CRYSTAL RADIO

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Description:

Crystal radio requires no power supply to operate because it uses energy from the signals it receives. Performance is - like one should expect - poor. Nevertheless, with a good antenna and proper ground, it shouldn’t be too difficult to tune to a strong AM station.

While this circuit is very simple, many points should be observed. The variable capacitor is relatively hard to get in a store these days, so your best bet to find one could be a junked AM receiver. Connect the case to the antenna and the central rod to ground. Otherwise, you’ll de-tune the circuit every time you touch the capacitor.

Next comes the coil. Originally, 60-80 turn air core coils of large diameter (10cm) were used. A less bulky alternative could be 30 turns of enamel-coated magnet wire wound on a ferrite rod. It works for me, at least.

Detection and demodulation of the signal is done by a germanium diode. In the US, 1N34 seems to be very popular. Here in Europe, AA119 is more common and offers similar performance.

Finally, you’ll need high-impedance headphones. These are also quite rare. Ordinary Walkman phones won’t work directly. Add an audio output transformer to drive them or build a small amplifier like shown on the next page.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 9:50 pm and is filed under RF-Radio Frequency, basic electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.