Making your own jerkey is th best! A dehydrator actually cooks the meat, rather than fully dehydrate it. Another way you can do it is hang the meat over the racks in your oven (put a pan under the meat to catch the drippings) and set it to it's lowest setting, and leave the door partly open. The best way to do it though, is to actually dehydrate it. Get you a couple of those high quality air filters (the ones you put in your home air conditioner) that have the "V" ridges. Take a box fan, lay it down on a table so the air flow would blow up. Place one of the filters on the fan, layer the strips of meat in the ridges, stacking up as many filters as you need, and then put a bungie cord around the filters and fan, so that they are held on very securely. Now, go open a window and place the fan so that it blows on the meat, blowing out of the window, not inside your house. It will take about 8 hours or so for the meat to be fully dehydrated. I suggest curring the meat for a minimum of 24 hours in a fairly strong flavored marinaid. Either way you dehydrate it, it will take between 8-10 hours before it's ready.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!