15 Jun
2006
15 Jun
'06
10:34 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
> Have you (or anyone else) come across the 'Improverished Radio
> Experimenter' books? THey're fairly modern (in the last 5 years or so),
[...]
I seen a few mail order places selling them but I want
to get
"The Voice of the Crystal" -- build everything from scratch.
"Instruments of Amplification" -- build tubes/valves and transistors
from scratch.
I haev both, and love them.
'The voice of the Crystal' covers maing a crystal set using no commercial
electronic components (other than wire :-)). To be honset, this is the
less interesting of the 2 books, much of what's in it is in other books
too (although making a crystal earphone using the piezo-electric crystal
from a cigarette lighter is certainly novel.
'Instruments of Amplification' covers maing triode valves and copper
oxide transistors. Be warned this is not at all easy to do, and the
devices you make are pretty poor (lifetime of a few hours at most, gain
just over 1 if you're lucky!). Don't think you'll make a classic computer
using said devices. That said, it's amazing it's possible at all, and the
book is _well_ worth reading, if only to remind yourself than homebrewing
has not totlaly died out!
(You may have gathereed that I spend far too much on books!)
-tony