I don’t think crystal scanners are what this thread is about.

quote:

I don’t think crystal scanners are what this thread is about.

"Back in the 80's" HAH!

Yes, I built one with a naked germanium crystal and one with a diode. Could pick up KSRO in Santa Rosa, only local station.
Also built a Tesla coil with coil from Model T Ford as the primary, a hand-wound long copper coil as the secondary (I'm probably mixing these terms up--it's been a while).

80's?

hell, try the 60's

I built mine when I was 8 years old in 1967

I guess the crystal or the tuner wasn't really all that important. One of my friends lived on a farm a couple of miles away. As luck would have it, the 3 towers that transmitted WSAI were in an adjoining pasture. It wasn't a powerful station and I'm thinking it may have been a bit off frequency. When we'd camp out near his fence, we'd pick it up, no earphones or anything needed. The fence would vibrate (dance) to the music. His mother said she had one frying pan that brought in the station real clear.

I had one of these. Listened to Dodger games at night all the time. Plugged the clip onto the metal bed frame. Even worked connected to the finger stop on the phone dial. Had good sound too.

Had a basic crystal radio on a board that I listened to in my bedroom with earphones during the early-mid '50s. Brings back a lot of memories.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I don’t think crystal scanners are what this thread is about.

Yeah, I kinda got that now. LOL

Remember making a simple one with my Dad while in Cub Scouts.....

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
<snip>
Yes, I built one with a naked germanium crystal and one with a diode. Could pick up KSRO in Santa Rosa, only local station. <snip>

If you use a commercial diode for rectification, a germanium diode is better than a silicon diode. Lower conduction threshold in the forward direction. 0.7 V for germanium vs. 0.9 V for silicon.

I also had a wood-cased Model T spark coil. Shockingly good fun!

quote:

Originally posted by kz1000:
I had one from Radio Shack as a kid.

Me too.

I remember them never working. My uncle had one that he swore worked but when I listened there was nada. Maybe he was playing a joke.

The only crtstal radio that I remember consisted of an empty oatmeal box, wound with copper wire, a quartz crystal, and that's it!
had to stretch the wire tight from my bedroom window to a tree. One crappy channel, but it was neat. That was the early sixties.

Then as a teenager in the late sixties I stretched a wire from the top of my tree fort tree down to my tiny transistor radio. Got the music station from Mexico City. Pretty cool, seeing as how I live on the south shore of Lake Erie.