviated listing of old Electronics Australia
and Electronics Today International projects, for which SILICON CHIP owns the copyright.
While we believe that the best way to find SILICON CHIP
articles is via the search tools, we also keep an up to date
index for each new issue that is published. Simply click on
the “Indexes” menu at the top of the website, somewhere
near the middle of the screen, and choose either “Silicon
Chip Projects Index” or “Silicon Chip Features Index”.
find that project, and then click on the resulting Shop link.
However, if you’d prefer to simply view any downloads
or purchases available for a given issue, open up the “Shop”
menu at top and then select the very last item, “by Year/
Month”. This will give you a matrix of years and months.
The number of items in the shop associated with the issue
published in each year/month combination is indicated in
parentheses.
Note that the shop includes all article-related downloads,
including those which may be available for free. We’ve done
this to keep all the downloads in one place.
You can purchase any or all items by adding them to your
trolley as you would do for other websites.
(12) VIEW ALL THE NOTES AND ERRATA FROM ANY
YEAR IN ONE PLACE.
We hate mistakes! But at least we tell you about them as
soon as we know. When you find when the original article
was published (from searching [above], if necessary), select
the “Notes & Errata” item in the “Articles” menu and then
click on the year your project was published and view the
resulting PDF. Scroll down to the particular year and month.
The Notes and Errata, not just for that year but ALL subsequently published for that project will be listed. This way,
if you’re building a particular project, you can easily find
any notes or errata published for it in later issues.
(11) EASILY FIND ANY SILICON CHIP ONLINE SHOP
ITEMS FOR ANY PROJECT
The easiest way to find downloads or shop items associated with a particular project is to use the contents search to
(13) CREATE A NEW NO-OBLIGATION SILICON CHIP
ACCOUNT
To buy anything from SILICON CHIP, to take out a subscription, etc, you need to set up an account. It won’t cost
anything until you actually order something from us – and
you can use Visa, Mastercard or Paypal. (We use the latest
SSL technology data encryption and we don’t retain your
card details, for your protection)
You’re free to set up your own user name and password,
and you can change that at any time.
If you provide an e-mail address, we will also use this to
send you a subscription renewal reminder.
Incidentally, your information is safe with us: we don’t
share it with any other organisation (the only exception is
when we send your address to our mailing house to send
your subscription, etc).
While browsing the magazine covers of all our online
issues, simply stop and hover your mouse cursor over one
cover to display this handy list of its main contents. You
don’t need a subscription or even account to do this.
You can browse our online shop in various different ways.
In this case, we are looking at the list of all components for
sale. This includes some handy pre-built modules that you
can use to build our projects, or for your own purposes.
(10) READ THE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (AND
ANSWERS) FOR SILICON CHIP AND THE WEBSITE
If there’s anything you’re confused or unsure about, especially regarding the SILICON CHIP website, please read our
FAQ, which can be found under the “Help, Contact & FAQ”
menu on the right-hand side of the menu bar.
A lot of questions we get via email or over the telephone
are already answered in the FAQ! If it doesn’t answer your
question, please contact us and we may update the FAQ to
help others in future.
38
Silicon Chip
Celebrating 30 Years
siliconchip.com.au
(14) ORGANISE OR RENEW YOUR PRINT/ONLINE/COMBINED SUBSCRIPTION, OR CHECK ITS STATUS
Once you have an account, subscribing to SILICON CHIP
is easy. If you want to subscribe to the print edition (via
either a print or combined print/online subscription), you
should provide your address while signing up. Then all
you have to do is click on the “Subscribe” menu at top and
follow the prompts
Remember, SILICON CHIP subscribers automatically qualify
for a 10% discount on any item from the SILICON CHIP online shop (except, of course, subscriptions!)
(18) ACCESS SUBSCRIBER-ONLY OR PAID DOWNLOADS
There are many downloads accessible on the SILICON
CHIP website, such as PCB patterns (PDF files), panel art,
microcontroller software (source code and/or HEX file) and
PC software.
Pretty much all downloads are free if you are a current
subscriber. You need to log in to your account to access these
free downloads. Some downloads are free regardless. For
the rest, if you are not a subscriber, you will need to pay a
small amount to download these files and for that you will
need an account – see above.
(15) ORGANISE A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION
Gift subscriptions are really appreciated by the recipient!
We have an easy, step-by-step process for giving a gift
subscription.
You don’t need an account to do so, although if you have
an account, you will be prompted for the necessary information so that the gift subscription purchase is added to
your account. An account for the recipient will automatically be created if it doesn’t exist (required to keep track of
their subscription and delivery address).
Simply click on the “Gift Subscriptions” menu item in
the “Subscribe” menu and then follow the steps to set up
the gift subscription, with a message from you to the recipient if you want (eg, “Happy Birthday!”).
Incidentally, we don’t share your data with any other organizations (obviously, we need to give your address when
delivering subscriptions, etc).
(19) SEND AN ONLINE ENQUIRY
If you click on the “Contact Us” item under the “Help,
Contact & FAQ” menu then you can see our address, phone
number and e-mail addresses. At the bottom of the page,
there is a link to a feedback form where you can send us
feedback or a question. We will answer your query as quickly
as we can; note though that we are often flat out working on
the magazine so we may not get back to you straight away.
(If we think other readers might be interested in your
query, it could be published later in “Ask SILICON CHIP”).
(16) VIEWING FROM OVERSEAS?
If you’re viewing from overseas, select the “Subscription
Rates” option under the “Subscribe” menu to view the cost
for subscribing to the print or online versions of SILICON CHIP
magazine. Combined subscription rates are also included.
(17) DON’T HAVE AN ACCOUNT YET? USE A TEMPORARY ONLINE TROLLEY
Even without a SILICON CHIP account/subscription, you
can add items your’re browsing from the SILICON CHIP shop
to a temporarily online trolley, to be purchased later (once
you have an account). That way you don’t have to go through
the selection process again!
(21) RECOVER A FORGOTTEN PASSWORD
Finally, if you’ve forgotten your password, don’t panic!
Hopefully you have provided us with your email address
at some point (eg, when you created your account).
Go to the login page (using the “Log In” button in the
upper right corner of the main page) and click on the “Forgot Password” link. Enter either your login name or your
email address in the appropriate field and click the “Let
Me In!” button.
You will receive an automatically generated email with
a link to access your account and change your password.
(If the email doesn’t arrive within a few minutes, check
SC
your spam filter).
Another way to browse the shop is via this handy year/
month matrix, which lists the number of items that are
relevant to the articles in a given issue. Simply click the
link to see a list of those items and possibly purchase some,
We collect the Notes and Errata published for every project
and put them together based on the year of the article that
they refer to. You can then download and view a PDF of
these for free on our website, via these links.
siliconchip.com.au
(20) UPDATE YOUR DETAILS (ADDRESS, PHONE, EMAIL,
ETC)
Moved? Changed phone numbers or email addresses?
Simply log into your account, go to the “management”
page and update as necessary. You can also update your
user name or password.
Celebrating 30 Years
November 2017 39
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