My deceased father told me when I was a kid that you could hear the Sputnik on a radio on 40Mhz. This brought fond memories of him. UPDATE: Some people said it was at 20Mhz so I researched and found it had two frequencies 20.005 and 40.002MHz not modulated.

no clue why this was in my recommended tab but im very happy it was

When you moved the circuit slowly past the microphone as if it was orbiting the earth I found the effect was quite magical, as it seemed to emulate all the recordings of the real thing quite nicely (despite the sound from the tinny ultra cheapo speaker). I was indeed too busy not being born yet at the time but I have seen so many documentaries on Sputnik over the years. Marvellous upload Fran!

My recollections of Sputnik are of my maternal grandmother refusing to leave the house without an umbrella in case Sputnik should fall to earth on top of her, she also told my sister and I that if a man ever landed on the moon the earth would come to an end. I think she was rather superstitious, I was not quite five at that time.

Just did a search and found the Sputnik batteries lasted 21 days, failing on October 26, 1957. In a low earth orbit, it reentered and burned up on January 4, 1958. I remember the announcement at the time, I was busy being 7 1/2. The TV news stations ran animations (black & white, of course) of Sputnik detaching and orbiting the earth, beeping. I remember seeing it in orbit. Pretty cool stuff, seeing a satellite in space! Of course, all the Cold War hype was also added. Those were VERY tense times, with the concept of atomic annihilation at any moment. Congrats of the circuit redesign! Always a pleasure to watch your channel.

On Sputnik, and other satellites, being visible to the naked eye, when I was much younger my cousin and myself would often lay on the trunk of our parents' cars in the evenings looking for passing satellites. This was during the early to mid 70s and by then there were a good number of them, enough to keep us entertained, in wonder, and a bit in awe. The number has greatly increased since then, obviously, but sadly so too has light pollution. The location where we were in the 70s was "in the sticks" but today is quite urban and even on the clearest, darkest of nights I'm lucky to spot more than a few of the brightest of stars. It's such an incredible injustice, light pollution, it has robbed us of one of the greatest spectacles imaginable, the view of our Milky Way and the stars. Most people today have no clue what they are missing or how great a spectacle the night sky actually is.

I knew exactly what this video was about as soon as I saw the thumbnail. It's great being subscribed to both you and Objectivity.

Hello Fran! I reckon you should be made a member of the Royal Society - I might just start a campaign here in the UK. You also uncovered a dual purpose for that circuit: trim pot one way = Sputnik; trim pot other way = car alarm! I love this stuff, please keep it coming!

I remember my oldest brother taking the family to see Sputnik cross the sky. My mother’s excitement and talk with others made this a remarkable night. My brother helped me to focus on the faint light moving across the sky and I was amazed. Truly unforgettable.

Thank you. My dad showed me when sputnik flew over. It's one of my nicest memories. It was so cool to see.

That was quite a fun watch. Thanks!

Stumbled across your videos by accident Fran but very glad I did. Love them. You are a natural

I was figuratively jumping up and down when you turned it on. Yay! Great historical project!

I’ve loved watching Brady’s videos for years now! Thanks for the link, he’s so prolific that it’s hard to keep up. 😅

I was 11 when Sputnik was launched, and Fran you are such Gas "British compliment" doing this project! Well done for even thinking of it. I also follow the guys in the Royal Society channel and saw the episode you mentioned.

28:46 ...LOOOVEEELYYYY, thanks a lot, dear Fran..! And for your clear explanation about the previous faliure of the oscillator. Well done, dear Lady..!

Fabulous! I think another reason for the variation in the recorded beeps would have been due to the Sputnik 1's transmitter being CW, not modulated, so the audio frequency of the beeps would be dependent on the BFO setting in the receiver, as well as doppler. There is a theory that the Soviets chose 20.005 MHz for the HF transmitter so that it would beat with the 20.000 MHz WWV standard signal which was broadcast at the time, making it possible to hear the beeps on receivers without a BFO, but I don't know how true that is. I saw Public Service Broadcasting play the Race for Space album recently in Edinburgh (what a gig that was), and the stage show included their own model Sputnik (called 'Sputters'). I think it's going to be retired now the band's finished touring that album, but perhaps it could be retrofitted with this circuit, just because...

I remember those times. Dad built a receiver and we would set it on the porch so as to help know when to start looking for Sputnik! The grown ups were very scared of this event. Thanks for the vid.

I love following your projects

Fran is awesome. We are Big Fans up here in Canada.

Was not expecting Brady Harren to show up here, educational youtube is a small world.

Im sure you probably dont read comments on these old videos. But just in case FYI... In addition to the nature of recording media and atmospheric interference of SW reception, some of the variability you mentioned in recordings of Sputnik's beeps is also due to that data was encoded in the duration and pitch of the beeps. Sputnik 1 had simple internal temperature and barometric pressure sensors on board. An increase in temperature above a given threshold would result in a change of pitch in the beep. A drop in internal barometric pressure of the capsule resulted in a shift in the duration of the beep.

Thank you fran

re. The speakers, small 80 ohm speakers used to be quite common for early transistor circuits

Your wonderful Fran.

Great work Fran.

Fran, i so remember Sputnik - i was in the first grade, and it was really amazing even to that five-year-old so many years ago. This has to my favorite video so far, i really shared the glee as you demonstrated how it would have sounded as Sputnik flew over. Just a superlative project, and the engineering involved to actually get it working was very impressive. I'm so glad you're doing stuff like this, and i eagerly look forward to your next video. All best wishes, Sam

I don't solder small circuits too often so I breadboard them on an experimenters board first to see them work. I just don't go to soldering stage as you did. I compliment your skills, troubleshooting and speed to build a circuit from scratch. Nice video.

This entire chanel is so cool!

I still use my old, first bought, Maplin multimeter with transistor tester for the same reason. Great video Fran.

Love your work !

I was not yet on this planet when Sputnik was broadcasting. Even still, for me it is always eerie to listen to that sound. An amazing recreation Fran. Thank you p.s. I had not heard of Public Service Broadcasting till you mentioned them. They're great! :)

I remember seeing it pass over back then. It was awesome to see.

i thought exactly the same thing when I saw Brady's video - that circuit needs to be made! well done for actually doing it :D

The 40 MHz transmitter was directly audible on Channel 1 TV Sound receivers in the UK (which were nominally 41.5 MHz). This was an immense PR coupe.

One of my few childhood memories is going into the back yard with my father to watch Sputnik going over (I was 6). It was an amazing time..

Hello Fran, I really enjoyed that, Thank you.

Cheers Fran thanks for recommending Public Service Broadcasting band.

amazing work!

Great project and Fran staying power to finish. Funny comment below about a grandmother using an umbrella as protection from Sputnik crashing down on her.

Wasn't around in 1957 but growing up had a space poster with all the satellites on it. Sputnik was of course very prominent! Great video Fran. Thanks!

Great proyect!

I was fascinated about the Sputnik... so excited that I always had it in my mind. And I also ended up naming a radio receiver with the same name )))

From watching this, I checked my stash of diodes. I still have several germanium types. Still have my old 2N2222 NPN transistors, too. Watching this vid sure brought back great memories of my early ham radio days in the 70's. I built oscillators, amplifiers, and a variety of other projects. I had a blast. Thanks for making this very interesting video! Oh. . . .and I was only 3 years old when Sputnik was making it's rounds.

The signals continued for 21 days until the transmitter batteries ran out on 26 October 1957. Sputnik burned up on 4 January 1958 while reentering Earth's atmosphere, after three months, 1440 completed orbits of the Earth, and a distance travelled of about 70 million km (43 million mi).

Cool Fran. Interesting project.

awesome build fran!

Good look with the glasses and the circuit

You're like a little kid showing how it would sound as it "passed in and out of range" 😀 well done. Loved the video.

When my mother lived in Manitowoc WI she always talked about the day Sputnik crashed in Manitowoc true story

I wish I understood more about the circuitry, but the video was captivating - I love the space stuff, so damn interesting- thanks!

Amazing sleuthing Fran, haven't heard that sound in a many a years and you put a big smile on my face. The sound that changed the world. Thank you so much.

I've got that same meter, possibly still including the thermometer probe. I've never tried the hFE function, but now I will!

I had a Tandy degausser for my Tandy cassette drive I used with CoCo 2. That noise brought back memories.

Excellent video! Super!!

Very cool Fran! Thanks for sharing :D

Really nice and well made video I enjoyed the little quirk you found 🤗

Public service broadcasting rock! Love you Fran! There’s so much to what you present that is both art and technology that suggests that there was so much more to the implements being displayed than the common uninterested people realised

Love this girl!

One of the sources of the audio variations in recordings is that the emissions were on-off keyed carriers. Detection of such is like listening to morse code; the tone coming out at the speaker depends on the tuning of the receiver. It could be tuned for audio from very high audio tones to zero beat. So some of the recorded receivers had been tuned for max audible signal to the ears.

I cannot tell you how much this made me giddy, excellent video with a giddy creator too!

great video. thank you.

There's more to the change of the sound of Sputnik than SW distortion and changes of component values due to temperature etc. The beeping of Sputnik-1 was a pulse density modulated signal, encoding internal pressure as pulse length and temperature as length between pulses. I have seen (can't remember where) a Sputnik beeper that emulates these changes. Google 'Russian Telemetry Systems' for (a bit) more info.

Loved the video!

“Sounds Transistoree” :-) loved

I was born December 15th, 1950 so I remember Sputnik and Mutnik and all those flights from the space race. Interesting that they had the model of Sputnik and showed the schematic of the tone generator. Looks like a fun project Fran. In the original Sputnik after it had been up for a long time and the battery was dying the tone slowed down before it quit.

As a kid I belonged to the school radio club in 1968. We used to build similar circuits to this by soldering recovered components onto the heads of copper-plated nails banged into a piece of wood. When the teacher had inspected our work, we were given transistors to solder into place, then a battery to make the thing work. All we got was a tone in a hearing-aid earpiece, but it was a thrill to me as an 11-year-old. I went on to be an electronics engineer and eventually to build satellites that are still functioning to this day.

At 29:06 - OMG, YOU'RE KILLING IT! 《grin》

7:07 .. Soviet germanium transistors are quite easy to come by via eBay from eastern Europe. Most are of later production, but thanks to centrally controlled production often still the ancient types.

Hey Fran, I found the original Sputnik peanut-tube transmitter schematic. It's super easy! (20mHz and 40mHz). One additional trick you might want to add to your little Sputnik sound machine, is the "meaningful" time periods of the beeps. Sputnik 1 was pressurized with nitrogen to 1.3 atmospheres. The length of those beeps was actually modified by two limit switches for upper/lower pressure thresholds inside the shell, as well as two switches for upper/lower temperature. They probably just switched in different RC values for the beep periods (or "off" periods).

I really like your videos thank you for making them.

great build it looks like a fun project that I can build to show the kids in class it would be fun to 3d print the globe

I was about 7 years old when sputnik was launched. I remember the news channels broadcasting samples of the signal.... kind of cool to hear it reproduced after all these years. Very similar to what I remember.

Doppler shift produced some differences in audio tone as the orbit progressed in relation to ground receiver location. Thanks for the fun as always!

Lovely project! I allways used the hydraulic analogy to understand electricity principles, It works most of the time, 20:15 the parallel resistors and capacitors, if the capacitors are small water tanks, paralleling them I add their capacity, if the resistors are pipes, paralleling them I allow more flow reducing the resistance

Love it!

I watched the sputnik pass overhead in UK it was amazing the sound was played on TV and radio.

The reason resistors add in series and divide in parallel is because as you stack resistors in series, you have more effective "stuff" the current needs to make it through, its just like throwing an extra clog in a pipe. As for Capacitors, the capacitance is proportional to the area that the charge gets to build up on, so by putting more in parallel, the circuit effectively "sees" more area! When they are in series, the same area is seen by the circuit, but there is more effective distance between the plates, since you have three or more in series, with each set of plates separated by some distance.

HaHa!! Loved the 'FlyBy' effect!! Nice work Fran! :D

When you worked that trim pot, it sounded like Nomad was about to blow! Fun and still terrifying.

Awesome!

Love it !!!!!

It makes sense if you think about it why caps add values and resistors divide. Caps soak up electricity, so by giving it more "storage", you are adding whereas resistors try to impede the flow of electricity, so by giving it twice the number of the same flow rate paths, you are overall adding twice as much flow which means you are dividing the resistance to the flow by 2. That's how I think of it anyways.. (if you think of electrons like flowing water and plumbing, the examples always make more sense in a practical way).

I have that same Radio Shack True RMS Multimeter. So late 1980s! Best Wishes!

reminded me of the klaxon in Alien at one point there. good job all around, nice work!

I just discovered your channel, Fran. Thanks for providing the You Tube universe with something worthwhile. Cheers!

Nice project it worked and it sounded really cool You are really sharp.

28:35 for operational sound and it's in stereo. Nice!

I remember as a kid how the time Sputnik flew over Michigan was published in the Newspaper. Fran is right it was a big deal.

PSB rock girl. Ive loved them from the start. Again,you got great taste Fran. Nice one.

I was six years old in 1957 and I remember it well.I later studied Soviet history as well as Communism.I met an engineer who told me about monitored Sputnik back then.I have a good sized collection of general coverage receivers from that era.I'm recapping a 1957 Hallicrafters S 38 E right now.I also have a couple of Soviet Era transistor sets in my collection as well as a couple of Soviet Era trumpets.I use some Soviet Era parts.You can get them off of You Tube.There is a man on You Tube who used Soviet Era transistors he rebiased to use in a '60s Zenith Trans Oceanic.They are available now as I'm writing this.

I realize this video was made in 2017. I found it interesting, and watched it in completion. Below is a Sputnik fact. I was 7 years old when it was launched. I remember this event to be a huge thing in the news! This made the rest of the world very nervous. Each of a series of artificial satellites, the first of which (launched on 4 October 1957) was the first satellite to be placed in orbit. 'Ever since the Soviets launched in 1957, satellites have been part of our consciousness. ' ... 'In , the word a travelling companion.

Cool thanks Fran :) x

Fran, This is nice, reminding me of decades ago (1973-74) in high school vocational electronics, and then in the late '80's getting a digital electronic tech degree. One thing you display reminds me of science fiction I have read, a real enjoyment of the actual parts and pieces of the circuits. You seem to me to be displaying an esthetic sense with the electronics that I have never seen, mixed in with the familiar descriptions of circuits. I think you might enjoy, and many viewers would enjoy if you combined your design impulses and try drawing and then making some working "Steampunk" version of something. Guys usually default to some kind of gun, but robots are always appealing as well. Anyway, good vid as usual.

How neat! My parents remember Sputnik passing over the Earth well. 🙂 The chirping that that model makes reminds me of the bleep of the RCA Studio II, although that is made with a good ol' 555. If Sputnik sounded like that, then I wonder if anybody in the 70's, who had heard Sputnik live, tried out a Studio II and thought "It sounds like a heavily-medicated Sputnik!" (Similar chirp, but slower.)

Very cool, thanks. I am an Amateur Radio operator and even though I have gotten a little bit, into basic electronic theory, I do not have the time for any hands on building, which is really what I should do. I plan to try and build a low power CW transceiver.

If you hit the pliers on the edge if the work bench, it demagnetizes ! I do it all the time if the tool starts bugging me. Since I use magnets as tool holders, I am used to them. but once in a while, I need them not to be magnetized. One bang, and they let go of the magnetism. Try it next time. BTW, I have the same exact DMM from Radio Shack. I don't used anymore, but it still works :)

I watched Brady's video when it first came out and thought it would be cool to have a go at making the circuit. I downloaded a copy but never got around to trying. It's great to see/hear you get it working. I don't have any vintage components but might eventually have a go using what I've got lying around. Also your cat is better behaved: mine are always leaping up onto the table trying to chew the wires!

Woo hoo, Sputnik! I was two months old when it was launched.

The original transistors are P6G (П6Г). The parameters are: Maximum frequency in common base: > 1000KHz, current gain in common base: > 0,97, current gain in common emiter - > 32, power gain - > 37dB (40 dB)*, reverse collector current: < 15 microampers (10 microampers)* , reverse emiter current: < 15 microapmers, collector capacitance: < 50 pF (40pF)*, expected time in service: 5000 hours, thermal resistance - 0,5 °C/mW, maximum collector current in amplifier mode (constant current): - 30mA (10mA)*, maximum switching current: - 100mA (50mA)*, maximum collector voltage: - 30v(15v)*, maximum power dissipation: 150mW, maximum temperature of the environment: -50°C to +60°C, collector temperature: -60°C to +100°C. the * values are "according to some sources". Source: www.155la3.ru/datafiles/p6.pdf