I was at the Manassas, Virginia hamfest on Sunday. An old timer had a box of crystals for sale. It was obviously the kind of "box of rocks" that many of us have in the shack. There was a very wide variety of crystal packages in there, perhaps the widest range of possible styles. In among the modern computer crystals and WW II FT243s, I found one from the earliest days of broadcast radio. The Philmore Fixed Crystal Detector is really just a chunk of galena with a phosphor bronze cat whisker held in place by a spring. Philmore apparently went ahead and found a "sweet spot" for you.
N2HTT was working with on of these last year: https://n2htt.net/2016/01/17/a-complete-digression/
Of course, I liked the New York City connection.
I will see if this old thing still inhales.
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Wow what find! In the late 1940's the supplier of choice for these type of detector's was Leslie Hulett of Lakehurst NJ. The Philmore was a giant leap over the catwhisker and chunk of Galena. What fun.
ReplyDelete73's Pete N6QW