Before dropping back in power, WLW was interfering with WOR and had to install a directional antenna. The amount of signal in the null to WOR was equivalent to 50,000 watts!
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What Stations Could You Hear On Your First Crystal Radio?
- Thread starter Schroedingers Cat
- Start date
Before dropping back in power, WLW was interfering with WOR and had to install a directional antenna. The amount of signal in the null to WOR was equivalent to 50,000 watts!
I remember a circuit that used a coil made of #28 enameled copper wire. It had a wiper made out of a copper strip. I think the wiper and the coil were supposed to be the capacitor. But when we couldn't get it to work we thought it needed to be a DC connection, instead of a structural capacitance. I think the reason it didn't work was because the detector didn't work. We tried the razor blade and pencil "lead" graphite detector. We tried the cat's whisker. Neither worked. Can't remember if we tried a 1N34 and got it to work or not.
We tried a one transistor circuit we got on a ditto page from a neighborhood amateur with the circuit on it. It specified a general purpose transistor. He had written CK722 on it. We bought a Semitronics AT20H. It actually worked pretty well with some old 2K headphones. Lots of bass. It had impressive looking electromagnets and diaphragms. Still have them somewhere. The Bakelite covers were glued back together.
We tried a one transistor circuit we got on a ditto page from a neighborhood amateur with the circuit on it. It specified a general purpose transistor. He had written CK722 on it. We bought a Semitronics AT20H. It actually worked pretty well with some old 2K headphones. Lots of bass. It had impressive looking electromagnets and diaphragms. Still have them somewhere. The Bakelite covers were glued back together.
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The station that complained most about 500000 watt WLW was CFRB, then 690, Toronto. The FCC had to address the complaint because it was from a different country and under an international treaty. WLW made a DA with a 1/4 tower across the road, phased with transmission line. The "ERP" toward CFRB was 50000 watts. WLW went Southwest as I recall, missing much of the country with the strongest signal. WLW went to Shortwave. It was used to broadcast our point of view to Europe during World War II. The US took over the Shortwave stations during the Cold War to further the effort. It became the VOA facility at Bethany, OH.
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Technically, on my first crystal radio, nothing. It was a Christmas gift when I was about 6 years old, and lacked the ability to build it. My siblings tried to step in, but the original cardboard tube for the coil form had been mistaken for packaging material and discarded, so my oldest brother (now SK) used a size D battery as a coil form (d'oh!)
a few years later, Radio Shack "Science Fair" model. wire long but almost horizontal. East side of Detroit, near Cadieux and Harper:
(no CBEF as the tuner could not reach 540)
580 CKWW fair
760 WJR would have been good but could not seperate it from CKLW, perhaps the small mylar variable cap had too low a "Q")
800 CKLW excellent
950 WWJ very good day, not a trace at night
1130 very good day, poor night
1340 WEXL good (that's right, no WXYZ nor WKNR day nor night - WEXL was far stronger in the neighborhood then, than they are today)
1400 WJLB excellent
1550 CBE fair (that's right, no WDEE)
a few years later, Radio Shack "Science Fair" model. wire long but almost horizontal. East side of Detroit, near Cadieux and Harper:
(no CBEF as the tuner could not reach 540)
580 CKWW fair
760 WJR would have been good but could not seperate it from CKLW, perhaps the small mylar variable cap had too low a "Q")
800 CKLW excellent
950 WWJ very good day, not a trace at night
1130 very good day, poor night
1340 WEXL good (that's right, no WXYZ nor WKNR day nor night - WEXL was far stronger in the neighborhood then, than they are today)
1400 WJLB excellent
1550 CBE fair (that's right, no WDEE)
I could never figure out why some stations didn't come in. You did very well, VHF. Did you have an extra TRF stage? I found those helped, particularly if you wound some turns of wire around the Rocket Radio with a series LC from Antenna to Ground.
In Northwest Suburban Chicago when I visited, I would hear WJJD just three miles from the Ballard Rd. and I-294 Toll Road site on the Rocket Radio. It was around 400 mV/m based on FCC groundwave graph calculation and rough S meter determinations. When WJJD signed off, you would get WGN, but for some reason, not WBBM. No WLS there, or even WCFL, but they were far down in FI from WJJD.
I didn't spend more than 3-4 days at a time near there, over 15-20 years, but I never noticed any overload problems, even on a portable record player. They did have a bunch of older tube radios, and I wonder if those were less subject to overload. The only time I remember WJJD being a problem is when I tried to rig up an antenna and/or preamp to try to get WHFB 1060 Benton Harbor there a little better to listen to PBP during the Bob Ufer Glory Days of University of Michigan Football once or twice for the rest of my family. 1160 was too much for the antenna set up, and just overloaded the receiver and blanketed 1060. It was better barefoot, but a little difficult to hear. My Uncle had never heard of Bob Ufer, and called up and asked his friend whether there was a closer station that had "Bob Eucker" on their network. I wonder if the electric company or WJJD had put filters on the power lines for 1160. There weren't any detuned high tension towers nearby that I remember.
Maybe I could have heard WHFB 1060 better there if I had used a "Ufer Ground".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ufer_ground
In Northwest Suburban Chicago when I visited, I would hear WJJD just three miles from the Ballard Rd. and I-294 Toll Road site on the Rocket Radio. It was around 400 mV/m based on FCC groundwave graph calculation and rough S meter determinations. When WJJD signed off, you would get WGN, but for some reason, not WBBM. No WLS there, or even WCFL, but they were far down in FI from WJJD.
I didn't spend more than 3-4 days at a time near there, over 15-20 years, but I never noticed any overload problems, even on a portable record player. They did have a bunch of older tube radios, and I wonder if those were less subject to overload. The only time I remember WJJD being a problem is when I tried to rig up an antenna and/or preamp to try to get WHFB 1060 Benton Harbor there a little better to listen to PBP during the Bob Ufer Glory Days of University of Michigan Football once or twice for the rest of my family. 1160 was too much for the antenna set up, and just overloaded the receiver and blanketed 1060. It was better barefoot, but a little difficult to hear. My Uncle had never heard of Bob Ufer, and called up and asked his friend whether there was a closer station that had "Bob Eucker" on their network. I wonder if the electric company or WJJD had put filters on the power lines for 1160. There weren't any detuned high tension towers nearby that I remember.
Maybe I could have heard WHFB 1060 better there if I had used a "Ufer Ground".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ufer_ground
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S-Cat, that is the same one I had. wire wound around a piece of wood. A brass piece that swept over that coil. It may have tuned, but since all I could get was the 1490 local, I am not sure.
I tried a radio made out of a "blued" razor blade....It worked about 1/3 mile from WMPX.....It had a piece of pencil lead as the other portion of the "diode".
I tried a radio made out of a "blued" razor blade....It worked about 1/3 mile from WMPX.....It had a piece of pencil lead as the other portion of the "diode".
I remember back in the early 1960s going past Midland on "To-75" as I recall, now US 10. We had been listening to Detroit Tiger Baseball on WKMF 1470 Flint as far up as Houghton Lake or close to it, and when we passed near the WMDN/WMPX tower (a few blocks away, looking at the map), the station ID came through bleeding over from 1490, "This is WMDN Midland". Once we got a few miles past it, we got WKMF 1470 again. There was hardly any audio delay between stations on a network in those days, so we didn't even notice that the station had changed. I believe we were coming back from Crystal Lake West of Traverse City, and it was on our last tube Delco Car Radio in a 1961 Oldsmobile. I think it was probably 1961, as we got the car in 1960 at the beginning of the model year. WKMF had a tremendous signal for a station that far up the dial, due to its day directional pattern, full 5000 watt input without efficiency resistors, and transmitter location in a Creek bed. I have heard it as far as Charlevoix on the car radio in the daytime. When it first went to 5000 watts daytime in 1959, it was heard soon after in New Zealand.
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Interesting to see how many here were using the Rocket Radio. I had never heard that name before. I guess as old as I am, the rest of us are even older.
While the Rocket was induction-tuned, my Radio Shack kit was capacitance-tuned, like most radios of that era (circa 1975). In fact, the coil was the typical pocket radio ferrite bar and the tuning cap was just like those in transistor radios, only without the ganged oscillator cap.
I continued to toy with crystal radios from time to time. The house where I grew up has an interesting feature - a built-in radio antenna. A wall plate had two holes for ground (wire to the water pipe directly below) and antenna (a wire running up the wall into the attic). It worked quite well once I discovered it was there (years after my preference shifted to amplified multi band radios). One night I brought a crystal radio there to show my nephews (by this time, my brother and his family were living there), and was surprised to hear a skywave signal on the crystal radio (WSAI Cincinnati when they were standards on 1530).
When I finally had room for a 116' doublet in the backyard, I tried another crystal radio on it (using my HF antenna tuner and a coil I had wound). I heard several stations on 49m (6 MHz). Problem was, all I heard was whoever was the strongest on 49m at that very instant - not really a useful receiver.
While the Rocket was induction-tuned, my Radio Shack kit was capacitance-tuned, like most radios of that era (circa 1975). In fact, the coil was the typical pocket radio ferrite bar and the tuning cap was just like those in transistor radios, only without the ganged oscillator cap.
I continued to toy with crystal radios from time to time. The house where I grew up has an interesting feature - a built-in radio antenna. A wall plate had two holes for ground (wire to the water pipe directly below) and antenna (a wire running up the wall into the attic). It worked quite well once I discovered it was there (years after my preference shifted to amplified multi band radios). One night I brought a crystal radio there to show my nephews (by this time, my brother and his family were living there), and was surprised to hear a skywave signal on the crystal radio (WSAI Cincinnati when they were standards on 1530).
When I finally had room for a 116' doublet in the backyard, I tried another crystal radio on it (using my HF antenna tuner and a coil I had wound). I heard several stations on 49m (6 MHz). Problem was, all I heard was whoever was the strongest on 49m at that very instant - not really a useful receiver.
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Except for the differences in the colors of the alligator clip, earphone, wires, and the little ball on top of the slug tuning shaft, this is what mine looked like.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/255438610086088177/
Here's a link with the schematic. I could never find a discrete capacitor inside this. I wondered if the capacitance was from the way the other components were structured. I was taking it apart a lot because the wires kept breaking, especially the ground/antenna wire.
This link also has suggestions for improvements for newly manufactured Rocket Radios. This link says the diode they put in is junk. Someone gave me a new one, and that is what I thought. I only heard a 100 mV/m signal barely once on that one. This suggests a new 1N34 and a different capacitor. Like I said, I could never see a discrete capacitor, and I looked and pondered it a lot.
http://www.crystalradio.net/misc/rocket/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/255438610086088177/
Here's a link with the schematic. I could never find a discrete capacitor inside this. I wondered if the capacitance was from the way the other components were structured. I was taking it apart a lot because the wires kept breaking, especially the ground/antenna wire.
This link also has suggestions for improvements for newly manufactured Rocket Radios. This link says the diode they put in is junk. Someone gave me a new one, and that is what I thought. I only heard a 100 mV/m signal barely once on that one. This suggests a new 1N34 and a different capacitor. Like I said, I could never see a discrete capacitor, and I looked and pondered it a lot.
http://www.crystalradio.net/misc/rocket/
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The Ford Mansion, not far from where you grew up, VHF, had radios built into the built in "coffee tables" in the sitting rooms outside the bedrooms adjoining them. Very fancy radios, probably of circa 1940 vintage. Tuning system looked like that on test equipment radios or field strength meters. Looked like they could have been connected to a built in loop antenna or outside antenna. I didn't check to see if the radios worked. If I had, the docents would probably have had a conniption and that would have been the end of the tour.
Grew up in Framingham, MA about 2 miles from a 1,000 wt daytimer on 1190. Needless to say, that's what I got. They signed off one winter afternoon and I picked up WWVA Wheeling WV on my radio shack crystal radio. My dad had strung a wire from the house to a detatched shed about 200 feet away from the house. Very cool
I don't remember what type of crystal radio I had; too many years ago. I think it was just a diode, coil of wire, alligator clip and earphone. Being in suburban Buffalo all I remember receiving with it was 50000 watt WKBW 1520, which is what we listened to most of the time away back in the late 60s.
Bronx
Bronx
I suspect that with a 100 foot antenna, you could hear WKBW 1520 on a crystal radio at least a few hundred miles away at night. When it fell below the forward conducting voltage, it would just disappear. There is a scatter map of reception letters stretching to Western Europe and North Africa on this YouTube video from 0:59 to 1:15.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbe2c7XysnU
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I was just looking at the WKBW/WWKB pattern. The towers are about 195 degrees, which makes the field fall off more quickly with the elevation and reflection angle at short distances, but the pattern is actually strongest off the tower placement axis by about 60 degrees, which means that this offsets the tower heights at short distances. A rough calculation gives about 5 mV/m 6% of the time at 300 miles, and about 6 mV/m 6% of the time at 200 miles in the Eastern direction. So a crystal radio with a long wire antenna would be capable of receiving it for short periods. It would literally come and go rather than slow fades. That is what makes it difficult to DX with such a radio. To ID it, you probably need a more sensitive radio as a back up. I know the first time I heard it happen on WCFL and WOWO, by the time I confirmed that it was not a local, it was gone. I know there are more sensitive and selective crystal radios using better antennas, and multiple tuned circuits. I was never given a good answer on whether the "imaginary" component (as in i or j complex numbers) of voltages in tuned circuits and diodes counted for overcoming the forward voltage barrier. I have seen DX logs with crystal radios which suggest that it might. Or whether they just used a very long antenna.
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For reasons I'm sure made sense to me at the time (1963?) , I -- ahem -- 'built' a crystal radio from some kit that had a patchboard and a bunch of transistors and wee ceramic resonators and gefulte harmonizers -- WHATEVER came with the directions. I barely knew which end of my Dad's soldering gun to hold.
But it worked! It got two stations -- WCBS 880 and WQXR 1560. Whoopie-snot!
Transistor radios cost about the same at the time, and they brought in far more stations to the JFK Airport area, where out DXing bunch grew up. I hung up my Dad's soldering pin after that.
But it worked! It got two stations -- WCBS 880 and WQXR 1560. Whoopie-snot!
Transistor radios cost about the same at the time, and they brought in far more stations to the JFK Airport area, where out DXing bunch grew up. I hung up my Dad's soldering pin after that.
I did hook a crystal radio up to an audio amplifier, and as you say, you get a full range of the audio frequencies broadcast. However, equalization and processing limited the range of frequencies heard. The processing sounded different on different radios with different IF bandpass also.
The first more sophisticated radios were basically crystal radios with an RF and AF amplifier and multiple tuned radio frequency circuits.
The first more sophisticated radios were basically crystal radios with an RF and AF amplifier and multiple tuned radio frequency circuits.
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Until the guy who was helped out the window came along and made more advanced receivers.
I have one of his "rotators".
Very reliable. A little inconvenient. Difficult to null out signals.
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