Getting a radio that used a razor blade, a piece of lead pencil and a safety pin as the detector, I could hear a faint signal from a local station. I have been hooked on radio ever since.
Videos such as these are def. worthwhile, esp. for younger folks who have no idea about the beginnings of radio. I think they'd be surprised to know that their smart phones contain several radios. Understanding the basics makes it so much easier to understand anything more complex.
Greetings from New Zealand. Back in early 60's I had a crystal radio set ( although transistor radios were becoming readily available). I enjoyed tinkering with them. Lots of fun. Thank you
Back in the day we used to get step by step radio building books and components. The UK "Ladybird" books series had one very good book that started from a crystal set to basic powered amplification. I've always wanted to build my own radio and now in my early 60's I think I will just do that!
Your never too old to start. I am 65 and been working with radios and Ham Radio for 48 years and still love tinkering with crystal radio circuits here in the US 🙂
I also have the ladybird book. Tried some of the builds, and should do them all. Got plenty of old transistors in the spares kit. If anyone in the UK needs anything, let me know as I may be able to help.
Thanks So Much for the presentation! Here in the US/Canada, sets were made with the coil being made on a Quaker Oats box. My Dad made one of these, as they didn't have much money when he was growing up. How amazing to get the BBC World Service today static free right on our smartphones(!) , and via Bluetooth in the car! BBC is truely as they say: "The World's Radio Station." My Dad, at age 17, was a Merchant Mariner and was so lucky to survive the war. Even after the war, there were still free floating mines everywhere he said. On his Liberty Ship, they had a special radio and they would listen to the BBC. The radio was a special one, called a "Scott" Receiver, and it was designed so they they could listen, but not have the oscillator inadvertently picked up by the U-Boats. I think about this everytime that I listen to the BBC. Radio is STILL a Miracle! 73 DE W8LV BILL (W8LV/VE3 prepandemic.) PS. I hope to see all of the things there, your museum and Bletchley Park someday. Money is tight here, nothing of course like what my Dad went through (he was a hungry kid, really) but I did manage to send two of my kids to London just a few weeks ago, I'm so glad they got the chance go! It's so nice of you to present these things here for the World to see, so we can see them right on our living room television sets, even from afar. All the Best to you, Sir!
Thank you so very much sharing your experience and expertise with us. I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and I am very grateful to you for the opportunity to listen to your documentary
All you need for a " modern " replica is an OA79 or OA81 germanium point contact ( glass enclosed ) diode , a LONG wire antenna ( + earth rod ! ) and a ( pink ? ) crystal earpiece ( very important ! ) ... and a 2.5 mH choke ( ± 1mH ) , between antenna and ground .... will bring up your local AM station ... happy listening .... tried - n - tested ( in the 1960's ) ..........
I remember as a kid in the early 70s having a small transistor radio and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. I could listen to music anywhere 24/7.
My second electronics kit was a crystal radio from (of all places) radio shack! The first was an IC based kit, and i ruined it trying to assemble it, because i could not solder yet. But the crystal radio worked just fine. Been doing electronics work ever since.
From Leo: As a boy, I played with building a crystal set. Tickling the crystal was tiresome and usually unstable. I was able to obtain some germanium diodes and a few of them worked really well. It did require a lot of signal, the longer the antenna, the better the experience. Later I added a couple of transistors and a battery so I was able to drive a small speaker instead of the poor sounding high impedance headset. Thank you for the demonstration.
Mine also used a germanium diode 'detector' and tuned with one of those old air dielectric variable capacitors with the metal semicircular fins; a great learning experience for us.
I built a simple crystal earpiece radio as a kid in the 80s with an electronics multi experiment kit I'd been given. Worked well, it had an actual diode, such a thing would of been a luxury to the cats whisker constructors from days of old.
When I was a child Dad bought me the components of a crystal set and helped me build it - a radio that did not need electricity, no battery no plug! He was a chartered telecoms engineer. I thought my crystal set was magic, it was!
I have an old crystal set with headphones and even a speaker that is from my grandfather i guess he and/or his parents used it back then in the 20´s or so. The radio is much nicer than just a board with some coils, it is a nicely made slanted wooden box with a black panel with rotary controls and the speaker is also nicely made with cloth covered front. I have never really tried to get it working but have been curious as im into old tech having worked in electronics all my working life as a tech. Im not nearly old enough to have experienced this kind of tech in action when it was a thing since im only 50 but i have certainly seen some staggering tech development during my life, just to mention one thing for reference, here in Sweden color TV was a new thing when i was born and today everyone has "computers" in their pocket and can watch anything on demand at far better technical quality as well. I started using streamed on demand TV exclusively for about 6 years ago myself and its fantastic that we now can watch what we want when we want it., i also loove RUclips of course. I might try and get that old crystal set working now that i have seen this excelent demonstration on how it works.
Great stuff! Here in the States, we had a company called Heath Kit when I was a youngster, they made all kinds of components so you build some great stuff. Got me in some trouble also. I still have a tube tester I built when I was in scouts.
I built one for fun, after my dad described looking for the hot spot on a crystal. Mind you this was 64 years ago. Even in those days finding the parts was the hardest part of the project. Started me down the road of electronics ...my current projects are smaller, with a single chip, containing millions of diodes and transistors. Thank you for sharing this lost bit of history. Take care.
My 1st crystal set built in 1972 cost me $1.80 for diode the rest was scrounged radio bits from 6thr dumpster and telephone receiver got from PMG linesman for free
When I was a kid I had a few different crystal sets. There was one that used a germanium diode instead of a cat's whisker. the sound came through but you had to adjust the coil or condenser to tune in the few local stations. The other was a genuine cat's whisker job which was aso finicky. the sound was scratchy, like the one here.
Back in the 1960 in Practical Wirelese there was a project for building a crystal set built on a piece of wood from a orange box the components where held in place by wood screws and washers. There was also a bicycle shop on the front door it had a sign advertising accumulators charged here and I remember my grandfather telling me in the early days of valve radios the used accumulators to power the valve sets and would take them to the shop to have them charged up.
I remember seeing plans for a simple AM receiver using a razor blade as the "crystal" and some simple coils that could be hand wound. Never tried to build one, as i am not sure double edged razor blades of today have the same coating on the early razor blades that enabled them to be a non-linear electronic device.
I built one from a kit in the early 1990s - which came with information on how it worked. It was really cool how you only had to ground it, and the radio signal itself powered the earphone. There was nothing I really wanted to listen to on the AM dial, but it was fun to make it work.
My great grandpa told my dad that he put the headphones in my great grandma's mixing bowl, so she could hear too. when the radios needed batteries they had to take them to a shop to have them charged, and it only cost 1p. I don't think anyone listens to the radio today, well, old people may, but the batteries for my dads meter that measures electricity so he can mend things cost nearly four pounds and they cant be recharged!
Many years ago, I made a crystal radio that would drive a speaker at a comfortable listening volume. It involved tuning the antenna and having a really long one.
Yes, that is an old way to tune by changing the inductance. With a very careful design, you can make one that varies the inductance my more than 10:1. US AM radio is about 500KHz to 1600KHz. Remember the equation for frequency is F = 1/( 2 * pi * sqrt(L * C)) F : Frequency in Hz L : inductance in Henry C : capacitance in Farad. sqrt() meaning square root means that as L goes 1..9 sqrt(L) goes 1..3 Thus this sort of tuner would cover the whole band
@@kensmith5694 This just hit me - I wonder if you could connect several variometers in series to get really wide tuning ranges, say from MW up to the mid-SW bands? You could include bypass switches to short out unwanted coils?
@@chuckermatinger3794 I think you would need to switch some in and out. The inductance range of one of them would be perhaps 10:1. This would give about a 3:1 frequency range. If you connect two in series you don't really get a bigger ratio. You could consider switching capacitors across them too. This could get you an additional 3:1 or perhaps more.
I've never gotten the chance to even build a crystal set radio let alone use one, I'd like to see one built that would tune the entire shortwave bands from about 1.7 MHz to about 30 MHz as I have an interest in monitoring the various maritime bands but have no equipment for doing so. I already have an AirBand monitor now which is the cc skywave "newer model" and love it. the only thing I don't like about it though is it doesn't have SSB Rix.
Thanks so much for this video! Very interesting to learn more history of early radio. I am particularly interested in the model that you demonstrated. I recent bought a similar one at a local hamfest. I would be interested in more information on construction of it because he one I have is missing the coil support rod. I would like to try and restore it. Any info would be appreciated! Thanks so much! Take Care-Larry
Interesting build on the crystal radio. First time I've seen one with piled up coils like that. I guess stray capacitance is not much of an issue with such a primitive set!
I think you mean the two coils on top? I believe it was called a variometer. It's an adjustable transformer. Rotating the coil inside the fixed one varied the coupling, thus changing the volume as mentioned. It also affected the selectivity needed to tune one station next to another. Great video!
I don't know about your nation, but here in the US radio is a wasteland, populated with hate radio AM stations and specialty music stations on FM. Our days of reliable, trusted network radio are unfortunately gone for most of the nation. I think it's a tragedy, because broadcast radio remains the most affordable, accessible communication medium in our world. I'm in my mid sixties and for the most part, network radio was dead by my majority. How I wish I could tune into news, entertainment shows and a real variety of music today! I hope it's better for you in the UK.
Очень хорошо и правильно,делиться такой информацией,как легко и просто можно сделать старинный,простой,детекторный приемник ,из малого количества материалов.Спасибо за видео!👍👍👍 Вы хороший человек!😇 Я буду делать такой приемник.У меня уже есть шесть разных, детекторных приемников,они все без конденсаторов переменной емкости.
@@Penfolio Oh yes, A good friend of mine in the UK told me that as well as to the requirements just to do home repairs that here in the US we take for granted such as electrical and plumbing.
Now do I have this right that back in the 1920’s the a person had to have a license to have the radio or crystal set or was it that the listener had to have a license?
The idea of having to buy a license to listen to the radio or watch TV is very foreign to us in America. Here, if someone came to the door asking about a TV license, they'd cordially invited to the theological place of eternal punishment, and the door would be slammed in their face.
Daven try town Co my hobbys are painting pictures and lisining to shortwave and ssb iam thinking about getting my ham license I have 4 shortwave receivers
I remember that the three-transistor walkie talkies sold for kids in the 1960s had super regen receivers. I could hear the local CB traffic and even some skip.
Getting a radio that used a razor blade, a piece of lead pencil and a safety pin as the detector, I could hear a faint signal from a local station. I have been hooked on radio ever since.
Thank you for sharing this video. I wish I could visit the museum all the way from Australia :)
"Tickling the xtal", thanx Mr. Viveash for a very orderly and concise presentation of an exciting time prior. Harry
and a crystal radio can play forever
Really enjoyed that, very educational, leaves me wanting more
Videos such as these are def. worthwhile, esp. for younger folks who have no idea about the beginnings of radio. I think they'd be surprised to know that their smart phones contain several radios.
Understanding the basics makes it so much easier to understand anything more complex.
Hi I loved this video just wonderful to see these old radios just wonderful thank you very much
Greetings from New Zealand. Back in early 60's I had a crystal radio set ( although transistor radios were becoming readily available). I enjoyed tinkering with them. Lots of fun. Thank you
Back in the day we used to get step by step radio building books and components. The UK "Ladybird" books series had one very good book that started from a crystal set to basic powered amplification. I've always wanted to build my own radio and now in my early 60's I think I will just do that!
Your never too old to start. I am 65 and been working with radios and Ham Radio for 48 years and still love tinkering with crystal radio circuits here in the US 🙂
I also have the ladybird book. Tried some of the builds, and should do them all. Got plenty of old transistors in the spares kit. If anyone in the UK needs anything, let me know as I may be able to help.
@@marknesselhaus4376 I just got my Technician license. Can’t wait.
Thanks So Much for the presentation! Here in the US/Canada, sets were made with the coil being made on a Quaker Oats box. My Dad made one of these, as they didn't have much money when he was growing up. How amazing to get the BBC World Service today static free right on our smartphones(!) , and via Bluetooth in the car! BBC is truely as they say: "The World's Radio Station." My Dad, at age 17, was a Merchant Mariner and was so lucky to survive the war. Even after the war, there were still free floating mines everywhere he said. On his Liberty Ship, they had a special radio and they would listen to the BBC. The radio was a special one, called a "Scott" Receiver, and it was designed so they they could listen, but not have the oscillator inadvertently picked up by the U-Boats. I think about this everytime that I listen to the BBC. Radio is STILL a Miracle! 73 DE W8LV BILL (W8LV/VE3 prepandemic.) PS. I hope to see all of the things there, your museum and Bletchley Park someday. Money is tight here, nothing of course like what my Dad went through (he was a hungry kid, really) but I did manage to send two of my kids to London just a few weeks ago, I'm so glad they got the chance go! It's so nice of you to present these things here for the World to see, so we can see them right on our living room television sets, even from afar. All the Best to you, Sir!
I thought the BBC was shut down !!
Lovely presentation thank you
Thank you so very much sharing your experience and expertise with us. I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and I am very grateful to you for the opportunity to listen to your documentary
All you need for a " modern " replica is an OA79 or OA81 germanium point contact ( glass enclosed ) diode , a LONG wire antenna ( + earth rod ! ) and a ( pink ? ) crystal earpiece ( very important ! ) ... and a 2.5 mH choke ( ± 1mH ) , between antenna and ground .... will bring up your local AM station ... happy listening .... tried - n - tested ( in the 1960's ) ..........
I remember as a kid in the early 70s having a small transistor radio and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. I could listen to music anywhere 24/7.
My second electronics kit was a crystal radio from (of all places) radio shack! The first was an IC based kit, and i ruined it trying to assemble it, because i could not solder yet. But the crystal radio worked just fine. Been doing electronics work ever since.
From Leo: As a boy, I played with building a crystal set. Tickling the crystal was tiresome and usually unstable. I was able to obtain some germanium diodes and a few of them worked really well. It did require a lot of signal, the longer the antenna, the better the experience. Later I added a couple of transistors and a battery so I was able to drive a small speaker instead of the poor sounding high impedance headset. Thank you for the demonstration.
Mine also used a germanium diode 'detector' and tuned with one of those old air dielectric variable capacitors with the metal semicircular fins; a great learning experience for us.
I built a simple crystal earpiece radio as a kid in the 80s with an electronics multi experiment kit I'd been given. Worked well, it had an actual diode, such a thing would of been a luxury to the cats whisker constructors from days of old.
When I was a child Dad bought me the components of a crystal set and helped me build it - a radio that did not need electricity, no battery no plug! He was a chartered telecoms engineer. I thought my crystal set was magic, it was!
Daven try town Co your utube videos are awesome
I have an old crystal set with headphones and even a speaker that is from my grandfather i guess he and/or his parents used it back then in the 20´s or so. The radio is much nicer than just a board with some coils, it is a nicely made slanted wooden box with a black panel with rotary controls and the speaker is also nicely made with cloth covered front. I have never really tried to get it working but have been curious as im into old tech having worked in electronics all my working life as a tech. Im not nearly old enough to have experienced this kind of tech in action when it was a thing since im only 50 but i have certainly seen some staggering tech development during my life, just to mention one thing for reference, here in Sweden color TV was a new thing when i was born and today everyone has "computers" in their pocket and can watch anything on demand at far better technical quality as well. I started using streamed on demand TV exclusively for about 6 years ago myself and its fantastic that we now can watch what we want when we want it., i also loove RUclips of course. I might try and get that old crystal set working now that i have seen this excelent demonstration on how it works.
Great stuff!
Here in the States, we had a company called Heath Kit when I was a youngster, they made all kinds of components so you build some great stuff. Got me in some trouble also.
I still have a tube tester I built when I was in scouts.
I built one for fun, after my dad described looking for the hot spot on a crystal. Mind you this was 64 years ago. Even in those days finding the parts was the hardest part of the project. Started me down the road of electronics ...my current projects are smaller, with a single chip, containing millions of diodes and transistors. Thank you for sharing this lost bit of history. Take care.
My 1st crystal set built in 1972 cost me $1.80 for diode the rest was scrounged radio bits from 6thr dumpster and telephone receiver got from PMG linesman for free
1922 when my grandparents were 26 my late uncle was 1 and the year before my mother was born!!
When I was a kid I had a few different crystal sets. There was one that used a germanium diode instead of a cat's whisker. the sound came through but you had to adjust the coil or condenser to tune in the few local stations. The other was a genuine cat's whisker job which was aso finicky. the sound was scratchy, like the one here.
Back in the 1960 in Practical Wirelese there was a project for building a crystal set built on a
piece of wood from a orange box the components where held in place by wood screws and washers.
There was also a bicycle shop on the front door it had a sign advertising accumulators charged here and I remember my grandfather telling me in the early days of valve radios the used accumulators to power the valve sets and would take them to the shop to have them charged up.
Great video, loved listening to you recall your memories of the beginnings of radio. :-}
I remember seeing plans for a simple AM receiver using a razor blade as the "crystal" and some simple coils that could be hand wound. Never tried to build one, as i am not sure double edged razor blades of today have the same coating on the early razor blades that enabled them to be a non-linear electronic device.
Radio 5 live on 433 metres from Droitwich.
I remember them back in my childhood we and my friends we used to play around with theses things 😊
I love this vid! Crystal radio's are epic
I built one from a kit in the early 1990s - which came with information on how it worked. It was really cool how you only had to ground it, and the radio signal itself powered the earphone. There was nothing I really wanted to listen to on the AM dial, but it was fun to make it work.
"Tickle the crystal and find a sensitive spot"!
I find the equipment used back then fascinating. They were made to last and repair if needed. 👍
As this old folks pass away nobody will be able or willing to build one anymore.
Вчера сделал такое радио.Всю ночь слушал.Это потрясающе!Это лучшее радио!Говорит громко,ловит радиоволны хорошо!👍👍👍
My great grandpa told my dad that he put the headphones in my great grandma's mixing bowl, so she could hear too. when the radios needed batteries they had to take them to a shop to have them charged, and it only cost 1p.
I don't think anyone listens to the radio today, well, old people may, but the batteries for my dads meter that measures electricity so he can mend things cost nearly four pounds and they cant be recharged!
I must be old!
Many years ago, I made a crystal radio that would drive a speaker at a comfortable listening volume. It involved tuning the antenna and having a really long one.
Thank you for presenting this very informative video , very interesting with the coil set up rather than a variable capacitor.
Yes, that is an old way to tune by changing the inductance. With a very careful design, you can make one that varies the inductance my more than 10:1.
US AM radio is about 500KHz to 1600KHz.
Remember the equation for frequency is
F = 1/( 2 * pi * sqrt(L * C))
F : Frequency in Hz
L : inductance in Henry
C : capacitance in Farad.
sqrt() meaning square root means that as L goes 1..9 sqrt(L) goes 1..3
Thus this sort of tuner would cover the whole band
@@kensmith5694 This just hit me - I wonder if you could connect several variometers in series to get really wide tuning ranges, say from MW up to the mid-SW bands? You could include bypass switches to short out unwanted coils?
@@chuckermatinger3794 I think you would need to switch some in and out. The inductance range of one of them would be perhaps 10:1. This would give about a 3:1 frequency range. If you connect two in series you don't really get a bigger ratio. You could consider switching capacitors across them too. This could get you an additional 3:1 or perhaps more.
I've never gotten the chance to even build a crystal set radio let alone use one, I'd like to see one built that would tune the entire shortwave bands from about 1.7 MHz to about 30 MHz as I have an interest in monitoring the various maritime bands but have no equipment for doing so. I already have an AirBand monitor now which is the cc skywave "newer model" and love it. the only thing I don't like about it though is it doesn't have SSB Rix.
I have an early 20's radio. It says BC/SW.
BC is AM and SW is short wave.
Thanks so much for this video! Very interesting to learn more history of early radio. I am particularly interested in the model that you demonstrated. I recent bought a similar one at a local hamfest. I would be interested in more information on construction of it because he one I have is missing the coil support rod. I would like to try and restore it. Any info would be appreciated! Thanks so much! Take Care-Larry
Interesting build on the crystal radio. First time I've seen one with piled up coils like that. I guess stray capacitance is not much of an issue with such a primitive set!
I think you mean the two coils on top? I believe it was called a variometer. It's an adjustable transformer. Rotating the coil inside the fixed one varied the coupling, thus changing the volume as mentioned. It also affected the selectivity needed to tune one station next to another.
Great video!
I don't know about your nation, but here in the US radio is a wasteland, populated with hate radio AM stations and specialty music stations on FM. Our days of reliable, trusted network radio are unfortunately gone for most of the nation. I think it's a tragedy, because broadcast radio remains the most affordable, accessible communication medium in our world. I'm in my mid sixties and for the most part, network radio was dead by my majority. How I wish I could tune into news, entertainment shows and a real variety of music today! I hope it's better for you in the UK.
What kind of hate radio do you find? I get Christian and good radio stations.
@@upsidedown3341in my area, AM radio is totally dominated by right wing hate filled crude.
Очень хорошо и правильно,делиться такой информацией,как легко и просто можно сделать старинный,простой,детекторный приемник ,из малого количества материалов.Спасибо за видео!👍👍👍 Вы хороший человек!😇 Я буду делать такой приемник.У меня уже есть шесть разных, детекторных приемников,они все без конденсаторов переменной емкости.
I have a 1923 Crosley 52. Its about as old as it gets.
wow thank you so much for this makes me glad i was born in 1980 lol
Thank you for your interesting video.
It would be cool it someone made one that did needn't crystal tickling.
If someone could only invent a rectifier...
That was great. Thanks
Awesome!
Thanks
Had a crystal set was cool...
Check that cup if may conducts electricity , it seems to be very oxidized or use a Perikon zincite diode
Very nice job
I have always enjoyed building crystal radio sets for MW and even SW. What gets me is that a license fee was required in the UK just to receive.
It may also be a surprise to hear that even today, in the UK, if you want to watch broadcast TV, you need to have a TV licence.
@@Penfolio Oh yes, A good friend of mine in the UK told me that as well as to the requirements just to do home repairs that here in the US we take for granted such as electrical and plumbing.
I still have a small stash of galena. I should work up a set.
Now do I have this right that back in the 1920’s the a person had to have a license to have the radio or crystal set or was it that the listener had to have a license?
The idea of having to buy a license to listen to the radio or watch TV is very foreign to us in America. Here, if someone came to the door asking about a TV license, they'd cordially invited to the theological place of eternal punishment, and the door would be slammed in their face.
Daven try town Co my hobbys are painting pictures and lisining to shortwave and ssb iam thinking about getting my ham license I have 4 shortwave receivers
Que interesante que haya lugares, dónde se conservan los aparatos del pasado y a las personas mayores trabajen ahí, en México todo se destruye
Don't forget that specialists are watching!
Daventry town Co the crystal set radio Receiver is so awesome
Anybody ever tried super regenerative receiver?
I remember that the three-transistor walkie talkies sold for kids in the 1960s had super regen receivers. I could hear the local CB traffic and even some skip.
I had a crystal set radio Receiver when I was a kid
Needs some close-ups!
Ja i dzisiaj robię takie radia
You had to have a license talk about needing a subscription
2:41
Please forgive me but since when did ten shillings in the 1920’s only be worth 50 pence in today’s money? I believe that you are mistaken.
👏👏👏👏👍👍👍💯🥇🔝
He said "he"! I'm so offended!! Make sure you put some apologetic subtitle in there ...
АМ радиостанции - это флаг государства, берегите его. Сейчас Китай и его соседи накрыли Россию этой мощью...
Tickle your crystal.
I pay 24 dollars a month for SiriousXM radio paying for radio nothing is new! 🤭
Remember them really well. G4OWW. …..