Rocks That Detect Radio Broadcasts.
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- In this video, I give a short demonstration of a crystal radio I built, from a book called radios that work for free, by K E Edwards. For those who might be interested, I also had the honor of interviewing Mr Edwards at his Oregon home, where he gave me a tour of his home made radios, which can be seen at this link. • Radios That Work For F...
Those are natural semiconductors and its amazing. They were able to find, characterize and use semiconductors without knowing what they were, in the late 1800s
Yeah it’s amazing we were somehow able to discover this!
@woodviewvillage3484 no not really. These were early engineer bros like "lol what if I use this rock in my circuit, will it explode? "
A lot of early engineering and applied physics was like "what if I put by finger it lol" or "what does it taste like lol". Just boys being boys but they were from wealthy/smart/ both. See Langmuir and Langmuir probes for another example of "yoooo what I I just put my finger in there and see what it do"
@woodviewvillage3484 that difference between the boys and great engineers comes down whether they had the idea to try to apply math to it, after it blew up
@@wilurbeanyou don’t neeeeed math to hone in and tune something, I imagine there was just a lot of fiddling, but very intentional
@@woodviewvillage3484please, what means "tartanian"?
What amazes me is that this is a passive electronics device: without a power source. The sound energy is purely from the transduced electromagnetic radio waves.
A very small speaker and a very, very quiet room. The neighbors won't be complaining and yelling to turn it down!
Learned the basics for this skill in boy scouts In the early eighties. Cool video
Also illustrates the amount of energy that's emmited into space compared to the tiny fraction of it that's captured.
There's a power source all right, the crazy power being fed into the radio transmitter
@melioristicone333 shutlibs renamed it non-binary scouts. Get with the times bigot.
I still have my dad's crystal radio, built in a cigar box in the 1940's, in perfect working order.
The fact that you’ve taken care of it and it still works is amazing!
Thats awesome
I still have mine from 1989 when I was a freshman in high school.
Sounds drippy
My grandpa gave me and my brother one when we were kids, it’s cool ash
When loading out a barn that a retired Army Major had left behind, I came across a pack of "radio steel" razor blades. It took years for me to understand the purpose behind the name.
I've been into electronics for 40 years, and I'm still impressed with how we figured out everything to get to this point.
It only took 10k years in material sciences development and experiments
@@hitmusicworldwide 10,000 years from nothing to the crystal radio, and another 100ish years from the crystal radio to now.
I feel the same bro . Defo some reverse engineering of area 52 going on ! 😂
@@tyttuut on the shoulders of giants a lot of this work started in the 16th century and even earlier. Most folks don't pay any attention to the history of science and they think everything just popped out of nowhere which is why many times a lot of folks are like those make believe natives that get stunned and scared when Indiana Jones lights a match. You'd be surprised how early a lot of our technology goes back when it wasn't being suppressed by religion, wars, epidemics etc
@@tyttuut And now some people are so dumb that they cant figure out if they are a boy or a girl just by looking in their pants.
My Dad helped me build one when I was 6. I'd fall asleep at night listening to Vin Scully announcing the Dodgers and wake up to Bob Cranes morning show. 😊
As a kid in the 60’s I remember hearing about a tiny crystal radio POW’s in Vietnam made using just a pencil, Razor blade and some snips of wire. I actually made a few trying to use only what they could get and they worked !
Would that work with a graphite pencil?
@@BornTrespasser It should, as long as the lead is hard enough to not have the point deform. I think the real problem is finding the appropriate razor blade, as the finish is the semiconductor. (I think you have to use blades with a blued finish, which are hard to find these days, so you might have to rust blue it yourself or try flame bluing it, unless you have a gunsmith friend who's willing to dip one in the hot caustic salts for you next time he's doing a bluing job.)
I'd love to cobble a crystal set together using stuff only from the dollar tree.
(Yes, that includes wires.)
I had an electronic set when i was a kid, my dad made me an aerial to listen ti radio, i used to sit in the garden under a scaffolding pole and a broom handle woth a wire coat hanger on top.
You can grow the crystal out of sugar on a string hanging in an old milk bottle in the fridge. Made one with my Grandad back in the early 70s.
How many radio stations can you get with your rock candy? None.
@@rmccarthy8352 so your less than 10 years old ?
@@Funkylogic sucrose isn't a semiconductor at standard temperatures.
... what about glucose and fructose then?
@@animehair05silently88 they're tasty.
They're not semiconductors alone, any more than boron is a semiconductor alone - it's a dopant to the silicon that converts the silicon into a semiconductor, rather than insulator.
There are other compounds that are semiconductors in living organic systems, bone comes to mind. Assorted polymers, which abound inside of every cell also come to mind in specific configurations.
Hell, under specific pressures and temperatures, sucrose can be a semiconductor, just not at STP, which is, you know, where we live.
Crystal radios are a great start to the hobby of electronics. They are also good projects where there is enough to do that it isn't over too quickly but also short enough to do on a rainy weekend day
Crystal radios were my introduction to electronics. As a kid it was pure magic. As an adult it's still pure magic, just as life itself is.
@@GrantsPassTVRepair They were my introduction too.
100 yrs ago kids built these all the time, age of radio.
@@dananorth895 Make that 80 years and I would agree.
I wanna make one.
Yup, my dad made me one when I was about 5 years old 🙂
I'm 75 now ✝️🇺🇸😀😀😀😀😀
Cristal radio, I had one in 1957, made in plastic in the shape of a rocket.
I remember those plastic rocket shaped crystal radios as a kid.
Yeah. I had one. They are cool. And a rather cheap toy to manufacture. Thanks for the 1957 memory. IT WAS A GOOD YEAR!
They still made them well into the 1960s. The "rocket" shaped came back in the era of Apollo, IIRC.
Way back in the day my grandpa made a crystal radio and taught me how it worked. That’s a fond memory. Thanks.
This "Short" brought up memories of being a kid in the 1950's and winding my own coil using a small Morton salt cardboard tube to make a crystal radio and using a WWII surplus headset to listen with. Thanks for this post!
Or an oatmeal box!
Wow, the more I learn about radio the more impressed I am at the ingenuity of the people behind the tech
This is actually really fascinating. Thankyou for the content.
Thanks for the appreciation. ;-)
I've got a crystal radio in my 1962 DKW Junior deluxe. 3 cylinder, 2 Stroke. Wonderful car
You keep living and you may get the chance to see some truly fascinating things and this video is one of them! Thank you for your time and consideration
Your Welcome
It brings back memories of me making a radio with a Galena Rock. I later upgraded and used a coil, (with a ferrite tuning rod) taken from an old car radio and a IN34 diode with simple headphone/s back in 1961. Thanks
I use those 1N34A' germanium diodes in my guitar pedals circuits on occasion. I also build and restore old tube amps (guitar amps and Radios/Receivers). As much as I love old tube equipment I have to admit it's amazing how far we've come in just the past 120 years (Marconi is recognized as patenting the first radio in I believe 1896). I remember building a crystal radio with my father as a kid (1996-ish) and I think that was the moment I started to fall in love with electronics. My father was born in 1939 so when he was a kid every boy his age built crystal radios for fun and he must have thought I'd enjoy it as much as he did.
I remember the popularity of crystal radios as a kid, and when my uncle built me one, I was fascinated with it. I interviewed the author of a book on crystal radios in case you are interested in it. ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
@@GrantsPassTVRepair Absolutely am, thanks for the link!
@@michaelinglis567 Your welcome.
Fascinating!! Thank you.
Thanks for watching. I have an expanded video on crystal radios at this link. ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
I love learning stuff like this and seeing how amazing human beings can be near 100 years ago.... So much from so little.
I brought a crystal radio in for show and tell in like 2nd grade. Was a present from an uncle I think. It was very out of the ordinary. Wild how all these years later and I can look back and see how it was probably a beginning spark to what would later become a huge hobby.
Yep. And the crystal radio kit I had as a kid still works. Amazing
Yep, totally EMP proof!
My Grandfather built something to that effect while POW in WW2. Took him a year or so but they could listen. B17 pilot Lt.Col Everette E Tribbett 305th bomb group POW Stalag 3
Thank you for sharing your radio. That's too cool.
That’s very cool that he knew how to do that, was able to obtain the materials and get away with creating it as a POW, and live to tell about it!
@moonmagnolia7 he absolutely did, his name was Lt.Col Everette E Tribbett, POW at Stalag Luft 3. Part of the Great Escape as well but...He fought for you to doubt him.
@moonmagnolia7 hey MOON MAGNOLIA... YA your name explains it all. Good luck to you.
Back during WWII U.S. Army soldiers sometimes made what some called Bayonet radios. It didn’t have batteries either if I remember correctly, but they would put together a basic receiver, a coil, a razor blade, an antenna, and a copper wire wrapped around a bayonet stuck in the ground.
Yes I remember hearing people talk about fox hole radios. We have come along way with detector diodes since those days.
Your knowledge reminds me of my grandfather, he was an amazingly intelligent man. I wish I knew a fraction of the information you possess.
I built crystal radios in the 1950s before I moved on to single tube regenerative receivers. I still have some Galena.
I freaking love stuff like this
This is the coolest thing I've ever seen.
It's amazing what can be used to receive radio signals.
A Quaker Oats tube wrapped in coated wire, a cat's whisker much like you show, and a single small earpiece from a transistor radio.
Boy Scouts circa 1976.
Got my merit badge.
Now it's SSB voice, FT8, FT4, RTTY & SSTV (just to name a few modes).
Crystal radios are a blast, you have an awesome rig right there. Thanks for sharing it with us!👋🤠👍⚡️🎙
Mind blown!!! Thanks for sharing this.
One day while working from home and dealing with some delusional manic struggles, I became certain I was hearing voices. “It’s finally here,” I thought “the auditory hallucinations have arrived.” Then something about the voices were too… normal? familiar? So I turned off everything that made noise and followed the voices. Turns out they had an origin outside of my head. I followed the noise to its source: The copper coil motor of my oscillating tower fan was picking up AM radio signals and vibrating them out as sound. Google confirmed this happens and I maintained sanity for another day 💪
I suppose that's possible if you are close to a powerful AM radio station.
@@GrantsPassTVRepair I was near the one of the highest elevations in one of the most densely populated areas in the world, so maybe I was close to one
So cool! Thank you for sharing with us. This kind of education is getting my important by the day
Had Crystal radios in 1950s. No external power. Worked when grounded.
Awesome! Isnt it funny that stuff like this isn't taught in schools! We need to be creating future geniuses with this beautiful knowledge!
these videos are so cool, please continue making more
Thank you.
Crazy to think our bodies also have crysalizations within them making us walking antennae. The crystal hippies were onto something. Catching a vibe is literally recieving the right radio wave frequencies from your environment.
What are the crystallizations in our body? Would we have to have metal in our bodies too? Is that where the stories of some people picking up radio signals from their metal fillings came from? I know if you’re standing on dirt barefoot you’re grounded. I admit I’m ignorant, but am curious.
@@moonmagnolia7 calcifications happen throught the body especially in the pineal gland in your brain. Your blood is full of iron too.
This is excellent… it ties together all the science and wonder of how these things work as a kid. Thanks for sharing. All the best! 🥳🎉😎
amazing what they got working with so little to work with
My favorite channel genuinely. Please teach us more
I appreciate your comment. In case you haven't seen my video interview by the author of a book on crystal radios, you might enjoy this video ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
Scientific discovery never ceases to amaze me. Who was the mad lad that discovered that a coil of wire and a rock could capture radio signals?
Dang I did not know that! I can't believe this is the first time I've heard of such a thing. Great video!
Thanks!
Me too! Thank you!! Very cool!
The detector is a substance with properties of a diode, conducting one way only. So it can chop off half of the AM radio wave and let it directly drive the speaker.
I had a crystal radio as a child 1960’s listened to short wave cricket from England 😊
We made Crystal radios as kids back in the 60s
My dad built a crystal radio when he was in high school. He had an antenna across the back yard and he could pick up Wolfman Jack in Pleasant Hill, Or, early 1960's.
Wolfman Jack had a pirate radio station broadcast out of Tijuana, Mexico so powerful he could be picked up over most of the Western United States, well into Canada.
He'd play Rock and Roll music and make prank phone calls did other funny sketches and what not. He was extremely popular because he did stuff you couldn't do on the radio.
The FCC could.t do bunch as he was broadcasting out of Mexico.
His transmitter was so powerful it would kill birds as they flew by.
Believe it or not I spoke to Wolfman Jack as a kid. He use to give out his phone number on the radio show, so people could call in and make requests, but I don't think he was operating out of Mexico at that time.
Finally a channel that truly deserves a like and a subscribe
Thank you. You may enjoy this interview I did, by the author of a book on crystal radios. ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
This was really cool information, I love my radio’s.
Yes! I still remember an argument I had with my mom and brother, I had read about a crystal radio circuit and was telling them about it when they explained that a radio couldn't possibly work without batteries! I showed them the sentence in the publication but they insisted it was a typo. Alas, I knew what I had read and was able to build an AM radio with a pencil graphite+blued steel detector 😊
You may enjoy seeing some of the detectors my friend uses in this video. ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
@@GrantsPassTVRepair that was super cool and inspiring thanks :)
I remember building a 'crystal' radio using the diode as the crystal. Later connecting it's output to the input of an amplifier circuit. Later added an SCR to control the power to the amplifier so I could use momentarily switches to turn it on and off. Some years later after one of my grandfathers passed away, I inherited a couple of 'cats whiskers', one with the Galena insert. Haven't tried it yet, but have a nephew that I might show how this stuff works, he's really curious about things.
That is actualy impressive i like how this was possible in the 1800's
I remember the crystal radio kit I had as a kid I was blown away when I could listen to the radio from a crystal haha
Thats good stuff. I'd like to build a couple of these with my grandchildren. That's a great project to get them interested for certain.
Wow i cant believe this! We found one of these boxes (without the texts) with a friend while clearing out his grandparents old house. We had no idea what it was but thought it to be some kind of war related communications device. The instructions were missing and replaced with handwritten instructions that did not make much sense.
After 3 shorts you got my sub. This stuff is so cool. And great presentation on your part sir 👏
one of the few videos that provide an amplified audio account of what crystal radios actually sound like.
Baldor (now part of ABB) is well known for high quality electric motors. I never knew they made crystal radio sets.
As I’ve stated before sir I wish I lived near you. I love messing around in the garage and figuring out stuff like this
This was so cool, i can only imagine a conversation ending with "alright I'm moving to the side of the rock" 😂
Right! Lol this is the stuff they probably found at the Grand Canyon 🤣
“I’m getting some interference, please move up a quarter pebble”
🤦🏾♂️
@@richardgouda-rn1lq What was that for?
I’m so glad I found the electromagnetism wizard on UA-cam. Very interesting
It is quite interesting that the semiconductor receiver predates the thermionic valve receiver with quite a few years.
I made a cat's whisker radio years ago before I was in my teens. I have long forgotten where I found the recipe, but remember being thrilled that it worked.
Detectors can be constructed in many ways. Here are some wild examples. ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
When I was a kid 60yrs ago, I had a plastic toy that looked like a red n white rocketship. maybe 6" long. Pull off nosecone for earplug. Out of the tail section was alligator clip with a wire. Clip on barbwire fence, listen to A.M. radio. One station only. No batteries either!
This guy is a must have in an zombie apocalypse
My older brother had a kit to make one. It had an antenna, an earphone, and a ground wire. It worked pretty well, but if you bumped it you lost the station you were listening to.
The need to adjust the cats whisker was the down side, but the 1N34 Diode eliminated this problem.
I made a kit with a similar setup 20 years ago, it really sparked my interest in electrical engineering from a young age!
@@ErikPelyukhno You may enjoy my interview with the author of a book on crystal radios.ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
@@GrantsPassTVRepair❤
@@GrantsPassTVRepair❤
I remember making my first crystal radio in the seventh grade at home and back junior high school
I don’t really know much about electricity, but I think the stuff you build and the explanations are cool. I subbed
In my hi school days (1970) i made a crystal set using pencil lead and a razor blade.. No batteries. after some time, I got hold of a 1N34a diode which was better and louder in the headphones. Then my uncle gave me an OA70 germanium diode which was the best so far at that time. To have station selectivity , I tried a Variable Capacitor with an antenna coil.
I almost remember the instructions in my Cub Scout Handbook how to make a crystal radio set.
A board, a piece of pipe, a safety pin bent open w/a piece of rubber eraser on it to insulate your fingers...
I made one when I was ten years old. My father's ancient world war one earphones, brass and bakelite.
This is my new favorite channel... You popped up in my feed yesterday and i subscribed immediately... Such interesting stuff!!
Thanks. I'm thrilled to encounter people,besides myself, who enjoy my child like fascination with these principles. All the best.
I used to have a crystal radio kit from (I think) Ramsey. Never did get it working, but then, I was young and impatient and we didn't have a whole lot of strong AM broadcast stations around.
It was Maxwell who theorized the properties of radio waves with mind-boggling math, decades before Hertz created them.
Honestly this is more impressive for its time than modern semiconductors. Dudes actually figured this out starting w absolutely nothing!!!
Here is the guy I got the crystal radio diagram from. ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
@@GrantsPassTVRepair❤
I built one of these in grade school with my dad for a science fair project.
incredible! i had no idea this was a thing
Crystal radios were my first introduction to electronics.
Listened many hours to a crystal radio!
I still listen to radio at night but it’s just interesting any more …
I made one with pencil lead when I was about 8 yrs old. Very few kids nowadays get to experience fun exciting experiments like My generation did.😢
GenXer
Reminds me of people hearing their neighbors' ham radio transmissions tbrough their toasters
yes, I have one of those and played with it 60 years ago.
i live in st Louis where that old box was manufactured. its now a ritsy area called "the cortex" with a ton of new development going on. i wish i could have seen the original building before it was demolished probably decades ago
Thats cool Dave, keep educating people, nice info, cool stuff!
THIS IS WHY I SUBSCRIBE TO THIS AMAZING CHANNEL
thank you for sharing your knowledge
Germanium. When I was a kid in the 70's, I used to have a little crystal radio shaped like a lady bug with an ear piece which wrapped around it for storage. Good enough to catch some tunes on AM radio.
Built one myself in the late 1960s. My dad taught us
When I was a kid, I had a Radio Shack crystal radio kit by Science Fair which used a 1N34 diode. It was very effective in picking up local AM radio stations, and *no battery!*
This will never not blow my mind!
Good stone age radio. I maded TRF receiver and try Iron pyrite as a AM demodulator - works when find "hot spots" 😊
its a shame that more people aren't taught about old school technology in school. I was fascinated when I first learnt that you could have a radio literally running on wireless energy
I was introduced to crystal radios as a kid. Here an interview I dd by the author of a book on crystal radios. ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
This morning I was literally thinking to myself, “how did the first radios work?” Then this popped up
Aaannndddd… it begins. YT is now reading your mind 🧠!
In 1960s my uncle demonstrated several crystal radios to me
wtf man? you could fill books with the stuff i don't know about this if someone didn't already. very cool.
My Dad made me a crystal set when I was a kid but it didn't use galena just a simple diode to half rectify the signal. But he did tell me about cat's whiskers when he was young in the 1920s and '30s. Nice to see one in action here.
The diodes worked much better than the home made detectors, Here's a video of the early detectors. ua-cam.com/video/G4YDsvv1DEk/v-deo.html
New meaning to rock radio
I did not know that. Fascinating. Thanks.
Back then this was literal magic
This is insane how does it work in super intrigued
Crystal radio made one in cub scouts 1950s 😊