The handheld is the easiest radio: no antenna, no wiring.

• Hold right click to talk (push to talk).
• Sneak and right click to open it: frequency, volume, the TX tone and RX tone pages (the TXT and RXT keys) and the offset page (ENTER), used with repeaters.

It runs on a small battery: a few days of normal use. Hold the handheld in your off hand and sneak-use a battery in your main hand to swap them, or charge it in a desk charger.

Range is a few hundred blocks by line of sight; a repeater on a hill extends it.

A desk radio for the 2 m band with more power than a handheld. It needs power (2 FE/t listening, 13 transmitting) and an antenna on coax: a J-pole, Slim Jim or Yagi.

The right-hand display shows the repeater offset (OFS) and tone; the soft buttons and big knobs change them.

HF radios are made for one band each: 80 m, 40 m, 20 m or 10 m. They reach far beyond the horizon by skip.

• SSB: voice. 40 and 80 m use lower sideband, 20 and 10 m upper.
• CW: Morse code, sent with the key on the radio's screen. CW gets through where voice cannot.

Turn it on with the power switch, pick a mode, tune with the big knob (1 kHz a step) and hold PTT to talk. The screen on the model shows the frequency, mode and S-meter. A comparator next to it reads the S-meter too.

An HF radio draws 8 FE/t listening and 26 transmitting.

The all-band transceiver covers 80, 40, 20 and 10 m and the 2 m band, in SSB, CW and FM. Its band knob steps through them; the frequency jumps to the bottom of the new band.

Its lamps: signal, antenna matched (SWR 2 or better) and transmitting.

Its heart is the all-band circuit board, which needs a pure encased crystal of every band. One antenna will not suit every band: use a 5-BTV, an OCFD or a tuner.

QRP radios are low-power 20 and 40 m rigs in a wooden case: cheap (poor crystals work fine, they are designed around them), thrifty (2 FE/t, 13 transmitting) and gentle on nearby redstone.

The HF receiver and VHF receiver only listen.

SWR measures how well the antenna suits the radio's frequency. 1.0 is perfect; the higher it is, the more power bounces back into the radio instead of being radiated.

See it in Jade, on the antenna tuner, or with the antenna analyzer.

Transmit into an SWR of 3 or worse and the radio's transmitter may blow: a fizz and a puff of smoke. The worse the match, the sooner. A blown radio still receives, but keying it only gives loud static.

A Cheap radio may instead go up like TNT.

Break a blown radio for its parts: everything it was crafted from except the crystal.

Test a transmitter safely on a dummy load: a perfect match on every band that only reaches about ten blocks.

Gear that sits on the desk beside a radio and works through it.

• Desk microphone: beside a radio. Hold right click on it to talk; sneak and right click to lock talking on. Speak close: it gets quieter as you step away, and lets go after 30 seconds.
• Hand mic: sneak and right click a radio with an empty hand to take its mic on a cord. Hold right click to talk; right click the radio to hang it up.
• Simplex repeat controller: echoes back what the radio hears after a delay, for testing your own signal.

• Radio Interface: touches a VHF radio and turns it into a packet station: call sign and TX switch.
• H19 terminal: touches the interface; beacons, the station list, messages and maps.
• Teletype Machine: RTTY on paper through an HF radio, and the solar report.
• WEFAX Receiver: weather charts on paper.

Also: speakers and the tape player.

A radio's own little speaker plays 80% of the voice band, a bit thin. Place a speaker touching the radio (any side, on top too) and it sounds better; only the best one counts.

• Desk speaker (eleven woods) or large speaker: 90%.
• Premium speaker (iron, gold or marble): the whole band, as clean as it gets.

A wall speaker or loudspeaker touching the radio, or on its data wire (the speaker line), and plays the radio where it stands, static and all. As many as you like can share one radio, and they use no power.

• Wall speaker: 80%, a little rough.
• Loudspeaker: loud and distorted, heard out to 64 blocks. It has no recipe yet.

Each desk speaker takes its own wood's planks.

Gold ingots make the gold speaker, calcite the marble one.

An HF radio you carry: low-power SSB and CW on 10 and 20 m, with its own whip. Sneak and right click to wear it on your chest (or in a Curios back slot). Right click it in hand, or press J (Open Worn Manpack), for the panel: power, mode, band, the tuning knob, AF and mic gain, PTT and the battery.

The whip is fine by ground wave but poor for skip, and weaker indoors.

Click the handset on the panel to take it in hand: hold right click to talk, sneak and right click to hang it up.

The battery runs about four days listening (2 FE/t, 13 transmitting). To swap it, hold a small battery in your other hand and sneak-use: the two trade charge.

The Tape Player plays a tape reel out loud and into every radio touching it: the radio keys up and transmits the tape, then lets go when it ends.

Use a reel on the player to load it, an empty hand for the controls, and sneak with an empty hand (or EJECT) to take it out.

• Manual: plays when you press PLAY.
• Loop: again a second after it ends.
• Interval: every 1 to 60 minutes (- and +, shift for tens).
• Redstone: once for each redstone pulse.

A beacon that calls every five minutes is one tape on Interval.

Press REC with a blank or recorded tape in, talk (everyone within six blocks is picked up), and STOP. A tape holds a minute, in telephone quality. Recording again wipes it. Found tapes, with their own labels, cannot be recorded over.

Tapes and the tape player have no crafting recipe yet.

Data wire is thin light grey cable that links station gear that is not side by side. Lay it like wire from a radio to its teletype, radio fax, WEFAX receiver, radio interface or tape player, from a radio to wall speakers, or from a microwave radio to the stations it serves.

It carries no power, and power wire no longer links devices: only data wire does. It shares a wire bundle with other cables.

Three wire between six insulation make sixteen.