Hello crystal radio fans. Glad you stopped by. I always like telling my story. For those that have passed 50, this story will most likely sound familiar. That is, we are yearning to relive our childhood. Well, for a small sum of money I was able to do the same. Above you see the results.

A "crystal set" is a radio receiver that requires no batteries, or household electric current to operate. It has no apparent power supply. I will tell you at the end of this article how this radio gets it's power.

The crystal set was the first radio for broadcast reception. Back then, these radios used a galena crystal (a piece of rock that acted as a semiconductor to recover the audio from radio frequency waves). Since then, the semiconductor diode has replaced the galena in most designs as it is one less thing that the user has to fiddle around with.

Since the crystal set is self powered, headphones are required for listening. This ain't your son's ghetto blaster. The sound is quite faint but still easy to hear.

About a month ago (March 2002) I had several customers coming in where I work expressing a desire to build a crystal set. One was for a school science project. Another was teaching a class in electronics to adults and thought a crystal set might be a good teaching tool. A university customer ordered parts to build over 50 crystal sets. This is all it took for me to get started.

I decided that I wanted to build a series of crystal sets. I wanted to start with a basic model and work my way up the performance ladder. I had built several crystal sets in my teenage years. I used parts that were laying around the house. Having grown up in a "ham radio family", coils, capacitors and diodes were easy to find. This time around, I decided that I would research this and use the best components that I could find.

So, have you figured how this radio gets it's power? No batteries, no ac power plug. The radio stations themselves provide the power to a crystal set.

Ok -- It is now March 2003. I was nosing around my own site looking for something to do and I thought I would give you an update. In 2002 I built 18 crystal radios (along with some tube sets and building an old time radio collection). I met a bunch of very nice people that also had the crystal set bug here on the net. This includes other site operators and my customers. All this has put a little purpose in life. I should also mention the dozens or hundreds of people that have e-mailed me to compliment me on my work and perhaps had a question.

I can say that my building still continues. This year, I have 4 new crystal sets built. They are all different too. I am finding a lot of parts to make interesting sets.

I offer parts for sale (and completed sets too.)

Commercial Sites that I have purchase from and can recommend.

New England Electric Wire Good litz wire info available here.
MWS Wire  Litz wire available here. Great service too!
Play Things Of Past Lots of old radio parts.

Other Cool pages found on the web.

Radio Animation Not crystal sets but cool!
Philip Miller Tate crystal radio songs! Cool.
DL8SER Crystal Set Links
K4ADL ham radio cartoons A real piece of work.

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