OK, I was poor in my youth. Maybe the family wasn't but they sure acted like it. In the late 1950s, some kids even had transistor radios. That was a hopeless dream. So I just made do, having a 4H project and making one myself. I'm pretty sure my earphones were from WWII aircrew. Probably rejected because they didn't work well enough. They only picked up AM radio, but the station I wanted to listen to was only a couple of miles away.

My father had his from the 1930s or maybe 1920s. My mother let it slip away, probably trashed it or gave it to anyone who showed interest. Certainly not offering it to her youngest son.

As I got a little older I learned how to make a simple amplifier. It increased the volume but was probably "low fidelity" at best.

It was what turned me into a dumpster diver.

Yes I do. I made several.

I remember them, but I wasn't "into" them.

flashguy

I tried building one in the late 1950's, I think it was a Cub Scout kit for a merit badge. Never got it to work, which was disappointing. Even then, I preferred primitive technology.

A cool link dedicated to crystal radios : https://www.midnightscience.net/home.html

there are kits available if one is so inclined.

I grew up learning to solder and about electronics with Radio Shack products.
But 1st had to make a crystal radio. Understand it and than progress to tubes.

I'm still here.
Their not. Time& technology has passed for the semi-skilled homeowner going to the drug store, messing with the Tube Tester, $1.98 later, with the new tube plugged in -- the TV/ radio worked !!

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Any body remember crystal radios?

Didn't she make a bunch of stag films back in the 50's?

I ordered one from an ad in a comic book back in the 50's. We clipped it to Mom's wash line for an antenna & it worked....sort of. Our radio in the house could only pick up one station clearly, so we weren't in a good reception area.

I built a Heathkit crystal radio when I was a young kid in Seattle; I'd listen to it with a crappy earphone when my parents thought I was asleep. Not mine, but it looked like this >>

I had one from Radio Shack as a kid.

I had a do-it-yourself radio kit I built as a kid around 1970, but I think it was a transistor radio. I know it only got AM, which was fine at the time. The thing that impressed me most was that after I built the radio, my dad designed and built an antenna system outside my bedroom window, using small gauge steel cable. It was quite impressive and gave the radio excellent range. Until that moment, I thought he was "just a business man" and was blown away that he could do something like that.

It still took me a lot more years to figure out just the brilliance of my dad. He is pretty much a renaissance fellow.



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I remember my Grandfather having a Bearcat crystal scanner in the early 80s. You had to go to Radio Shack to get new frequency crystals. I think there's one still floating around in my Dad's basement somewhere.

I made a few crystal radios when I was a kid. With rectifiers of naked germanium crystals or razor blades (with iron oxide coating). Probed with an open safety pin. One with a CK722 transistor audio amplifier. I could receive the Kansas City radio stations, about forty miles distant.

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Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
One with a CK722 transistor

That was my favorite, with the electric blue color and in a little "tower" I'd stare at it for hours wondering what was going on inside.

Radio Shack kit for me, too. Crystal scanners also.
The flashing LEDs on the front were cool.

I remember building one on a piece of wood and setting it on the window sill of an open window trying to receive something with it. I do not recall how successful I was.

^^^^^ This! got one local staion during the day and WLW clear channel out of Cinncy at night. At least until I left the window open one night and it got rained on.

I bulit a couple in the mid-80's as a kid.

One used a razor blade and a tip of a pencil IIRC

The other used a coil of copper wire on a small piece of PVC pipe and a diode (?) I scrounged from an old stereo.

I used the old style earpiece for a bit but had an old 1970's pair of stereo headphones I cut the plug off and wired into it and I could pick up KYW am Radio out of Philadelphia about 18 miles away really loud and strong. My antenna was a long piece of speaker wire going around my entire third-floor room and I grounded the radio to a steam radiator there.

This brings back a lot of memories, I was quite the tinker back in those days.

the first radio kit I built was a crystal radio kit from Radio Shack

with a long wire antenna in the back yard I could hear a Boston radio station at night

Back in the early 80s I joined the local volunteer fire department.
Back then if you wanted to listen to what other area fire department calls you had to buy a scanner.
Back then crystal scanners were it. You had to buy a crystal for each frequency and most scanners were limited in how many crystals you could put in it.
I think the one I had,had either 5 or 10 slots. It also had red diodes for each channel on it to tell you what frequency you were listing to.