Crystal radio
A crystal radio receiver, also called a crystal set, is a simple radio receiver, popular in the early days of radio. It uses only the power of the received radio wave to produce sound, needing no external power supply. It is named for its most important component, a crystal detector, originally made from a piece of crystalline mineral such as galena. This component is now called a diode.
Crystal radios are the simplest type of radio receiver and can be made with a few inexpensive parts, such as a wire for an antenna, a coil of wire, a capacitor, a crystal detector, and earphones. However they are passive receivers, while other radios use an amplifier powered by current from a battery or wall outlet to make the radio signal louder. Thus, crystal sets produce rather weak sound and must be listened to with sensitive earphones, and can receive stations only within a limited range of the transmitter.
The rectifying property of a contact between a mineral and a metal was discovered in 1874 by Karl Ferdinand Braun. Crystals were first used as a detector of radio waves in 1894 by Jagadish Chandra Bose, in his microwave optics experiments. They were first used as a demodulator for radio communication reception in 1902 by G. W. Pickard. Crystal radios were the first widely used type of radio receiver, and the main type used during the wireless telegraphy era. Sold and homemade by the millions, the inexpensive and reliable crystal radio was a major driving force in the introduction of radio to the public, contributing to the development of radio as an entertainment medium with the beginning of radio broadcasting around 1920.
Around 1920, crystal sets were superseded by the first amplifying receivers, which used vacuum tubes. With this technological advance, crystal sets became obsolete for commercial use but continued to be built by hobbyists, youth groups, and the Boy Scouts mainly as a way of learning about the technology of radio. They are still sold as educational devices, and there are groups of enthusiasts devoted to their construction.
Crystal radios receive amplitude modulated signals, although FM designs have been built. They can be designed to receive almost any radio frequency band, but most receive the AM broadcast band. A few receive shortwave bands, but strong signals are required. The first crystal sets received wireless telegraphy signals broadcast by spark-gap transmitters at frequencies as low as 20 kHz.
Basic principles
A crystal radio can be thought of as a radio receiver reduced to its essentials. It consists of at least these components:- An antenna in which the radio wave induces electric currents.
- A resonant circuit which selects the frequency of the desired radio station from all the radio signals received by the antenna. The tuned circuit consists of a coil of wire and a capacitor connected together. The circuit has a resonant frequency, and allows radio waves at that frequency to pass through to the detector while largely blocking waves at other frequencies. One or both of the coil or capacitor is adjustable, allowing the circuit to be tuned to different frequencies to select the station to receive. In some circuits a capacitor is not used and the antenna serves this function, as an antenna that is shorter than a quarter-wavelength of the radio waves it is meant to receive is capacitive.
- A semiconductor crystal detector that demodulates the radio signal to extract the audio signal. The crystal detector functions as a square law detector, demodulating the radio frequency alternating current to its audio frequency modulation. The detector's audio frequency output is converted to sound by the earphone. Early sets used a "cat whisker detector" consisting of a small piece of crystalline mineral such as galena with a fine wire touching its surface. The crystal detector was the component that gave crystal radios their name. Modern sets use modern semiconductor diodes, although some hobbyists still experiment with crystal or other detectors.
- An earphone to convert the audio signal to sound waves so they can be heard. The low power produced by a crystal receiver is insufficient to power a loudspeaker, hence earphones are used.
As a crystal radio has no power supply, the sound power produced by the earphone comes solely from the transmitter of the radio station being received, via the radio waves captured by the antenna. The power available to a receiving antenna decreases with the square of its distance from the radio transmitter. Even for a powerful commercial broadcasting station, if it is more than a few miles from the receiver the power received by the antenna is very small, typically measured in microwatts or nanowatts. In modern crystal sets, signals as weak as 50 picowatts at the antenna can be heard. Crystal radios can receive such weak signals without using amplification only due to the great sensitivity of human hearing, which can detect sounds with an intensity of only 10−16 W/cm2. Therefore, crystal receivers have to be designed to convert the energy from the radio waves into sound waves as efficiently as possible. Even so, they are usually only able to receive stations within distances of about 25 miles for AM broadcast stations, although the radiotelegraphy signals used during the wireless telegraphy era could be received at hundreds of miles, and crystal receivers were even used for transoceanic communication during that period.
Design
Commercial passive receiver development was abandoned with the advent of reliable vacuum tubes around 1920, and subsequent crystal radio research was primarily done by radio amateurs and hobbyists. Many different circuits have been used. The following sections discuss the parts of a crystal radio in greater detail.Antenna
The antenna converts the energy in the electromagnetic radio waves to an alternating electric current in the antenna, which is connected to the tuning coil. Since, in a crystal radio, all the power comes from the antenna, it is important that the antenna collect as much power from the radio wave as possible. The larger an antenna, the more power it can intercept. Antennas of the type commonly used with crystal sets are most effective when their length is close to a multiple of a quarter-wavelength of the radio waves they are receiving. Since the length of the waves used with crystal radios is very long the antenna is made as long as possible, from a long wire, in contrast to the whip antennas or ferrite loopstick antennas used in modern radios.Serious crystal radio hobbyists use "inverted L" and "T" type antennas, consisting of hundreds of feet of wire suspended as high as possible between buildings or trees, with a feed wire attached in the center or at one end leading down to the receiver. However, more often, random lengths of wire dangling out windows are used. A popular practice in early days was to use existing large metal objects, such as bedsprings, fire escapes, and barbed wire fences as antennas.
Ground
The wire antennas used with crystal receivers are monopole antennas which develop their output voltage with respect to ground. The receiver thus requires a connection to ground as a return circuit for the current. The ground wire was attached to a radiator, water pipe, or a metal stake driven into the ground. In early days if an adequate ground connection could not be made a counterpoise was sometimes used. A good ground is more important for crystal sets than it is for powered receivers, as crystal sets are designed to have a low input impedance needed to transfer power efficiently from the antenna. A low resistance ground connection is necessary because any resistance in the ground reduces available power from the antenna. In contrast, modern receivers are voltage-driven devices, with high input impedance, hence little current flows in the antenna/ground circuit. Also, mains powered receivers are grounded adequately through their power cords, which are in turn attached to the earth through the building wiring.Tuned circuit
The tuned circuit, consisting of a coil and a capacitor connected together, acts as a resonator, similar to a tuning fork. Electric charge, induced in the antenna by the radio waves, flows rapidly back and forth between the plates of the capacitor through the coil. The circuit has a high impedance at the desired radio signal's frequency, but a low impedance at all other frequencies. Hence, signals at undesired frequencies pass through the tuned circuit to ground, while the desired frequency is instead passed on to the detector and stimulates the earpiece and is heard. The frequency of the station received is the resonant frequency f of the tuned circuit, determined by the capacitance C of the capacitor and the inductance L of the coil:The circuit can be adjusted to different frequencies by varying the inductance, the capacitance, or both, "tuning" the circuit to the frequencies of different radio stations. In the lowest-cost sets, the inductor was made variable via a spring contact pressing against the windings that could slide along the coil, thereby introducing a larger or smaller number of turns of the coil into the circuit, varying the inductance. Alternatively, a variable capacitor is used to tune the circuit. Some modern crystal sets use a ferrite core tuning coil, in which a ferrite magnetic core is moved into and out of the coil, thereby varying the inductance by changing the magnetic permeability.
The antenna is an integral part of the tuned circuit and its reactance contributes to determining the circuit's resonant frequency. Antennas usually act as a capacitance, as antennas shorter than a quarter-wavelength have capacitive reactance. Many early crystal sets did not have a tuning capacitor, and relied instead on the capacitance inherent in the wire antenna to form the tuned circuit with the coil.
The earliest crystal receivers did not have a tuned circuit at all, and just consisted of a crystal detector connected between the antenna and ground, with an earphone across it. Since this circuit lacked any frequency-selective elements besides the broad resonance of the antenna, it had little ability to reject unwanted stations, so all stations within a wide band of frequencies were heard in the earphone. It was used in the earliest days of radio, when only one or two stations were within a crystal set's limited range.