That's definitely cool, fadaradioman. That set reminds me of years ago of me connecting a 1N34A diode between a longwire antenna and ground and connecting a crystal-earphone across it and listening to all the different stations. Sometimes at night faraway shortwave stations like BBC and stuff like that would fade in and out in the background, sometimes coming in very strong. I love those kinds of radios... I call them "The Infinity Radio" because they can pick up all-that-is all-at-once. :-)
TC: There were diodes before the cat's whisker, including Coherers (used by Marconi), liquid rectifiers, ball contact rectifiers and wire-acid rectifiers for example.
@@KB4QAA Yup... plus, they had the zincite/bornite rectifier back in those olden days too, and those were extremely easy to set and were very stable at holding their setting compared to a galena/catwhisker rectifier.
You don't tune it... you just hook it between an antenna and ground and connect the headphones either in parallel across it, or in series with it between it and the ground connection and adjust the little catwhisker wire for just the right spot on and with just the right spring-pressure against the little chunk of galena while listening through the headphones. It will pick up whatever is on-the-air nearby and sometimes far away, depending on radio propagation conditions at the time. Basically, it picks everything at once at the same time, and whatever station that is the strongest will come in the loudest, while all the other weaker ones will chatter away in the background. One can also add a coil and variable capacitor to it and build a tunable crystal set with it, too. It's a multi-purpose device. ;-)
Wonderful find. Just think of the original owners excitement, tuning in stations for the first time.
That's definitely cool, fadaradioman. That set reminds me of years ago of me connecting a 1N34A diode between a longwire antenna and ground and connecting a crystal-earphone across it and listening to all the different stations. Sometimes at night faraway shortwave stations like BBC and stuff like that would fade in and out in the background, sometimes coming in very strong. I love those kinds of radios... I call them "The Infinity Radio" because they can pick up all-that-is all-at-once. :-)
Nice Crystal Fada Set!!!
Very nice. At the time, those were known as "cat whisker detectors," basically they are the worlds first diodes. Thanks for sharing.
TC: There were diodes before the cat's whisker, including Coherers (used by Marconi), liquid rectifiers, ball contact rectifiers and wire-acid rectifiers for example.
@@KB4QAA Yup... plus, they had the zincite/bornite rectifier back in those olden days too, and those were extremely easy to set and were very stable at holding their setting compared to a galena/catwhisker rectifier.
Exactly, Tesla Cult
@@TerryMcKean Thanks for mention of zincite/bornite. I will look it up. Here is link to original 1912 station. www.radioblvd.com/DoddStation.html
@@KB4QAA You're welcome :-) Here's a video of guy using an Aeriola Jr fitted with zincite/bornite detector:
th-cam.com/video/N3hZU3e4-zg/w-d-xo.html
Can you show how the antenna, gnd, and ear phones are wired up to this wisker?
@teslacult You are so correct! Thank you for reminding me!
how do you tune that?
You don't tune it... you just hook it between an antenna and ground and connect the headphones either in parallel across it, or in series with it between it and the ground connection and adjust the little catwhisker wire for just the right spot on and with just the right spring-pressure against the little chunk of galena while listening through the headphones. It will pick up whatever is on-the-air nearby and sometimes far away, depending on radio propagation conditions at the time. Basically, it picks everything at once at the same time, and whatever station that is the strongest will come in the loudest, while all the other weaker ones will chatter away in the background. One can also add a coil and variable capacitor to it and build a tunable crystal set with it, too. It's a multi-purpose device. ;-)