I’m recapturing my youth on Ebay, one item at a time.
This Remco Crystal Radio is like the one I had all those years ago.
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Ermi Roossays
Crystal radios The Remco model at least has a 1N34A germanium diode. The Cub Scout radio (in the previous thread) uses a galena crystal that requires the operator to find a “sweet spot” with the cat’s whisker. This reqires a lot of effort. Both receivers have very poor selectivity.
mram1500says
Poor Performers, Great Memories They do in fact have very poor selectivity being very simple designs. But they were also fascinating to a 10 year old kid some 50 years ago.
And they left me with found memories of my dad who passed away about the same time as he helped me with them.
It was fascinating, to this day, to pull a voice out of the air, no batteries required. I could pick up three local stations with the Cub Scout radio; WHLO-640, WADC-1350, WAKR-1590. Occasionaly WCUE-1150.
Last week I modified the Remco slightly adding a 470 pf cap across the coil. This at least put stations where the belong along the dial. The original circuit was just a coil, diode and earphone.
The easiest to use crystal radio I had at 6 years was the Remco Tiny Tim. It also had a germanium diode but used a slug tuned coil for tuning. Got one on Ebay a couple years ago.
Crystal radios
The Remco model at least has a 1N34A germanium diode. The Cub Scout radio (in the previous thread) uses a galena crystal that requires the operator to find a “sweet spot” with the cat’s whisker. This reqires a lot of effort. Both receivers have very poor selectivity.
Poor Performers, Great Memories
They do in fact have very poor selectivity being very simple designs. But they were also fascinating to a 10 year old kid some 50 years ago.
And they left me with found memories of my dad who passed away about the same time as he helped me with them.
It was fascinating, to this day, to pull a voice out of the air, no batteries required. I could pick up three local stations with the Cub Scout radio; WHLO-640, WADC-1350, WAKR-1590. Occasionaly WCUE-1150.
Last week I modified the Remco slightly adding a 470 pf cap across the coil. This at least put stations where the belong along the dial. The original circuit was just a coil, diode and earphone.
The easiest to use crystal radio I had at 6 years was the Remco Tiny Tim. It also had a germanium diode but used a slug tuned coil for tuning. Got one on Ebay a couple years ago.