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Vintage Radio (domestic) Domestic vintage radio (wireless) receivers only.

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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 12:19 am   #1
Catswhiskers
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Default Crystal Sets

I am interested in building a few of these but in the old style.
Before I do however, I need to know the following .
1 Because we are all digital now, will I still be able to hear stations?
2 I would like a nice old set of head phones. Do I need any particular type?
3 Can you suggest a book or booklet with circuit diagrams?
4 I would like to communicate with any forum member that has a like interest.
5 If there are any puplications about building sets I will be very interested .

In addition to my new venture, I am also very interested to know how POWs in the WW2 constructed radios whilst being a prisoner with little or no equipment.
I would imagine they built a basic crystal set?

If any one can help I will be very thankful.
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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 1:29 am   #2
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Hi loads of stuff on the web on all aspects od crystal sets and POW gear as well.
A good pair of high resistance headphones are needed, but the nice old ones that work well can be a pain on the ears after a while, a simple transistor amp and LS could be a solution.
Use the search function on this forum and you will also find lots of info, one of our members specialises in reproductions of vintage parts.
Good luck,
Ed
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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 1:41 am   #3
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

I recently bought a couple of Crystal set kits off eBay with a view to introduce a couple of my Children into radio/electronics.
They pick up a couple of strong stations on MW and LW by means of switching different LC circuits in with a 2 way jumper, but selectivity isn't very good.
They're not battery powered so require an high impedance Piezo or Crystal earpiece to hear anything, but with the addition of an amplifier it'd run a speaker or dynamic earphones.
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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 8:44 am   #4
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Quote:
Originally Posted by Catswhiskers View Post
1 Because we are all digital now, will I still be able to hear stations?
Only if you can find either,

1 A cat with fingers to take a whisker from.
2 A digital chip with galena instead of silicon.
3 A DAB radio.

We are not anywhere near being all digital, thousands of stations on air around the world, but short wave is next to impossible with a crystal set. ( Somebody is bound to prove me wrong on that. )
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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 11:44 am   #5
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Fortunately we are not yet all digital, so there are still some national AM stations to hear with a crystal set. For example, BBC Radio 5.
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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 11:55 am   #6
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

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Originally Posted by Boater Sam View Post
but short wave is next to impossible with a crystal set. ( Somebody is bound to prove me wrong on that. )
Last crystal set I tried worked ok on MW but had Pyongyang and RCI blasting through like nobody's business at night. The first one I made 40-odd years ago seemed to prefer R.Moscow, which was all over the dial back then. Try using a ferrite rod with just a dozen turns or so.

73,

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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 12:17 pm   #7
60 oldjohn
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

This is the book that set me off down the slippery slope of vintage electronics at the age of ten, It can be often found for sale on Ebay.
I can spare a couple of Geranium diodes, 1000pf capacitor and enough 32swg enameled copper wire for an experiment. If you can find an old transistor set they are good for the variable capacitor. Phones need to be high impedance 4000 ohms better than 2000 ohms. Or instead buy a LM386 amp on a board £1.23 from china post free you will need a speaker (From an old transistor radio) and 9v battery or 9v PSU. For the aerial you could use x phone wire like I did or reclaimed mains wire (skip dipping) the thing is, the hobby should not cost a fortune, and the aerial dimensions are not critical just need to be high and long as possible.
Please PM me with your address if you would like the wire and diodes FOC.
Edit, I would wait for a British listing with sensible P&P after all it is a British publication.


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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 12:46 pm   #8
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

"The Boys Book of Crystal sets" mentioned by (another) John, can be read or downloaded from americanhistory's site.
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/...ystal-Sets.pdf

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Old 22nd Feb 2017, 3:10 pm   #9
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

As to your query about POW radios, put "foxhole radio" in the search box at the top of this page for a few relevant threads. For that matter, a general internet search will get copious information on them, and crystal sets in general.
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Old 23rd Feb 2017, 11:17 am   #10
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Quote:
Originally Posted by 60 oldjohn View Post
Please PM me with your address if you would like the wire and diodes FOC.
PM sent.
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Old 23rd Feb 2017, 11:20 am   #11
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Thank you everybody for your very informative and quick responses.
60 oldjohn there is a PM on the way to you.

I tried to print the boys book of crystal sets but ran out of ink half way through. Duhhhh! They always get you don't they?

Many thanks all.
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Old 23rd Feb 2017, 1:59 pm   #12
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

I have found that low impedance (in my case 150R) headphones work perfectly well with crystal sets.

Vintage headphones can be uncomfortable to wear, so unless you want a true vintage look, I suggest using a crystal earpiece such as this one:-

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/mono-cryst...FTAo0wodFE4AbA
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Old 23rd Feb 2017, 3:57 pm   #13
60 oldjohn
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Not wanting to put any one off, but please be aware there has been a well known manufacturing problem over the years from the worlds two main manufacturing plants that supply most suppliers with Crystal Earpieces. It is well documented on the net.

John.
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Old 24th Feb 2017, 9:44 am   #14
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Yes, you're correct - and it's invariably due to the contract strip only being glued onto the transducer as opposed to having a solid connection as it really should. The information is here, and it was only about a week ago that I was reading the article - http://www.usefulcomponents.com/main..._problems.html

Out of the 2 Crystal set kits I bought recently, one of them had this fault and had to be flicked regularly to get it working.

I bought a few replacements from here, and touch wood they all work. It's the cheapest source I could find here in the UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00...ystal+earpiece
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Old 24th Feb 2017, 10:05 am   #15
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Quote:
Originally Posted by Station X View Post
Vintage headphones can be uncomfortable to wear, so unless you want a true vintage look, I suggest using a crystal earpiece
Uncomfortable ! As kids, falling asleep listening to a crystal set, with the springy headband was punished by the most painful ears for a hour or so when you took them off in the morning.
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Old 24th Feb 2017, 11:39 am   #16
60 oldjohn
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

I recently ordered a few Crystal Earpieces and had to wait when the supplier discovered that his stock was faulty. I finally received tested stock.

John.
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Old 24th Feb 2017, 4:39 pm   #17
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Old 24th Feb 2017, 4:48 pm   #18
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

Quote:
Originally Posted by Station X View Post
I have found that low impedance (in my case 150R) headphones work perfectly well with crystal sets.]
It can be worthwhile using something like a LT44 transistor-stage driver-transformer to get a better match - I did this in the past [LT44 primary to xtal-set detector output] when using ex-army DLR5 headphones.

You can experiment with connecting the phones between the LT44 secondary centre-tap and one end, or across the full winding, to see which gives the best match with your particular phones.

You can then progress to an "amplified crystal set" this way by adding a couple of small transistors (BC109) in a classic class-B push-pull setup, a LT700 output transformer and a small battery (PP3 style). Feeding into an ex-transistor-radio loudspeaker I got a surprising number of stations at 'loudspeaker listening strength'.
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Old 25th Feb 2017, 7:52 pm   #19
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

As has been said, the main problem with crystal sets is lack of selectivity rather than sensitivity. I have several vintage crystal sets which perform very well in terms of sensitivity and pull in several stations at good volume, but all on top of each other in a 'wall of sound'. Attach a small amplifier and the stations are at very good volume.

I'm old enough to have bought the Boys' Book of Crystal Sets when I was a boy.
I was 14 when it was first published, and made most of the sets back then, (till I discovered girls).

Here are some links to sites of interest regarding crystal sets:

Crystal set society:

https://www.midnightscience.net/

Boy’s book of crystal sets:

http://crystalradio.net/crystalplans...ystal_sets.pdf

DIY Crystal set with amplifier:

http://satcure-focus.com/hobby/page6.htm

Beginners’ Crystal set.

http://www.crystalradio.net/beginners/index.shtml

Crystal radio page:

http://www.bizarrelabs.com/crystal.htm

Foxhole radios:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio

Foxholes radio page:

http://www.bizarrelabs.com/foxhole.htm

With regard to' P.O.W' crystal sets or 'foxhole' sets, they should be taken with a large pinch of salt – ‘foxhole’ sets in particular. For the last 20 years or so, along with my younger son and specialist battlefield tour guides, we've visited most WW2 battlefield sites, seen countless 'foxholes' as the Americans call them. True, in WW1 there were many periods of 'stalemate' in which there was little fighting on either side, as evidenced by the huge amount of 'trench art' which abounds in souvenir shops, especially in France & Belgium, with all sorts of artefacts made from discarded shell cases and the like.

But WW2 was very different.

There were very few quite periods in which men could while away their time, and battlefields tend to be rather noisy and very dangerous places. Even if inventive individuals had the inclination, could find the time in brief lulls between fighting, and could scrape together the bits and bobs to make a crystal set, given the limited reception range range and background noise, what would they be likely to hear on it? Not a lot would be my view. And why - apart from their own amusement - would they want to anyway, given that almost certainly they'd have general coverage receivers as well as battlefield communications available to them.

I'm not saying it never happened, but to infer that this was a routine activity in foxholes in battlefield conditions is facile. If you're in a battlefield, you tend to be preoccupied with the task in hand and hobbies and pastimes take a back seat. The 'Battle of the Bulge' was the largest battle fought by the Americans in WW2 in the forests of the Ardennes. I've been there and it’s still littered with countless ‘foxholes’, which are just hurriedly dug shallow trenches in the ground.

600,000 American troops were involved in that battle. The Americans lost 81,000 men - almost one in seven - and the Germans lost 100,000 killed, wounded and captured. The Battle was fought over the winter months of 1944 – 1945 in severe weather, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two. It’s fanciful nonsense to think that in such conditions anyone would have been faffing about making a crystal set.

Salerno, Anzio, Monte Casino, Normandy Landings and so many other battles? I don't think so there either.

As to POW camps, I've visited several including Sagan in Poland (‘The Great Escape’), and Colditz Castle (now a rather sad and underfunded museum which doubles as a youth hostel), and yes, they have their obligatory little radios. The POWs at Colditz didn't just have a radio - they had a modest ‘radio room’ created by French POWs! It was discovered after the war by workmen among the maze of tunnels, then lost again and found ten years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colditz_Castle

POWs fared far better in German than in Japanese camps, and as often as not the items needed for making radios came as a result of fraternisation with guards. How else could they come by valves for example? Just as in prisons today in the UK and elsewhere, guards, workmen and delivery drivers come and go every day. We hear daily in the news that prisons are awash with drugs, 'hooch' and smuggled in mobile phones and SIM cards.

If POWs got hold of a pair of earphones, one earpiece was generally sacrificed to provide wire for making coils. Easy enough to make a variable capacitor with a cigarette packet and silver paper. Cover two pieces of card with foil, separate them with paper as a dielectric, place the two cards on top of one another, and the extent of the overlap determines the capacitance.

Sure, in the comfort of our workshops for our own amusement, but I doubt that much of this malarkey took place in Vietnam or Japanese POW camps. Apart from the risks and lack of inclination of emaciated prisoners - often at death's door - what would they have heard on a radio that made any sense?

There was a thread on this topic on the forum back in 2013:

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=101003

Hope these wordy ramblings are of interest.
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Old 25th Feb 2017, 9:05 pm   #20
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Default Re: Crystal Sets

A couple of somewhat-related books, although neither actually tells you how to make a crystal set... I can dig out my copies to find the author/publisher, etc but they are probably out of print now (although they were published in the last 10 years or so, they are not 'old' books).

'Voice of the Crystal' describes how to make the components for a crystal set (coil, variable and fixed capacitors, detector, headphones) from scratch. You do use ready-made wire... I think you dismantle a piezo-electric cigarette lighter to extract the crystal to make a crystal earphone. Other than that it's all homebrew

'Instruments of Amplification' (same author) is similar, but relates to making amplifying devices. A 'receiver' (in the telephone sense) with a carbon contact on the diaphram. Crude diode and triode valves (you need a vacuum pump, of course). And crude copper oxide transistors.

I really enjoyed reading said books, one day I'll have the time and inclination to try some of the ideas myself.
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