Crystal radio kit, need some help figuring out how it works

[Ed in Tx]

No battery needed. You just need a good ground, RF from an antenna, and high impedance headphones or an earphone. Those are the 4 connections it has. Power is from the rectified RF. And of course replace the bad diode if it is indeed bad.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Ed in Tx

No battery needed. You just need a good ground, RF from an antenna, and high impedance headphones or an earphone. Those are the 4 connections it has. Power is from the rectified RF. And of course replace the bad diode if it is indeed bad.

OK, thanks. What kind of diode should I use in this thing? The original one looked like an old Germanium signal diode, like what is used in old TVs and Radios.

[Ed in Tx]

Yep, a germanium diode. They rectify as low as .2 Volts. (Compared to silicon .6V)

[jr_tech]

Simple Boy Scout radio and improvements:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mubvsqFrE88

jr

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Ed in Tx

Yep, a germanium diode. They rectify as low as .2 Volts. (Compared to silicon .6V)

I think I might have some diodes that might work in this radio, but I'm not sure.

I just looked over at AES and they had 6 signal diodes listed there for sale, 3 of them of the Germanium variety (1N34A, 1N60, and 1N270) and 3 of the Silicon variety (1N4148A, 1N914, and 1N4448) and I'm curious as to which one of those would work best in this application, also I'm wondering where I might find some high impedance headphones like what this would use, or if this might even work with a high impedance speaker like the type used on the old 1920s radios used?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Ed in Tx

No battery needed. You just need a good ground, RF from an antenna, and high impedance headphones or an earphone. Those are the 4 connections it has. Power is from the rectified RF. And of course replace the bad diode if it is indeed bad.

Crystal sets require a very strong signal, otherwise you will not hear anything. (I've had several and every one of them only received one station, a 500-watt local station about two miles away from where I lived at the time.) I don't know if the OP is near any very strong radio stations in northern Indiana, but if not, the radio absolutely will not work. Northern Indiana is close to Chicago, which has many 50kW AM radio stations, but I don't know just exactly how strong any of those stations would be in that section of Indiana. The crystal radio might work in the immediate Chicago area, but again, not knowing the geography of the northern Indiana area other than it is within a short distance of Chicago (I live in northeastern Ohio and have never been to Indiana in my life), I don't know how strong those stations would be where the OP is located.

BTW, I agree with Ed in TX about the diode used in crystal sets to rectify the received signal. If this diode is in fact defective (or installed backwards), of course the radio will not operate at all.