Crystal Radio Build

OK, let's get this part out of the way first: I am a complete sell-out, and officially now have no ham geek cred.  That's right, I built a crystal radio from a kit.  But let me say why: I needed an easy win about now, and didn't want to start my experimentations with a flail.  Besides, I was all fired up after last week's post about Minimalist Radio.  When I went looking around for parts (and I did, I swears it!), it was just about as cheap to buy a kit.  So... off to the races.

With that out of the way, the kit is the Picard radio from Borden Radio Company, by way of retailer MTC Radio at this link.  Here's the Bordan product page, scroll down to the right kit.  Then scroll down to the next kit, a ready-to-rock foxhole radio featuring a razor blade detector, all screwed to a scrap piece of pine board.  So Borden's got some geek cred for selling these, and getting them out to aspiring radio geeks.  Also, as I found out later, Borden's got a respectable line of hard-to-get parts for the next DIY go-round, up to and including WWII vintage razor blades, all at a very cool URL: http://www.xtalman.com

So now for the two big questions: How well does it work?  Um, it gets the in-town 5,000 watt WMEJ, about 3 miles away, all too well during the day, and doesn't have enough selectivity to hear anything else.  In the evening, when they turn their power down to I dunno, maybe 250 watts or so, it is possible to pick up 50,000 watt WWL from nearly 50 miles away (they were talking about – surprise! – sports).  So, for something so incredibly simple, it's a complete success.

Second big question: How well did it come together, both structurally and aesthetically?  Not bad, in a pre-WWI sort of way.  Take a look:

Design dates to the mid-point of the interval between Now and the War of 1812.

The two alligator clips attach to ground (black) and a random wire receive antenna (red).  The entire build was easy, if a little english had to occasionally be applied to various parts to make them fit.  The key thing during construction is patience: to wind a nice tight coil with all 75 wraps, to use the recommended clear spray on the coil after wrapping (it keeps things glued in place), and to wait a couple of days for the clear spray to completely dry.  The rest is a snap, requiring only steady hands and a few basic tools.

Speaking of winding the coil, yes, this kit requires that you wind the coil, and that you wind it neatly. So even though it is a kit, it does require some skill and patience to build.  Mostly the latter though.  I guess that does restore at least some geek cred.

Back to its performance, it's not bad, but I can't wait to take it on an upcoming camp-out.  Up in Desoto NF, at the location we've chosen, there are several mid-watt stations at 15 to 20 mile distances, and of course WWL off over the horizon.  It's going to be interesting to see how it does when there's nothing in the immediate neighborhood, swamping all other signals.

Enough already.  You can read more about crystal radios at Wikipedia.  It was fun to build, fun to test, and now it goes back into its box until the campout.  Again, when it picked up WWL out of New Orleans, that was enough to declare it a success.