View Single Post
Old 13th Jan 2019, 6:43 pm   #15
Ian - G4JQT
Octode
 
Ian - G4JQT's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Reading/Fakenham, UK.
Posts: 1,320
Default Re: "The Works" Crystal Radio

An interesting though depressing thread.

My father recognised my interest in things electrical and bought me a crystal set from the ads at the back of Wireless World, yes, WW, not PW! OK, this was 1970 in Bury Lancs with plenty of MW stations.

It had a plastic base board, coil-spring contacts with a ferrite rod, varicon capacitor. germanium diode and crystal earpiece. Used my curtain rail as the antenna and radiator pipe as the earth. It worked; lit the 'fuse' which is why I'm here 50 years later.

It's very disappointing that poor kits, aimed particularly at youngsters, are still being sold. Maybe even if it worked, MW has changed so much that little if anything would be audible. But poor kits like this and the Chinese radio kits discussed elsewhere on the forum ensure that the fuse of the recipients is unlikely to be lit, and that's very sad...

Ian
Ian - G4JQT is offline