ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- I found a couple designs for potato radios on the internet. I actually believed they *might* work, so I thought I'd give it a try.
WARNING: If you repeat this experiment, DO NOT eat the potato afterwards, it will likely contain lead and other toxic stuff.
World's Simplest Radio (4K) • World's Simplest Radio...
==================================
sudonull.com/p...
www.americanra...
![[Watch Party] RoV Pro League 2024 Winter | ( Bacon Time Vs FS )](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/lD6z1BugdZw/mqdefault.jpg)
World's Simplest Radio (4K) th-cam.com/video/mlBfAI_55Mk/w-d-xo.html
I know nothing about radios, but when I was a child in the 60's we had a light switch in the kitchen, made of bakelite . It had a very fine crack running from one of the screws about a quarter of an inch long towards the actual switch itself but not reaching it. Our old wireless was about 10 feet away and the ground wire ran alongside the light switch. One balmy summer day I was sitting making an airfix kit and could hear very faint voices and music when all the family was out at work and I was alone? I went to see if I could find out where this was coming from (looked about outside etc) and could not find anything. I went back to my kit and a little while later became aware of the voices and music again but still very faint. This time I went very quietly and slowly around the house trying to pinpoint the source. It took a while because the voices came and went, but eventually as I tip-toed into the kitchen I found the source. It was the light switch! Baffled, I checked the wireless, and it was not even plugged in. I told the rest of the family when they came home and they thought I was mad, but they did eventually hear voices and music from the switch and thought it weird but not dangerous, so they just accepted that we had a weird light switch. Over the years I have often wondered how this came to be, but have never found an answer. So is there one? Thanks if anyone can enlighten me.
That is interesting. If you watch my video on the world's simplest radio th-cam.com/video/mlBfAI_55Mk/w-d-xo.html
you will see you only need an antenna, ground, detector, and something to make sound to hear radio.
Then I have another video about what can work as the detector I mentioned.
th-cam.com/video/1o2zB5giS7I/w-d-xo.html
And a nearby, high power station would make it much more likely.
I can't say for sure of course, but that switch had all the things to hear radio: it had an antenna, which was the live wire; a relative "ground", the neutral wire; several possible detectors including corroded or arced copper/bronze, carbon from burned bakelite, etc. The something to make sound could be the cracked bakelite. Did you ever experiment to see if you could make it louder or quieter by squeezing or pushing on it? Did it work when the light was on or off?
@@tsbrownie Hi. I did push at the crack and it stopped altogether. It did return quite a few months later, again very faint. Our power station was about 6 miles away and we had no high powered things near us, but maybe the airport which was only a mile away but never heard traffic chat. It happened whether the light switch was on or off. I have always just assumed it was just a freak thing caused by a combination of things being just in the right place to make it happen. Another strange thing happened years later. I was sitting in my mates car outside our local fish and chip shop eating our fish and chips and he had an 8 track stereo player (no radio) which had been playing but reached the end, and we were just sitting there enjoying our food. Suddenly, and VERY loudly the speaker burst into life on the police frequency causing us both to jump and spill our food!?? Like I said, the player was cassette only, no radio. But thanks for the reply and links.
@@colindelamare4588 About the light switch, I'd go with my guess that the crack was acting as a speaker. Touching a speaker will quiet it. The radio station seems to have had enough power to do the job.
The 8 track picking up a nearby transmitter is not a surprise. It has lots of stuff inside it that would pick up, amplify, and sound out a radio signal. Used to happen frequently with old style badly tuned ham radio stations / antennas.
@@tsbrownie Thank you. At the very least I now know that these things can happen and I and my no longer with us family were not going nuts!
@@colindelamare4588The amplifier inside a tape deck is really sensitive, so it can pick up nearby sources of RF like that.
There is no difference between potatoes and direct wire connections. The same as an electrical conductor, but the difference is that potatoes do not have the properties of an inductor/wire
The potato is supposed to act as a capacitor and there are many crystal radio circuits that use capacitance in the simple circuit.. You handicap the construction with the jumbled coil of antenna and ground wire when the one side of the potato that is to be grounded should be within a few feet of the ground rod/point.. The antenna side should be attached to the antenna wire of long enough length for the desired short wave frequency at 1/4 - 1/2 - 3/4 or one wavelength.. You can shift the tuning of the antenna by coiling the wire around the potato and/or a large enough non conducting "plastic or paper" bottle or tube and then by adjusting the number of turns and the position of the potato inside the coil you can create a selective tuning circuit.. The diode should be directly connected to the crystal headphone leads when inserted into the potato halves for best RF rectification results.. You can substitute a cardboard toilet paper tube wrapped with 2 aluminum foil strips separated by wax paper or plastic wrap as the insulator to make a better capacitor.. Once again playing with the number of wraps of wire and wraps of foil will vary the circuit selectivity at a given frequency..
But did the poor patient survive?
We don't know. We will have to bury it and see if it's still alive. I could be an eye donor (potato eye). ;)
@@tsbrownie If you bury it and it lives you could possibly get even more potato radios from it.
maybe if you turn the potato into a vinegar acid battery cell using vinegar soaked potato half, a paper napkin and then your modified circuit, but the tuning coil still will be needed
I could cut it into a spiral.
The origional article that I read about this was the effect of the ground capacitance of the double antenna in proximity to the distance from ground created a tuned circuit and the addition of the cut potato with insulater increased the voltage across the diode thus increased sensitivity.
@stanmeyer9770 The problem is that the resistance of the potato is waaaay to high to conduct the tiny currents.
@@tsbrownie we are talking about very high impedance here so the current factor is very low in this equation, but the gain is high.
Obviously you forgot the ketchup.
I think the lack of an inductor would be a sign that it wont work. It might be possible to connect the diode to the potato halves with copper and zinc on each side and bias the diode to raise the reception.
And there is no tuning, unless moving the 2 halves apart would work. ;)
I don't know is this really working. but seems by cutting a potato halves and separate two halves with plastic, you simply create a capacitor
Exactly. And the potato is a high resistance conductor, so overall it's a very poor way to make a radio.
I live three miles by air to 50,000W WLW. I don't need a potato, Antenna, ground, headphones and diode is all that's needed. I would however think that you could use dissimilar metals stuck in a whole potato to behave a like a battery to bias the diode.
I think there's a 1960s science project where they used potatoes to power some small item. So you're not to far from WKRP. ;)
Perhaps using Copper/zinc for antenna connections?
Maybe. Might bias the diode and make it more sensitive.
I don't understand why you connected the antenna to both sides of the potato. The diagram shows the antenna only connected to one side and the ground connected to the other side. It looks like to me you have a direct short. However, I have very little knowledge on radios and how they work.
One wire is ground, the other is the antenna. They happen to be the same color, but the ground has a mark on it so I know the difference.
Oh, ok.
Maybe a turnup would work better?
Or a ham --> ham radio? Use a beef ground? An auntenna? To be half serious, acidic things would probably work better, like an orange.
I think the potato should be cooked. 😀
Mashed or fries? ;)
nothing for tuning