Crystal Sets? Yup, you’ve found an entire site about building Crystal Sets. The Society has been growing since 1991; still, some people are flabbergasted to find an entire society dedicated to Crystal Set radios or "Xtal Sets". One web surfer e-mailed, "I was so excited to find your site that I fell off my chair! "The Xtal Set Society publishes a newsletter and numerous books, all of which you can find more information about on this site. A listing of newsletter articles from 1993 through 2007 can be found on the Technical Articles Page. Click on the earphones to browse and enjoy our site. --Patricia, The Crystal Queen Mum, Editor, Xtal Society News. Site last updated 06-28-09.
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Welcome beginners! You'll find links to FAQs, science fair suggestions, and introductory articles on the left. Our Oat Box Radio Kit is a favorite, a great place to start. Click on the link above to download the plans, updated 05/01/08. Order via the Kits page. Also for beginners and mentors, J.K. Fenton has written "Building Your First Crystal Radio," 5-1/2 by 8-1/2, 15 pages. See the book or kit pages to order.
We saw some of you at Dayton Hamvention May 15-17. The Society booth was # 309 in the wood floor arena. Some UK society members showed up; t'was fun. We displayed the new MY Marconi set along with parts and books. We attended Ozarkcon-09 May 1-2 in Branson MO. Phil presented a paper on ultrasonics and the Ultra RX1 receiver which was well received. The July 09 Newsletter was mailed 6-26-09 and includes these articles: "A Crystal Set for Your Antenna Tuner," by Dan Petersen, W7OIL, "A Coils "Q" Curiosity," by JK Fenton, Membership Correspondence, and "The Ultra-Mite 40 kHz Ultrasound Transceiver Kit," by Phil Anderson, WØXI. The Ultra-Mite has been renamed the Ultra-TR40.
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Our new MY MARCONI receiver kit is ready to go; see the kits page. It was noted in Nuts & Volts Magazine. It' a double-tuned crystal set, including an antenna tuner and toroidal coils. Cabinet kit is available too.
Our Ultrasonic Receiver Kit, the Ultra-RX1 was reviewed in April Monitoring Times and featured in 'Short Takes" in QST in July. With the RX1, you can listen to insects, rodents, bats - in the 35 to 45 kHz ultrasound band. Signals emitted across species vary from single tones to chatter with a rich mix of harmonics and pulses. Our Ultrasound TR40 Transceiver Kit has just been released for kitting. See the Ultrasonic pages listed on the left.
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See our 365 variable cap with 8:1 built-in reduction drive and the stand-alone 6:1 reduction drive on the parts page. Reduction drives gear down the rate the capacitor plates move relative to knob motion. A mounting bracket is available for the reduction drive, matching it up with our single or dual-gang capacitors.
