In the 60's and 70's one of the books on such a basic radio was from the Lady Bug series. Published in Britain.

I got three such Magnetic 2000 Ohm headphones - - one from the 1930's, but one side of it doesn't work anymore :-( I think it may be internally shorted

@@Jeffrey314159 I got lucky. I got mine from the garbage pile of a retired ham radio operator; It didn't have jacks to plug it in, but both sides worked.

Roy Jackson your channel is so interesting

Read the same book. Did the same thing and later converted to a crystal diode. I was 12 in 1965 as well and made several things including model rockets. I’ like to go back for a day and see that time in life through my eyes as an adult. It was just magical with all that was going on at the time. Thanks for sharing.

Agreed. To much instant gratification. A little old fashioned hands on { literally } entertainment to get the old grey matter jump started.

@@livelongandprosper70 I think you have Mum confused with the word Highland sheep Kilt boy

@@freakyflow kilt boy ?? ooooh sick burn lmfao

@@NostalgicTribe consider it done.

@@freakyflow so i guess you are just into random racism then ??

@@livelongandprosper70 No everyone hates Orr Willie and haggis

Awesome

73? wow i thought most people on the internet are below 50

:))

Dude nice!

I did the same, i/m 76. i twas about 8 then

Yeah that time youtube is full of crap but this dude keep using the simple yet informative method

This is quality content that we all need

I can't understand why handmade diode working. In case of commercial ones, there are two different alloyed silicon plates, to provide conductivity only through one side. How does that work kind of scares me. sry for bad English))

@@c0mbo I mean its metal and metals conduct electricity so you know

@@arlynnecumberbatch1056 diode needs to conduct electricity only to one side. If you'll flip voltage around diode it shouldn't conduct))

joe woodchuck ... You`ll absolutely love this website about radio history. There are so many free PDF books and old magazine issues that it will boggle your mind! Check it out! www.americanradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Bookshelf_History.htm

I've been building these for decades. I can hear stations 300 miles away. I use a headphone that's over a hundred years old that works very well.

@@tomjones239 Looks like a wonderful resource. I wonder who else remembers Whites Radio Log. It was a listing of listenable stations domestic and overseas. I was mostly interested in the shortwave listings, but the domestic stations were also fun.

@@joewoodchuck3824 nice, I like reading these stories. Im 28 now and I had 0 knowledge about electricity as a kid. I just had some fun with magnets, that all. I wanna build some radio soon. Electronics seems awesome.

@@PinkeySuavo Go for it. There's nothing like radio to radio communications, among other electronics fields. Never did get into computers much though.

Yeah me too, had to check if it was real.

😂 me too 😂

Naw no way cuz me too 😭

Yeah the Major did bring me here

Me too 😂

Hey, Lilly! Thanks for the questions. I've watched your videos before and really enjoyed them. I don't know the polarity of the two speaker wires and I can't find an exact answer anywhere online. I keep flipping back and forth as to what the right answer is based on how the radio works and what I know about speaker polarity conventions. If anyone knows the answer to this question, please let us know. With regards to your diode question, only some schottky diodes will work. If you are going to use a commercial diode, I recommend a germanium diode (like the 1N34A diode) because they have a lower forward voltage drop which make them work well for a radio like this.

Over Engineered gflppppoppppppopppppppppppppoppppppp

Over Engineered Ok thanks for your answer :) I ordered some germanium diodes now. I think that maybe the speaker wire that comes from the ground has negative polarity. I might do a video on crystal radios, If I do I will link your video in my description :) Hey do you think that maybe I can connect a battery to the coil instead of using an antenna and ground connection?

+ Survival Lilly Thank you for the reference in your future video! When you asked about the polarity the other day, I looked into what it really means for a speaker wire to be positive or negative. It is confusing because typical speaker signals are alternating currents (variable currents also works, just not as well). Because of this, speaker polarity is really just a convention and mainly matters if you have multiple speakers so you wire them up consistently. If you aren’t consistent between two speakers, they will be vibrating in opposite direction (as one is moving outwards, the other is moving inwards) which could cause some destructive interference or damage to the speakers if they are in the same box. You can test the polarity of a speaker by connecting it to a battery which will make the speaker cone move in or out (depending on the direction that the wires are connected to the battery). When you connected the battery to the speaker wires in the direction that moves the speaker outward, the wire which is touching the positive terminal is the positive speaker wire according to convention. Given all of this, I thought about how my radio works. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio#/media/File:Amplitude_modulation_detection.png This image from Wikipedia explains how the diode rectifies the radio signal and how the changing amplitudes are what create the variable voltage/current which creates the vibrations in a speaker. This is a little different than typical speaker signals because it is not a full-out alternating current, it is just a variable voltage/current. As a test, I used a multimeter to check the DC voltage/current of the signal from my radio and found that the reading is always positive when I connected the positive lead to wire #1 (and negative when the multimeter leads are reversed). This leads me to believe (just like you are thinking) that that wire #1 is the positive speaker wire according to convention. Because, if you connect the positive side of a speaker to wire #1, the speaker cone should move outward as the the voltage/current in wire #1 becomes more positive. However, I’m not an expert on this and could be wrong. The good news is that it doesn’t really matter what side is technically positive or negative :) but it is interesting to think about. Also, I tested your idea of using a battery instead of an antenna and ground and didn’t have any luck. Let me know if you have any issues with your radio. Keep in mind it only picks up AM radio stations. Hopefully, you have some strong AM channels near you. My radio is about as basic as you can make. Using a germanium diode will improve it for sure. If you really want a better radio, you may want to use a piezoelectric earphone or add a variable capacitor like the one from this website: rimstar.org/equip/crystal_radios.htm. Have fun!

Ok thanks for this important information :)

I was never able to get a "book" capacitor like that to work. However, I've made a few salt water capacitor that are pretty good

"used tp"

Good project for the crapper!

Make a radio while on the toilet

Hi, i saw your comment, and i have to say there's another person down this video, that had almost the same experience as yours and that built a foxhole radio in the 50s, so maybe you've something in common. The person down this comment section is called Roy Jackson and another one called joe woodchuck

Does it work?

shashi mishra it's take me a while to get what you said there 🤔️

How many turns did you take in the coil.

Now make an AM transmitter and they will be even more impressed

Next try a primative tank circuit AM transmitter transmitting on 1.6 megacycles. The range will be limited but the circuit is extremely simple. If you dare, you can amplify the signal later and make a clandestine AM radio station. I made one as a child that transmitted just under 8 kilometers. But a simple one transistor circuit is really simple and will transmit about 100 feet.

did it have no sheath or coating around the wire?

@@Layarion I had a regular black coating of somekind. I remember the teacher saint it wasn't shielded.

With a strong enough AM signal, many things will pick up the signal. My friend's house used to have a local radio AM transmitter about 200 feet out from his back yard, before local radio shut down AM. At night, you could hear the radio signal being picked up by things like powered PC speakers (powered up, but not plugged into anything) and the amplified speaker on a tape answering machine (when those were a thing)

Our band''s guitarist had a cheap wah wah pedal that picked up a local AM station.

No, you won't burn the garage down. You can oxidize the razor by soaking it in salt water overnight

True DIY is when you find the copper ore yourself and smelt it to get the copper wires instead of buying them ;)

@@bonbonpony 😂😂

srose sp Me too.

@@bonbonpony LOL! I see your point. Hahahaha! 😂😂😂😂😂

I've wanted to make one of these as chunky steampunk wall art. I didn't know you had to tie it to a copper pipe, so maybe not.

I used to listen to Howard Cosell on WLS with my xtal radio when I was a kid.

"Speaking of Sports"

I recently took a class in computers teacher told us some official at the school told that they aren't going to teach electronics anymore.

After many decades of building these I'm still amazed by them!

They actually say ghosts are something similar and just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they are not there just outside the visible light spectrum

I've built dozens. It never stops being interesting

How are you going to watch KZfaq tutorials if the internet is down and you need a radio

Yep, this was in my Boy Scout Manual in the '60's... my dad was a ham radio operator and had our cub scout den make little radios with diodes and tuners and a AA battery all in a clear plastic case. An on/off switch operated by a tube containing two wires and a drop of mercury, stand the case upright, the mercury joined the power wires, lay it down, the mercury slid away breaking contact! Of all the stuff from childhood that is what I still had!!

It will probably still work

Garbage the feral barn cat no shit the radio is older than ww2

@@user-ct1pu2by2e this is work with no batterry

@@huseyinuguralacatli5064 Yep, you can't really drive a full sized speaker without additional amplification but you can drive a really simple earbud style headphone using just the energy from the radio waves.

@@alzoron Need piezoelectric speaker for just radio waves sound

@@user-ct1pu2by2e why do you come across like a dink, he tell's you that is how they made radio's in pow camps, are you that stunned you clown.

If you're 1974 years old, you were not that young.... (PUNCTUATION!!!!) 🤬

Cheaper than school. ;)

Lots of our kids end up in prison eventually... so it all works out.

@@101perspective Yeah but what happens when they take away their phones? 🤯

@@MadScientist267 they improvise

the old grandpa doing the Morse code in the speed of light? If yes, me

:O

Me, youtube recommendation is weird

Is it the grandpa rapping in Morse code? Me

yeah thats me

Now diodes are about a dollar to 2.50 each

Aaron Brooks why? its not even forest gump scene

That's my ex name😭😭

Buhabahah....😂this was my joke of the day

i want you to show me

I have you beat. I am a complete idiot and have no idea what love is.

Wait so the pencil and the metal piece works as a diode?

Albin9000 yup

That's amazing! I thought that diodes would be much more advanced than that. I'm aware the quality will probably not be the same quality as diodes you can buy but still

The heated part of the razor developes a coatinng thats super thin. Thats the insulator in the diode, then the graphite acts at the pos and the metal acts as the neg. At least that what i can assume

Well however it works, I'm gonna try to make this whenever I can

+Gor O, Thanks! It is a hobby that I'm trying to improve.

you already have a awesome style (maximal simplicity with great result)

what is music

Not criticizing you, but you should start making things by yourself, it's the best way of learning. I am a teen too, yet I spend most of my days building things special in the fields of high voltage and physics. I recommend you experiment by yourself with everything you can and as you observe new phenomena investigate about it, you could start with simple radio transmission like in this video.

@@ElPsyCongroo. Yup, I'm trying lots of different things

I still use my oatbox radio to listen to stations over a hundred miles away

Wow

I've been building these for decades. I can get DX on them

Keep watching, one day you learn alot

Answer: "The soup is in the canal."

The chair is against the wall....

I have been building xtal sets for decades. Lately I've been using spiderweb or "pancake" coils. I mostly use homemade or vintage parts. I have a spiderweb coil from the twenties with cotton covered wire that was shellaced. Recently, I heard a station 300 miles away with a headphone that's over a hundred years old.

Shawn Murphy probably like a diode

Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor

Non-linear characteristic could demodulate the signal.

It's kind of cheating to hook it up to an amp, because the amp will contain transistors and high impedance. To see if the home-made rc/diode circuit is really working, you need to use something akin to a crystal earpiece (piezo device).

@@eventhisidistaken That's mostly to allow the video to pick up. Energy from the waves would probably be enough to get sounds to earbuds though.

Wow!

Amazing!!

Why "invent" a radio if there weren't any radio broadcasts? 🤔

I have been building them for decades. Fun hobby

How did you make the microphone?

@@chrisakarazor9612 He has a video that does just that; a carbon lead microphone

Realistic Speakers, with a galena crystal?

I have a bunch of cat whiskers, could you elaborate what you mean and how you used it?

Wizzle first tell us, where is that cat?

you are literally talking shit.. wipe your chin !

What did you whisk the cat into? Pie?

I think the safety pin + pencil graphite + burned razor blade are supposde to act like a diode

If you think this is impressive, then take a look at Jeri Ellsworth's videos about cooking transistors at her home kitchen ;)

Its a old Engineer TRICK from the 1950s to make a Diode using a razor blade and grahite as a semiconductor

How it works as diode?

Start with asking yourself what exactly is a diode and what does it do. There's a certain asymmetry every diode should have, and there are many ways of achieving this effect that does not rely on any magical quantum silicon stuff. There were diodes long before silicon semiconductor technology.

durmoch durmoch i care

Mark Olsen are you serious or you are joking?

Dumb people don't care about pretty much anything :q Until a huge global cataclysm wipes off their toys made by smart people. Then you will come whining to that dude to make you some crappy radio.

Does it work??

@@RaZZ999 shut UP

steven west in fith grade science all we did was copy down definitions from text books BORING

Look carefully at the invaders. They are here with a mission that appears to be for peace. An especially tall alien has a book that has a text on the cover of the book that linguist translated. It simply says, "To Serve Mankind." The book cover says it all. The aliens want to serve us, not destroy us.

That'd be nice, or maybe a quantum super computer ( I know I'm weird). ;)

@@morganrussman hhhhhhh

@@shadowshadow2724 what?

it's easy to make a hand held computer that is faster than any digital computer and it doesn't need batteries.

you are watching it on your pocket supercomputer! Never underestimate the simpler things!