Making a radio from scratch

[alma]

Has anyone made an old fashioned radio with wire wound on oatmeal box.
Has anyone made a radio from radio shacks 80-1 sets they had years ago, or their new method.

Are their other methods i have never heard about or forgotten.

How about a radio using a cats whiskers, or germanium diode or a rusty razor blade.
Any other simple survival info re homemade radios appreciated.

I have an oatmeal box and germanium diode one, plus wire outside antenna for it.
I had radio shack's 80-1 set years ago and could build all kinds of things with it.
Sure wish i had it now. I could make a system where i could knock out bearby radios that were playing and boardcast on it to them. I think it was called audo oscillators, but ay be wrong.
I also used the old fashioned dial telephone and used the finger rest on the dial for an antenna.
Oh, those were the days when i worked with my grandson on so many projects.
Found a small one at second hand store recently, played with it awhile and gave it away, and that was a mistake, because the kid didn't even use it and lost it.
Any new strange ideas that may be useful in survival situation. It would make a really good project for boy scouts or other groups of kids. love, alma

[edward_4576]

Here ya go Alma....


http://www.midnightscience.com/

[DV8]

I remember those radio's.. they WERE fun. Does anyone here remember a National Geographic issue where you'd make a camera from cardboard ? it actually took pics too (not good ones) ... come to think of it, it may have been natnl geo for kids... but I was about 11 when it came out..

Trip down memory lane. thanx for the memories Alma !!

[BwB]

I lost that site about the crystal radios, thanks for posting it! And Thank YOU Alma for bringing up the subject, I've been wanting to put one of those together for a long time and see how well it works!!! ;D

[carugoman]

i've made quite a few of those ' crystal' radio sets from scratch...I'd get all my supplies either down by the RR tracks or over at the local dump, i.e. treasure mines for us po fokes. There were instructions in an old Boy Scout manual my scoutmaster lent me. I had an interesting experience with one of those radios, years later. After eight years of clearing minefields, designing, building then blowing up bridges, jumping out of perfectly usable aircraft( some fools call this particular thing a sport?)...I had the chance to go to Engineering College-Electrical/Electronic on the govt's dime and time. Here's me all freshly shaven and shorn, uniform pressed...HOT DAMN!!! I looked good! In walks my classmates; blue jeans,T-shirts, too much perfume, not enough perfume...then the Professor slumps his way over to the desk; in-tow: his TA overloaded with many cigar boxes?The Prof gives a speech about technology and engineering in general and electrical-electronics in particular and how the world REALLY works? Our 'lab' for the next 3 hrs, for our first day of the class was to use one cigar box and its contents to make something "useful?" Yes, you guessed it a boxful of stuff to make a crystal radio set. After 20 mins, while I was stringing my antennae the prof asked me to bring my box to the front then meet him after class since I was free to leave. You should've seen some of the contraptions my classmates produced that day! Y'all take care and set a spell.

[CarolAnn]

Welcome to the forum, carugoman!

I never really understood (until now) what a crystal radio set was. My dad (born in 1911) made one from a kit that he sent for when he was a kid. He'd get so excited to actually receive a radio station, but when he'd call the family in to hear it, their bodies absorbed the signal and they couldn't hear it.

They thought he made up the story about actually receiving something on it! He finally figured out the problem and left the room so one of his brothers could hear it.

He passed that on to his sons - all can fix just about anything (just like him) and two out of the three made electronics their life work.

[conundrum]

oh man..take me back a ways! My grandfather gave me a very old crystal set when I was eight-I spent untold hours fiddling with it and lying in bed at night listening to the skip from far off places-shrimp boats in the gulf(that one took me a while to figure out!), wbz out of Boston, wcfl out of Chicago, skip from somewhere in Texas once in a while. Took a long time to get the hang of using that old piano wire "pick" to find stations.
And i do remember making a camera out of a coffee can that used cut film. Worked after a fashion. Thanks for the ride back..