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So somewhat related, I cant find a half decent crystal radio kit on Amazon. Makes me really sad considering how dominant Amazon is. I got one as a gift when I

So somewhat related, I cant find a half decent crystal radio kit on Amazon. Makes me really sad considering how dominant Amazon is. I got one as a gift when I was maybe 7 years old. Making that radio with my mom, from essentially wires and the crystal and then hearing music through that little piezo ear piece might have been the most wondrous experiences of my life. Like, my family isn’t religious at all and as an adult I’ve come to identify as a materialist, but that… that was the closest thing I can think of to a religious experience. I assembled wires such that they produced sound sent invisibly through the air by other people, and because of the way it is sent it’s completely passive and requires no batteries. Absolutely mind-blowing experience for me as kid.

buescher 5y ago
Funny. I was fascinated in the same way by the crystal (germanium diode) radio kit I built as a kid but I wish now I'd built one of the "oatmeal box" more-or-less-from-scratch radios. It's probably easier than ever to do that - you can get galena off ebay.
0xfaded 5y ago
When I was a kid my crystal radio kit was beer powered! https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsvolume2 https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsv... Dad bought me Dick Smith's electronic kits when I was 8 (it was an Australian thing). I didn't wind up going the EE route, but I will credit it with giving me the basics early in life so that whenever talk of capacitors and resistors came up I knew how to properly parse the information.
- mnw21cam 5y ago
  I remember that one. IIRC the instructions finished by telling you not to drink the beer afterwards.
derbOac 5y ago
Yeah the part about not requiring batteries was fascinating to me when I was little. My dad had located an old one from somewhere; I remember him showing it to me and having grown up with what were more modern radios at that point, the fact it could work without batteries was somehow at the same time mystifying but also made the world of electronics seem more approachable. Reading about this leads me to wonder if there are certain benefits to many of these very old designs that have been lost due to overlooked priorities. As in, I'm not saying we should all be using crystal radios again but having a functional radio that doesn't require power seems like a plus at some level.
MisterTea 5y ago
> Like, my family isn’t religious at all and as an adult I’ve come to identify as a materialist, but that… that was the closest thing I can think of to a religious experience. I like to think of electromagnetism as a form of magic (in the supernatural/religious sense). In the days before radio, the idea of moving energy and information over pieces of metal or thin air would be considered sorcery or witchcraft. Today its so much more advanced with pocket computers literally putting the world at our fingertips. I can casually talk to people on the other side of the planet in near real time.
jareklupinski 5y ago
to be fair there's not much on the air these days to pick up using a crystal anymore (around me at least) but an SDR would let you teach much much more about whats going on in the invisible :) https://www.hanselman.com/blog/software-defined-radio-is-a-great-way-to-bridge-the-physical-and-the-digital-and-teach-stem https://www.hanselman.com/blog/software-defined-radio-is-a-g... https://smile.amazon.com/NooElec-NESDR-Mini-Compatible-Packages/dp/B009U7WZCA https://smile.amazon.com/NooElec-NESDR-Mini-Compatible-Packa...

buescher 5y ago

Funny. I was fascinated in the same way by the crystal (germanium diode) radio kit I built as a kid but I wish now I'd built one of the "oatmeal box" more-or-less-from-scratch radios. It's probably easier than ever to do that - you can get galena off ebay.

0xfaded 5y ago

When I was a kid my crystal radio kit was beer powered! https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsvolume2 https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsv... Dad bought me Dick Smith's electronic kits when I was 8 (it was an Australian thing). I didn't wind up going the EE route, but I will credit it with giving me the basics early in life so that whenever talk of capacitors and resistors came up I knew how to properly parse the information.

mnw21cam 5y ago
I remember that one. IIRC the instructions finished by telling you not to drink the beer afterwards.

derbOac 5y ago

Yeah the part about not requiring batteries was fascinating to me when I was little. My dad had located an old one from somewhere; I remember him showing it to me and having grown up with what were more modern radios at that point, the fact it could work without batteries was somehow at the same time mystifying but also made the world of electronics seem more approachable. Reading about this leads me to wonder if there are certain benefits to many of these very old designs that have been lost due to overlooked priorities. As in, I'm not saying we should all be using crystal radios again but having a functional radio that doesn't require power seems like a plus at some level.

MisterTea 5y ago

> Like, my family isn’t religious at all and as an adult I’ve come to identify as a materialist, but that… that was the closest thing I can think of to a religious experience. I like to think of electromagnetism as a form of magic (in the supernatural/religious sense). In the days before radio, the idea of moving energy and information over pieces of metal or thin air would be considered sorcery or witchcraft. Today its so much more advanced with pocket computers literally putting the world at our fingertips. I can casually talk to people on the other side of the planet in near real time.

jareklupinski 5y ago

to be fair there's not much on the air these days to pick up using a crystal anymore (around me at least) but an SDR would let you teach much much more about whats going on in the invisible :) https://www.hanselman.com/blog/software-defined-radio-is-a-great-way-to-bridge-the-physical-and-the-digital-and-teach-stem https://www.hanselman.com/blog/software-defined-radio-is-a-g... https://smile.amazon.com/NooElec-NESDR-Mini-Compatible-Packages/dp/B009U7WZCA https://smile.amazon.com/NooElec-NESDR-Mini-Compatible-Packa...