Ah Gene..I took radio-tv repair back in 71-72 in Vo-tec...I should know that but too many years ago. Here is a softball for you. What 3 components do you need to make a radio receiver? Bonus points for part number(s).
Cats whisker or galena crystal variety???
Cats whisker is a razor blade, antenna, high impedance headphones.....
Galena crystal, and toilet paper tube/wire and a cap.....antenna and high impedance headphones....tunes with a single tank circuit, and so the selectivity is broad as a whores hips....
:crutches:
Now you my curiousty up....How do they work go together etc?
I remember from 55+ years ago....they used to call them 'Foxhole Radios'.....as supposedly the GI's would build them to listen to music with....
the razor blade with a piece of wire across the edge, just laying there under very slight tension...acted as the detector diode, same thing as the fine wire known as the 'cats whisker' would do on the open Galena crystal....you IN34 diode was the same thing, just shortened to 'crystal diode'....any one of the 3 could be used as the diode to remove the RF component from the modulation, leaving the audio.....
so to give SOME broad range of tune to block out some frequencies and preferr others...they took some insulated wire and wrapped it neatly/tightly around a toilet paper tube....thinner wire was better, and with enough turns from end to end on there, the thing would pass the old AM radio bands....
but without a variable cap across it, you could not tune it, just heard the strongest station....for ME it was AM 630 on the dial....I forget the call letters, in Wash DC....
coil and one earphone wire to ground I would use a waterpipe or center on electric outlet........other earphone wire to diode, other end of coil and diode other end to antenna strung all over hell in the room....
it was a big deal to go to the local 'war surplus' house, and buy most anyting I wanted for electronic gear....
what amazed ME, was about some 20? years after the John Glen space shot, our first man in space.....the Smithsonian had has capsule on display....when looking at it, I found the EXACT SAME sort of switches, construction, style of wiring, as the surplus crap I played with in grade school.....Phreakout time.....I was laughing my ass off, and wife was wondering I lost my mind or something.....:shocking::crap::1st:
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