Fun fact: No one has ever made a homemade earpiece for listening to a crystal radio set. Even the Boy Scouts in the 1920s, and the GIs in the foxholes all had to use a piezoelectric earpiece from RadioShack.

@jwong19

2 ай бұрын

Deeply appreciated, your presentation, your enthusiastic way of doing, shared historical information, but overall, this, your time, and my personal joy to remember that my career began with it in the 50s...My respects, and big thanks for you care to share it.

Wow - memories - when I was a kid in the early 70s, I built that exact kit. The biggest issue was lack of information that might have helped - no internet of course. A metal coffee can was about the same size as the Quaker Oats container so I tried that, obviously with no success since it would have acted as a shorted winding and also changed the inductance. Eventually I got it going by switching to a cardboard container of some kind (no Quaker oats in our home) but the crystal was so incredibly finicky and the lack of strong AM station nearby didnt help so it really wasn't reliable. The detector diode did work and made the project a sucess. Was a great learning experience and the idea of a radio with no batteries fascinated me. Thanks for making the video!

@scotthaddad563

3 ай бұрын

Same for me at about the same time except At nine years old I couldn’t make it work. My dad was a WW-II Army Air Corp Vet and was Nose Gunner and Second Radioman on a B-24. I asked him if he could help me get it working. Well I guess that a primitive radio wasn’t taught at his radio class during the war, (or he lied)……

@ElectromagneticVideos

3 ай бұрын

@@scotthaddad563 I'll bet there were a lot of us that couldn't get it going. This was actually my second crystal radio - the first was more of a toy kit with a diode that never worked. Years later I discovered the diode was bad and headphones were way too low impedance for this application. Funny - my dad also was unable to help - he was a RCAF vet who had been a navigator on an Avro Lancaster and then ran a Radar site on the British coast and used to troubleshoot the electronics there. Like your dad, he must never have been taught about this sort of thing. I suspect that due to wartime situation, they only had time to learn what they needed to know for whatever job they were assigned to. Probbaly for both our dads that was simple tube radio transmit and receive circuits.

Decades back I bought the entire set of Elmer's books. There is a history of him on KZread also. I worked for a store that was a Philmore distributor back in the early 80's, and kept a couple of the detector units for myself, still in the packages! Worth a small fortune now., plus I have an original Philmore Galena Detector crystal in the early 1900's box. When the store closed due to the death of the owner, I ended up with the 15 lb rolls of the magnet wire, and most of the stock. Loved the coil weight and tight nuts humor.

I had a kit like this and I paid about 15 DM including shipping from the US. That was a long time ago 😊

Best KZread video I have seen in years. Thanks.

@michaelsimpson5417

2 ай бұрын

Thanks!

Not bad. As someone that graduated HS in 76 ( before the first real PC ) I had a keen interest in electronics. And yes, the most basic of crystal radios was something I made at FT Pierce Central HS in the electronics lab. Oh, and that audio amp you displayed, I made a very similar using about 6 components, the main one being an RCA or Motorola transistor. Looks like a little top hat. That took me back a good many years. An yeah, like everyone else, I busted out laughing ... Nice...

I was crushed ❤

Thanks for posting! When you smashed with the weights I went waaaah!? Elmer’s style of building was …. unique to Elmer.

9:09 🤣 OK, sure, fine, shoulda seen it coming! Thanks for a fun video! 😎✌️

The beginning was so much fun. Lol

Haha!! You, sir, are crazy! 🤣Thanks for the video! Subscribed

What if I told you the opening was hilarious?

LOVE IT 🎉🎉🎉🎉

You look like the guy who taught my Tractor Trailer Class about a decade ago. hahahah.

@michaelsimpson5417

2 ай бұрын

I've never been inside the cab of a tractor trailer. Maybe there are two of me! That would be cool, unless I couldn't live with myself.

Funniest radio video I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t tell if it was all a joke or for real. It’s for real and I learned something about crystal radios. Phenomenal job cinching your nuts!!

@michaelsimpson5417

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!

Hilarious and interesting, thank you kindly

@michaelsimpson5417

2 ай бұрын

You're very welcome!

back in 1970 when i wanted to make a 40 m / 80 m receiver my mom [i was only 10] took me to a radio store that sold parts i got one of them Fillmore crystal's i did not need it for the radio i was making but i wanted it if i remember right it was 75 cents to bad i let it get away from me 46 years ago . oh well these things happen .

I just bought one on ebay for $60. You missed your calling , a comedian

Laughed my ass off, thank you sir !

I did laugh. Which is pretty unusual for me. It’s gotta be something very funny… and very weird. ✅You checked both boxes🎁. Thanks for the fun!

@michaelsimpson5417

Ай бұрын

Thank you, too!

Good intro.

I think the first word of the red pen notes is "Sketch"

@michaelsimpson5417

2 ай бұрын

I figured it out at 11:25

Mabel passed away 27 Jul 1983 but I didn't find an obit, just the Cali death record and Social Security - and there is a Find A Grave page but no obit.

@michaelsimpson5417

3 ай бұрын

Thank you for checking. I guess there isn't one.

Two skeins of electrical tape on the shelf depict the national Ukrainian flag. Very nice. 73!

@michaelsimpson5417

3 ай бұрын

That was unintentional, but I'll leave it that way!

The early boxes were 5-3/8" in diameter. The one I just measured is just 5-1/16" in diameter. What size box did you use? I wonder when they changed box size and if the 1978 radio had to be wound different than they wound them on the older boxes?

@michaelsimpson5417

3 ай бұрын

The outside of the box is exactly 4 inches in diameter.

@tenlittleindians

3 ай бұрын

@@michaelsimpson5417 The expiration date on the bottom of my box is July 2009. Definitely a shift in sizes over the years. Yours will take less wire to get the same number of turns as the originals so your losing bandwidth on the low end is my guess. Did you add more turns?

@michaelsimpson5417

3 ай бұрын

@@tenlittleindians It depends on what size you buy. The 42 oz box is 5" in diameter, too big for the base. Elmer specified the 4" diameter box, as did the Mechanix Illustrated article.

@tenlittleindians

3 ай бұрын

@@michaelsimpson5417 That's great that they specified a diameter. The original plans from the 20's didn't need to specify a size because Quaker Oats were the first and only company to package cereal that way. The problems came later when the box size changed and people were trying to build sets from old plans without knowing the turns would need to be adjusted. I checked and my box is the 42 Oz size.

quit watching after a few seconds

@michaelsimpson5417

3 ай бұрын

... then spent more seconds typing a comment so we would all know.

@dinkc64

3 ай бұрын

Do you do that for every video that you don't like?

@joelglick

2 ай бұрын

You missed the hilarious deadpan humor!! I love it!