Thanks for posting this. I tried building a crystal radio several years ago. Never did get it to work. I did have a store bought radio that looked like a rocket in the late fifties. It did work and kept all us kids entertained for hours. I might have to try again
Wow - memories - when I was a kid in the early 70s, I built that exact kit. The biggest issue was lack of information that might have helped - no internet of course. A metal coffee can was about the same size as the Quaker Oats container so I tried that, obviously with no success since it would have acted as a shorted winding and also changed the inductance. Eventually I got it going by switching to a cardboard container of some kind (no Quaker oats in our home) but the crystal was so incredibly finicky and the lack of strong AM station nearby didnt help so it really wasn't reliable. The detector diode did work and made the project a sucess. Was a great learning experience and the idea of a radio with no batteries fascinated me. Thanks for making the video!
Same for me at about the same time except At nine years old I couldn’t make it work. My dad was a WW-II Army Air Corp Vet and was Nose Gunner and Second Radioman on a B-24. I asked him if he could help me get it working. Well I guess that a primitive radio wasn’t taught at his radio class during the war, (or he lied)……
@@scotthaddad563 I'll bet there were a lot of us that couldn't get it going. This was actually my second crystal radio - the first was more of a toy kit with a diode that never worked. Years later I discovered the diode was bad and headphones were way too low impedance for this application. Funny - my dad also was unable to help - he was a RCAF vet who had been a navigator on an Avro Lancaster and then ran a Radar site on the British coast and used to troubleshoot the electronics there. Like your dad, he must never have been taught about this sort of thing. I suspect that due to wartime situation, they only had time to learn what they needed to know for whatever job they were assigned to. Probbaly for both our dads that was simple tube radio transmit and receive circuits.
Decades back I bought the entire set of Elmer's books. There is a history of him on RUclips also. I worked for a store that was a Philmore distributor back in the early 80's, and kept a couple of the detector units for myself, still in the packages! Worth a small fortune now., plus I have an original Philmore Galena Detector crystal in the early 1900's box. When the store closed due to the death of the owner, I ended up with the 15 lb rolls of the magnet wire, and most of the stock. Loved the coil weight and tight nuts humor.
Fun fact: No one has ever made a homemade earpiece for listening to a crystal radio set. Even the Boy Scouts in the 1920s, and the GIs in the foxholes all had to use a piezoelectric earpiece from RadioShack.
Deeply appreciated, your presentation, your enthusiastic way of doing, shared historical information, but overall, this, your time, and my personal joy to remember that my career began with it in the 50s...My respects, and big thanks for you care to share it.
Howdy and hello, I looked at the writing on the paper and it said something about shorts and screws and two lines under the tuning cap and I think that two screws were causing the cap to short out somewhere in the connections but I can not be sure and if you carefully move the crease or fold where the writing is with a x-acto knife, and then use some scotch clear tape very carefully to patch the crease or fold of the paper together you might be able to read what is left of the writing. It would take a careful touch and some patience to pull that off. So be careful.
back in 1970 when i wanted to make a 40 m / 80 m receiver my mom [i was only 10] took me to a radio store that sold parts i got one of them Fillmore crystal's i did not need it for the radio i was making but i wanted it if i remember right it was 75 cents to bad i let it get away from me 46 years ago . oh well these things happen .
At 10:42 I would have held down the wire straightening tool with about 50 lbs of weights... right on top of the plastic cups so they get squished down real flat. It seemed to work for the coil... it snapped back into shape perfectly. I never knew I could glue down such delicate objects with so much weight. I have a priceless cracked Fabreger Egg, I am going to try your heavy weight trick to hold it together while the glue dries. Thanks!
The first crystal radio I built (1974) was a Radio Shack kit that had a square antenna. I knew what I was doing and followed the instructions to the letter? I didn't work at all no matter what I did. When I was 13 in 1976 I got my Radio Shack 150-in-1 Electronics kit for Christmas. I still have it. The Crystal Radio project in it worked perfectly (and still does). A few years later I purchased another radio kit (the same one from 1974)... it didn't work either. The FCC is thinking about reallocation the AM band for other uses since AM stations have all but completely died off. If that happens, all crystal radios may become useless. I hope they keep a small portion of the band for AM broadcasts (say 550KHz to 600KHz) for disaster prep as AM and Crystal Radios may be the only way to disseminate information after the "SHTF" event when most electronics will be destoryed by EMP weapons.
The early boxes were 5-3/8" in diameter. The one I just measured is just 5-1/16" in diameter. What size box did you use? I wonder when they changed box size and if the 1978 radio had to be wound different than they wound them on the older boxes?
@@michaelsimpson5417 The expiration date on the bottom of my box is July 2009. Definitely a shift in sizes over the years. Yours will take less wire to get the same number of turns as the originals so your losing bandwidth on the low end is my guess. Did you add more turns?
@@tenlittleindians It depends on what size you buy. The 42 oz box is 5" in diameter, too big for the base. Elmer specified the 4" diameter box, as did the Mechanix Illustrated article.
@@michaelsimpson5417 That's great that they specified a diameter. The original plans from the 20's didn't need to specify a size because Quaker Oats were the first and only company to package cereal that way. The problems came later when the box size changed and people were trying to build sets from old plans without knowing the turns would need to be adjusted. I checked and my box is the 42 Oz size.
The other radio you built (the one where your mom gave you "the belt" for being insolent) picked up several stations in the Philadelphia area. If you temporarily swapped out the Point Contact Diode with a Germainum Diode, would this radio be more selective to stations? By the way: The symbol for a modern Diode is an arrow pointing to a flat line. The arrow side is the Anode and the flat line side is the Cathode. Electrons flow against the arrow. The symbol was not drawn based on electron flow, it was drawn to symbolize the Point Contact Diode (as you have here): The Germaium (is that correct?) in the Cup (Flat Line) is the Cathode, and the Tungsun (correct?) Needle is the Anode (Arrow).
It would probably work better with a diode, but I don't know if it would be more selective. An antenna tuner would help a lot. Also, it acts differently at night vs during the day, but I think that's true of any basic crystal set.
Thanks! I'm not in this for subscribers, I make videos for friends and people who share a common hobby. This video got far more views than I ever thought possible.
Good eye! In the US we call them "rolls" of tape. I keep a full color decade of electrical tape on my work bench on a single rod as a dispenser. Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Grey, and White. They are great to indentify wires. I can use 3 pieces of tape for 1000 combinations: Black Black Black to White White White.
Mabel passed away 27 Jul 1983 but I didn't find an obit, just the Cali death record and Social Security - and there is a Find A Grave page but no obit.
Funniest radio video I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t tell if it was all a joke or for real. It’s for real and I learned something about crystal radios. Phenomenal job cinching your nuts!!
Thanks for posting this. I tried building a crystal radio several years ago. Never did get it to work. I did have a store bought radio that looked like a rocket in the late fifties. It did work and kept all us kids entertained for hours. I might have to try again
Wow - memories - when I was a kid in the early 70s, I built that exact kit. The biggest issue was lack of information that might have helped - no internet of course. A metal coffee can was about the same size as the Quaker Oats container so I tried that, obviously with no success since it would have acted as a shorted winding and also changed the inductance. Eventually I got it going by switching to a cardboard container of some kind (no Quaker oats in our home) but the crystal was so incredibly finicky and the lack of strong AM station nearby didnt help so it really wasn't reliable. The detector diode did work and made the project a sucess. Was a great learning experience and the idea of a radio with no batteries fascinated me. Thanks for making the video!
Same for me at about the same time except At nine years old I couldn’t make it work. My dad was a WW-II Army Air Corp Vet and was Nose Gunner and Second Radioman on a B-24. I asked him if he could help me get it working. Well I guess that a primitive radio wasn’t taught at his radio class during the war, (or he lied)……
@@scotthaddad563 I'll bet there were a lot of us that couldn't get it going. This was actually my second crystal radio - the first was more of a toy kit with a diode that never worked. Years later I discovered the diode was bad and headphones were way too low impedance for this application.
Funny - my dad also was unable to help - he was a RCAF vet who had been a navigator on an Avro Lancaster and then ran a Radar site on the British coast and used to troubleshoot the electronics there. Like your dad, he must never have been taught about this sort of thing. I suspect that due to wartime situation, they only had time to learn what they needed to know for whatever job they were assigned to. Probbaly for both our dads that was simple tube radio transmit and receive circuits.
Decades back I bought the entire set of Elmer's books. There is a history of him on RUclips also. I worked for a store that was a Philmore distributor back in the early 80's, and kept a couple of the detector units for myself, still in the packages! Worth a small fortune now., plus I have an original Philmore Galena Detector crystal in the early 1900's box. When the store closed due to the death of the owner, I ended up with the 15 lb rolls of the magnet wire, and most of the stock.
Loved the coil weight and tight nuts humor.
I had a kit like this and I paid about 15 DM including shipping from the US. That was a long time ago 😊
Thanks for posting! When you smashed with the weights I went waaaah!? Elmer’s style of building was …. unique to Elmer.
9:09 🤣 OK, sure, fine, shoulda seen it coming! Thanks for a fun video! 😎✌️
Fun fact: No one has ever made a homemade earpiece for listening to a crystal radio set. Even the Boy Scouts in the 1920s, and the GIs in the foxholes all had to use a piezoelectric earpiece from RadioShack.
Deeply appreciated, your presentation, your enthusiastic way of doing, shared historical information, but overall, this, your time, and my personal joy to remember that my career began with it in the 50s...My respects, and big thanks for you care to share it.
Howdy and hello,
I looked at the writing on the paper and it said something about shorts and screws and two lines under the tuning cap and I think that two screws were causing the cap to short out somewhere in the connections but I can not be sure and if you carefully move the crease or fold where the writing is with a x-acto knife, and then use some scotch clear tape very carefully to patch the crease or fold of the paper together you might be able to read what is left of the writing.
It would take a careful touch and some patience to pull that off. So be careful.
back in 1970 when i wanted to make a 40 m / 80 m receiver my mom [i was only 10] took me to a radio store that sold parts i got one of them Fillmore crystal's i did not need it for the radio i was making but i wanted it if i remember right it was 75 cents to bad i let it get away from me 46 years ago . oh well these things happen .
Best RUclips video I have seen in years. Thanks.
Thanks!
What if I told you the opening was hilarious?
The beginning was so much fun. Lol
At 10:42 I would have held down the wire straightening tool with about 50 lbs of weights... right on top of the plastic cups so they get squished down real flat. It seemed to work for the coil... it snapped back into shape perfectly. I never knew I could glue down such delicate objects with so much weight. I have a priceless cracked Fabreger Egg, I am going to try your heavy weight trick to hold it together while the glue dries. Thanks!
Haha!! You, sir, are crazy! 🤣Thanks for the video! Subscribed
The first crystal radio I built (1974) was a Radio Shack kit that had a square antenna. I knew what I was doing and followed the instructions to the letter? I didn't work at all no matter what I did. When I was 13 in 1976 I got my Radio Shack 150-in-1 Electronics kit for Christmas. I still have it. The Crystal Radio project in it worked perfectly (and still does). A few years later I purchased another radio kit (the same one from 1974)... it didn't work either.
The FCC is thinking about reallocation the AM band for other uses since AM stations have all but completely died off. If that happens, all crystal radios may become useless. I hope they keep a small portion of the band for AM broadcasts (say 550KHz to 600KHz) for disaster prep as AM and Crystal Radios may be the only way to disseminate information after the "SHTF" event when most electronics will be destoryed by EMP weapons.
I like your train of thought
The early boxes were 5-3/8" in diameter. The one I just measured is just 5-1/16" in diameter.
What size box did you use? I wonder when they changed box size and if the 1978 radio had to be wound different than they wound them on the older boxes?
The outside of the box is exactly 4 inches in diameter.
@@michaelsimpson5417 The expiration date on the bottom of my box is July 2009. Definitely a shift in sizes over the years.
Yours will take less wire to get the same number of turns as the originals so your losing bandwidth on the low end is my guess. Did you add more turns?
@@tenlittleindians It depends on what size you buy. The 42 oz box is 5" in diameter, too big for the base. Elmer specified the 4" diameter box, as did the Mechanix Illustrated article.
@@michaelsimpson5417 That's great that they specified a diameter.
The original plans from the 20's didn't need to specify a size because Quaker Oats were the first and only company to package cereal that way.
The problems came later when the box size changed and people were trying to build sets from old plans without knowing the turns would need to be adjusted.
I checked and my box is the 42 Oz size.
The other radio you built (the one where your mom gave you "the belt" for being insolent) picked up several stations in the Philadelphia area. If you temporarily swapped out the Point Contact Diode with a Germainum Diode, would this radio be more selective to stations?
By the way: The symbol for a modern Diode is an arrow pointing to a flat line. The arrow side is the Anode and the flat line side is the Cathode. Electrons flow against the arrow. The symbol was not drawn based on electron flow, it was drawn to symbolize the Point Contact Diode (as you have here): The Germaium (is that correct?) in the Cup (Flat Line) is the Cathode, and the Tungsun (correct?) Needle is the Anode (Arrow).
It would probably work better with a diode, but I don't know if it would be more selective. An antenna tuner would help a lot. Also, it acts differently at night vs during the day, but I think that's true of any basic crystal set.
You make excellent videos, sir. You should have more subscribers, and I hope you will soon.
Thanks! I'm not in this for subscribers, I make videos for friends and people who share a common hobby. This video got far more views than I ever thought possible.
Two skeins of electrical tape on the shelf depict the national Ukrainian flag. Very nice. 73!
That was unintentional, but I'll leave it that way!
Good eye! In the US we call them "rolls" of tape. I keep a full color decade of electrical tape on my work bench on a single rod as a dispenser.
Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Grey, and White. They are great to indentify wires. I can use 3 pieces of tape for 1000 combinations: Black Black Black to White White White.
Parabéns gostei muito top,
I was crushed ❤
Cure not dry. E6000 is a one part epoxy.
LOVE IT 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Mabel passed away 27 Jul 1983 but I didn't find an obit, just the Cali death record and Social Security - and there is a Find A Grave page but no obit.
Thank you for checking. I guess there isn't one.
Thumbs up 👍 nice radio
You look like the guy who taught my Tractor Trailer Class about a decade ago. hahahah.
I've never been inside the cab of a tractor trailer. Maybe there are two of me! That would be cool, unless I couldn't live with myself.
I did laugh. Which is pretty unusual for me. It’s gotta be something very funny… and very weird. ✅You checked both boxes🎁. Thanks for the fun!
Thank you, too!
At 10:48 those of us with a warped sense of humor won't need to straighten out the wire, we like it "kinky". [laugh]
Funniest radio video I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t tell if it was all a joke or for real. It’s for real and I learned something about crystal radios. Phenomenal job cinching your nuts!!
Thank you!
I think the first word of the red pen notes is "Sketch"
I figured it out at 11:25
I just bought one on ebay for $60. You missed your calling , a comedian
Hilarious and interesting, thank you kindly
You're very welcome!
Good intro.
Laughed my ass off, thank you sir !
hilarious
quit watching after a few seconds
... then spent more seconds typing a comment so we would all know.
Do you do that for every video that you don't like?
You missed the hilarious deadpan humor!! I love it!
@@joelglick Yes, he is demented just like all my friends.
Can I use my pet cat whisker, ill just pull it out using tweezers...