Did Your Interest in Radio Start with One of These?

[spongella]

 

[NYDutch]

No, my interest in radio started long before that when I built a cereal box crystal set that used a
"cats whisker" to detect a signal with a galena crystal.

 

[Bobby]

No, my interest in radio started long before that when I built a cereal box crystal set that used a
"cats whisker" to detect a signal with a galena crystal.

I didn't use the cereal box but I did build a crystal set that worked when I was 12 years old in 1956. It was an electric shop project.

 

[TheKrell]

Isn't the RS Rocket Radio also a crystal radio?

This looks like the one I had:

 

[NYDutch]

Isn't the RS Rocket Radio also a crystal radio?

This looks like the one I had:

Yes, but it's the "modern" version that used one of those newfangled diode things instead of the cats whisker and crystal.

 

[NYDutch]

I didn't use the cereal box but I did build a crystal set that worked when I was 12 years old in 1956. It was an electric shop project.

I built my first one when I was 7 or 8 from an article in Popular Mechanics magazine. It took most of my meager savings at the time to buy the parts, and waiting for them to come in the mail was unbearable!

 

[TheKrell]

Yes, but it's the "modern" version that used one of those newfangled diode things instead of the cats whisker and crystal.

Do you remember the good ol' days when a "diode" meant one of these things?

 

[NYDutch]

Do you remember the good ol' days when a "diode" meant one of these things?

Oh definitely! A few years ago I found a box with several new 6V6's in it while cleaning out my storage shed, probably spares for an old amplifier I used for years. The one in your photo looks like an old AZ1 dual diode. I think that's the European socket version though, so it may have had a different designation.

 

[EatMyVolts]

Wile in cub scouts I built one that used a Gem razor blade and a safety pin instead of the crystal and cats whisker. The true definition of crude, but it actually could pick up a couple of stations.

 

[Radioguy41]

Early 1950s I got started with a kit like this. Frustrating trying to get that cats whisker on the crystal just right.

 

[spongella]

Yes, but it's the "modern" version that used one of those newfangled diode things instead of the cats whisker and crystal.

Yes, I bought it at a hamfest but my mom got me one in the late 50's.

 

[spongella]

I built my first one when I was 7 or 8 from an article in Popular Mechanics magazine. It took most of my meager savings at the time to buy the parts, and waiting for them to come in the mail was unbearable!

Wile in cub scouts I built one that used a Gem razor blade and a safety pin instead of the crystal and cats whisker. The true definition of crude, but it actually could pick up a couple of stations.

In the '60's Popular Mechanics published an article on how to build a "Foxhole " radio using a razor blade and a pencil lead. Didn't work for me though.

 

[NYDutch]

In the '60's Popular Mechanics published an article on how to build a "Foxhole " radio using a razor blade and a pencil lead. Didn't work for me though.

I remember that, but I don't recall if I tried it or not. By the mid-60's I was a Vietnam vet and newly married, so I may have had other things occupying my time by then...

 

[Bobby]

Early 1950s I got started with a kit like this. Frustrating trying to get that cats whisker on the crystal just right.

That is pretty much what I built in ‘56!