Homemade Radio

This video shows how to make a homemade AM radio, also called a foxhole or crystal radio.

[leguirerj]

When I was about 12 years old in 1965, I found a book in the library on how to build a Foxhole radio. It was similarly built like this one. The oxide on the razor blade and the carbon from the pencil lead made a crude semiconductor diode. It required headphones with 20000 ohm impedance, which I lucky enough to find. My father was impressed when I had him listen to it.That project made me want to be an Electrical Eng. Because of it, I ended up with a Masters of Science Deg in Electrical Engineering from CMU.

[bobhs]

As a teacher, I encourage everyone to pass this on to any child you know. This is the kind of stuff I wish to see kids playing with—like when we were kids ourselves. I think a lot of us come from times or even situations where we didn’t have much. I’m relatively young at 44, but in the 80’s as a kid playing with antenna shapes, lengths, materials and positions was more because we didn’t have cable TV. But it was fun and rewarding. Foxhole radios were an accessible project cause you could ride your bike around to find the materials. A little adventure and discovery would be beneficial to todays kids.

[MrBobWareham]

This brings back memories when I was a young boy of ten my dad and I made radio and tuned in the cat's whisker to hear a radio station the wire aerial was looped of the clothes dryer in the kitchen now I am 73 and this brings back the memories of my dad helping me, loved it thanks

[amirbloomenfeld]

I like this. No nonsense, no bullshit, no clickbaiting, no stupid intro. Just a genuine how-to video while showing you all the necessary steps and highlighting with captions the important bits. Very neat. I applaud this YouTuber for being so down to Earth and helpful and providing quality entertainment. A+++

[NostalgicTribe]

"My name is John Connor if you're listening to this, you are the resistance"

[Larstig]

I am here because of the tv show All The Light We Cannot See.

In my teenage years (20 years ago) I liked listen to the radio, but knowing now I didn't liked it enough.
Building this kind of radio is cool. And I didn't knew it was possible with materials like this.

[joewoodchuck]

I was making these when I was around 10 in the 50s. I used a capacitor in parallel with the coil intended to be resonant in the am broadcast band. I used Galena for the detector. Next came regenerative tube receivers, tech school, ham radio and commercial FCC licenses and a nice career designing and building custom laboratory equipment for a major University medical school. Now retired I still operate ham radio and sometimes scratch build things for the fun of it. I also still have some pieces of Galena just in case ...

[Denver_Risley]

This was a pretty regular project when I was a kid, elementary school science, cub scouts, etc. It's very cool to see somebody still building them.

[OldDogNewTrick]

Like many others here, I also made crystals radios when I was a boy in the early 1950s. First one was a kit that my father bought for me, but then I started to build for my friends. First versions used a galena crystal and a cat-whisker for the detector. But then I discovered solid state electronics in the form of an IN34 germanium diode that was more reliable than the crystal and cat-whisker combo. Went on to build many other electronics projects over the years including two early personal computers when they first came out in the mid 70s.

[kindiduk]

Incredible diode engineering there!
I use to love making crystal sets in my dad's shed. I remember a few experiments I found in old books. One was sheets of aluminium foil between pages of a book to make a variable cap.
"Ground" for me was actually ground! Used to hammer a piece of copper pipe into the ground and use that.

[d.k.barker]

Thanks, Many memories! I made the identical radio in 1955 when I was 10 years old. A book in our school library "How to build a foxhole radio" was the motivation. I've looked for a copy for years it had such a big effect on my life. I had no help and everybody thought I was nuts. I ordered a pair of headphones from Allied Radio in Chicago which were sensitive enough to make it work. After I showed it too my Dad I don't think he ever questioned my opinion about anything again. He was very impressed and told everybody about it. Life was simpler back then.

[sanjayd]

Fantastic! The parallel L-C circuit with a variable inductor followed by an envelope detector for the shortwave AM receiver.The way you made the diode for the envelope detector was pure genius! 👍👍👍👍🙏

[orsivan]

That's a great DIY project. It actually contains only stuff you can get very easy. Copper wire, razor blade, a pencil and used tp. Fantastic.

[danielblaze]

Ça a l'air d'être relativement facile à fabriquer mais rendez vous compte qu'il y a plus d'un siècle, fin du 19ème, les prémices de la radio étaient déjà là. Quel génie inventif il a fallu pour arriver à ce résultat !
Il en a fallu pour ça des étapes de recherches. Et c' est finalement Guglielmo Marconi qui lance la première expérience de TSF.
Quelle invention magique tout de même !
La TSF, télécommunication sans fil, c'est une fenêtre ouverte sur le monde, longtemps avant internet.

[crossdrawjohn]

Hi everyone I built a radio similar to this from my dads boy scout manual from a long time ago. To date my self it was back in the fifty's and I was only 6 or 8 years old and he helped me put it together. I was so surprised and overwhelmed to hear voices and music from this copper wire and a crystal and a small speaker. IT WAS WAY COOL and I will never forget it. I'm so glad to find this video I'm going to build another

[skyborne]

This is amazing. This is how people of great knowledge back in the days make discoveries like the light bulb and generating electricity and cars. This is how products start originally before it hits the production line. You are a man of inventions. 👍

[tinkmarshino]

we built crystal radio set's for boy scouts when I was a lad.. this was fun to watch and will be a great project for my grandchildren and I to do this summer..!

[Joe-er]

One of the first things I built. I used a variable capacitor and a fixed coil. Clipped the aerial to the metal frame of the window and earth lead to the water pipe. I used a crystal earpiece to listen to the radio. I was hooked. Spent 45 years in the electronics industry, now I’m retired.

[SeeTheManipulation]

I think the way things are going we may really need these instructions.

[keiththomas]

I made one of these when I was in 6th grade. It was a science project. It worked great. Used to listen to baseball games on it. Never need any batteries.