Electronically Ignorant

I need to find the book "Building RC Devices For Dummies". Unfortunately, such a book is not on the market.

I'm electronically illiterate, is the problem. I've been struggling for hours, searching the web, for the right site to clue me in. The cats are mad at me for ignoring them, too. Getting hissy spitty and it's also into the wee hours of the morning and I'm no smarter for the hours wasted.

Web searches are frustrating. Useful information is hard to find.

I want to be able to build RC RF traps. The one I have is wearing out. I bought that sender receiver with servos as a unit. I want to be able to build them much cheaper and with more channels. I also lust after something someone has back east, and that is remote dialers triggered when the trap springs to call the man's prepaid cell phone to let him know which one of four traps has been sprung. I want that!

He claims he bought the parts on ebay and put the units together for under $10. And I'm just struggling with it.

I feel like an idiot. So many things are remote controlled, with mechanical action intiated by servos or solenoids. The senders/receivers are primarily digital, infrared, ultra sound or radio frequency and I have chosen RF as the most suitable for use outside in all weather conditions and the most economical.

So I know you have to have the crystals that match in vibration, in both sender and receiver. After that, I clue out. In between, the receiver and the mechanical part, solenoid or servo, you have to close or open a circuit or something, guess you have to make that? And do you have to have a specified matching power generation from the receiver to the servo or solenoid, decreased or amplified depending on the need?

You can buy solenoids for a buck and a quarter that pull in .6", which is all I need, at 9V. That's cheap and a 9V battery is doable. Ahhh, I'm lost already. So do receivers have to have a power source to? Oh forget it, I'm going to bed. I didn't learn much back in high school I guess, or in my limited troubled college days. Oh wait a minute, I get it sort of. You have to close the circuit between the two poles on the 9V battery with the vibration of the receiver crystals. Ok. I just have to figure out how that's done now.