Dave's Crystal Radio Set Page

Hello crystal radio fans. Glad you stopped by. I always like telling my story. For those that have passed 50, this story will most likely sound familiar. That is, we are yearning to relive our childhood. Well, for a small sum of money I was able to do the same. Above you see the results.

A "crystal set" is a radio receiver that requires no batteries, or household electric current to operate. It has no apparent power supply. I will tell you at the end of this article how this radio gets it's power.

The crystal set was the first radio for broadcast reception. Back then, these radios used a galena crystal (a piece of rock that acted as a semiconductor to recover the audio from radio frequency waves). Since then, the semiconductor diode has replaced the galena in most designs as it is one less thing that the user has to fiddle around with.

Since the crystal set is self powered, headphones are required for listening. This ain't your son's ghetto blaster. The sound is quite faint but still easy to hear.

About a month ago (March 2002) I had several customers coming in where I worked expressing a desire to build a crystal set. One was for a school science project. Another was teaching a class in electronics to adults and thought a crystal set might be a good teaching tool. A university customer ordered parts to build over 50 crystal sets. This is all it took for me to get started.

I decided that I wanted to build a series of crystal sets. I wanted to start with a basic model and work my way up the performance ladder. I had built several crystal sets in my teenage years. I used parts that were laying around the house. Having grown up in a "ham radio family", coils, capacitors and diodes were easy to find. This time around, I decided that I would research this and use the best components that I could find.

So, have you figured how this radio gets it's power? No batteries, no ac power plug. The radio stations themselves provide the power to a crystal set.

Ok -- It is now March 2003. I was nosing around my own site looking for something to do and I thought I would give you an update. In 2002 I built 18 crystal radios (along with some tube sets and building an old time radio collection). I met a bunch of very nice people that also had the crystal set bug here on the net. This includes other site operators and my customers. All this has put a little purpose in life. I should also mention the dozens or hundreds of people that have e-mailed me to compliment me on my work and perhaps had a question.

I can say that my building still continues. This year (2004), I have 4 new crystal sets built. They are all different too. I am finding a lot of parts to make interesting sets.

Download this picture (w/o the numbers) 1024x768 - 708k - wallpaper
Select the set you want to see from this list or the image map above.

My difficulty ratings are explained below.

# 1 This is where it all began, people.
# 2 Spider coil set with two capacitors and tap switch.
# 3 Australian mystery coil set is a square box. Nice binding posts.
# 4 Another square box set, two coils.
# 5 Dual capacitor radio with homemade tap switch.
# 6 Two dialer in a nice big box. Brass link switches too.
# 7 Big box with a lid. Just like the old days.
# 8 Cute set in an 8 sided box. Spider coil.
# 9 My first shortwave crystal set. Nice and simple.
#10 Set made with a lot of old buzzard radio parts.
#11 Remler capacitors, variocoupler, and hidden parts. Nice!
#12 My old time German look alike crystal set. Hier ist Berlin!
#13 Simple radio that any scout can build
#14 Variable coupling all in a nice box.
#15 Another big box with a great pair of knobs.
#16 Miller crystal radio clone. Open air coils.
#17 My first contest entry radio.
#18 Catwhisker detector radio.
#19 My first loop crystal set.
#20 High performance radio with Remler capacitors.

#21 Bandswitched dual coil set. Labeled in German.
#22 Simple single coil radio.
#23 Set with moveable coils. Single or double tuned too.
#24 A 3 knob one or two circuit radio.
#25 Back to a simple, proven design. Two tuning capacitors, litz coil.
#26 Beautiful crystal set with a tube detector. Good fallout shelter radio.
#27 The "Fidel-o-dyne" Cigar box radio.
#28 Another DX set. Air and ferrite coil. Hobbydyne set.
#29 Cigar box radio with homemade variable capacitor.
#30 Beautiful large litz loop crystal set
#31 007 spy crystal set, hidden in a wooden book. Has a tube detector.
#32 Nice looking set built in a card box. Unusual spider coil.
#33 Another litz variable coupling set. Old time looks.
#34 Triangular art radio.
#35 My first Über DX set. My 2004 contest
#36 Simple but decent working CD spider coil set.
#37 A Telefunken circuit 1920's crystal set. Easy and inexpensive.
#38 The big triangle set. Another art radio.
#39 Inspired by the early A-K breadboard radios.
#40 Inspired by Mae West. "Why don't you tune me sometime." :)

#41 Large litz set with two beautiful old time vernier tuning dials.
#42 Radio made for the XSS Newsletter.
#43 Clear box design of my favorite circuit.
#44 2 piece radio for builders on a budget.
#45 First toroid set in a beautiful box!
#46 Spider coil table top set. Unusual knobs.
#47 Mystery tuner with a very large litz coil.
#48 One of my best projects. Nice looking large set.
#49 Enhanced mystery radio design.
#50 My 2005 contest set. Deutsche version hier.

#51 A nice simple well working set.
#52 This Miller clone has the great look!
#53 A clear view set with old time capacitors.
#54 Peanut butter jar radio.
#55 Beautiful radio with detector stand.
#56 It ain't litz but sure looks nice!
#57 Again, my single coil circuit set. Acrylic coil form.
#58 Shortwave crystal set made with antique transmitter parts.
#59 A classroom demo pyrite detector crystal set.
#60 This is a budget dx radio. 3 pieces! Single or dual coil.

#61 What a beauty this is. Wood box radio with detector stand.
#62 Art and function all on one chassis.
#63 Tube and crystal modular radio. 2006 crystal radio contest entry.
#64 This is my first contra wound coil radio.
#65 Built with a little help from my friends.

#66 A.K.A. David's DX Driller. DX set on a HDPE platform.
#67 Simple Radio, single coil, single tuning knob.
#68 Dual coil DX radio. Twin to #69
#69 Another DX crystal set. Twin to #68
#70 This is a big dx radio!
#71 This is a big dx radio!

The Difficulty Ratings Explained

My difficulty ratings are a little tongue in cheek and a little serious explanations of how difficult the radio was to build. I based this on how difficult the mechanical building was, special tools needed, and the amount of swearing done. The electrical difficulty was also considered. The amount of circuitry, the test equipment needed to make the set right and the amount of tweaking needed to make it perfect.

The ratings are a comparison of only the radios in this section. Please look over the projects carefully before you attempt to build any of them. Try to reach a little but not too far. I am an experienced builder but it well over a year and a couple of dozen sets before I went whole hog! Here are the ratings:

These sets you can do with your eyes closed. Soldering is required on all my projects. This is a good one for the kids to build.

If the radio is more difficult to build, or there is a little more to the circuit, it earned a medium rating. If you are a good materials worker, this type of radio might be good.

The advanced radios require good mechanical and electronic skills. Signal generators are helpful starting at this level.

If you are a Cadré radio builder, with lots of experience and patience, these are for you! Plan to use test equipment and spend time tweaking this one. My plans get you close, but substitued parts make that small difference.

Crystal Radio Links

How to build sets sites

Gollum's Crystal Receiver World This site is what got me going in all this.
Boydhouse - crystalradio.net Tons of great crystal set info on this site.
Birmingham Alabama Crystal Radio Group These guys are serious about this.

Historical and Museums

Antique Wireless Museum, and nearly in my backyard!
Museum of Radio and Technology
Radio Museum Rottenburg Crystal sets in Germany
Wumpus Old Radio World Crystal set information and history.
Radio Museum from France

Contests

Crystal sets from down under Nice sets.
Crystal Set building contest. Some really cool sets.
crystalradio.us Home of the Elmer crystal radio DX and 1AD contests.
RadioContest A summer contest for all homemade radios.

Kits and Ready Made Crystal Sets

Peebles Originals 50's style kits. Great!

Friends Pages

Mystery Crystal Set The basis of my third crystal set. Dan is one of my crystal set friends too!
Peebles Originals Mike has a good site, and one heck of a nice guy too.
Gary's MainpageWD4NKA has a lot to show you.
Jim's Crystal radio page. Jim offers a high performance crystal set kit in his Hobbydyne series.
Dick Kleijer's Crystal radio site from Holland. Check it out.
Wayne Thelen's high performance crystal set.
Darrin's Homemade Crystal Sets and Tube Radios

Clubs and Forums

The Radioboard forum. Join the fun!
Midnightscience The Xtal Set Society forum.
Antique Radios, a very large forum.

Software, Calculators, Databases, Engineering

Guest technical articles on my website.
Ben Tongue explains how these things work.
FCC AM Station Database
Radio Locator
AM-LOG Lists of stations in alphabetical order
Tubepad This is how I now draw the schematics (#8 and later).
Scott's crystal set site, and headphone information.
Galena information.
Galena information.
Flat coil inductance calculator
Variometer Calculator
Propagation info
Clear channel station list
Formula for calculating spider coils
Station list with antenna patterns
Where's That Station free software
RECNET database
Waggy's piezo headphone technical page.
Waggy's online Tuggle Tuner calculator.

Great links for beginners to start!

Owen Pool's Crystal Set Site with contest pages, links and much information.
Skywaves pages

Commercial Sites that I have purchase from and can recommend.

1N34A.COM Buy your litz and other crystal radio parts here!

MWS Wire Litz wire available here. Great service too!
Play Things Of Past Lots of old radio parts.

Other Cool pages found on the web.

Radio Animation Not crystal sets but cool!
Philip Miller Tate crystal radio songs! Cool.
K4ADL ham radio cartoons A real piece of work.
Crystal Radio demo video.

Downloads

Schematic Symbols Library (check the bottom of my construction practices page for more info.)
eye.ani Animated cursor for windows of a magic eye tube.

Contact Information and conditions

by(c) by David Schmarder


Crystal Set #65	Crystal Set #66	Crystal Set #67	Crystal Set #68


Crystal Set #69	Crystal Set #70	Crystal Set #71