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Crystal Radio Kit |  | Brand: Go Labs
Buy New: $13.95
as of 7/30/2010 02:23 CDT details
New (2) from $13.95
Seller: cs-sales : Educational, Science, Electronics, Toys, Test Equipment & Tools
Rating:  5 reviews
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 7.5 x 2.8
Model: edu-3010
EAN: 4893338030100
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Build your own working
crystal radio. Look for
and pick up radio
stations. Earphone and
antenna included. No
tools or batteries
required. Remember the
days of the first radio.
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| Customer Reviews:
 excellent design February 1, 2010
Ernst Humer (Pa)
I have started to built it with my 9 and 12 year old grandsons. They actually building it, I act just an advisor. Since I have electronic background, I gave them a little lesson, how sound and radio waves propagate.
Great kit, can really recommend it.
Great project March 8, 2010
B. Krause (California, USA)
Great project for the younger folks and even some of us older ones. Easy to assemble and use.
A ham operator's review November 3, 2007
Tim Brannon (Dallas, TX United States)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
I've been a ham radio operator for 23 years and have built many radio projects from scratch. I bought this kit to build with my almost-7 year-old because it was less expensive than obtaining the germanium diode and high-impedance earphones, the only parts I didn't have on hand to build a crystal set. It did work GREAT on the first try!
The advantage of this kit is that the big coil is already wound for you. Some kits use the little pre-wound ferrite bar coils but these lack the nostalgic visual appeal remniscent of the "oatmeal box" coil. Winding these coils by hand can be a tedious process.
The disadvantage is that all the wires are connected using 4 "paper binder" stud clips with 2 washers slipped over them. You put the wire ends between the washers and then push this clip through a hole in the chassis and spread the tips underneath to hold it place. It requires considerable manual dexterity to do this, beyond most 8 year-olds. I would have preferred small screws with wingnuts. The instructions are less than perfectly clear.
 quiet crystal radio kit! July 5, 2009
Matthew Dudley (Vernon Hills, IL)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've assembled, disassembled, and reassembled the crystal radio kit from Go Labs. Sadly, I've not heard a sound from the radio!
I second the comment already made that the instructions are not well written. There is an instruction to remove the insulation off of a wire that is already bare, and another to insert a wire into two different slots in the base of the radio. There is no troubleshooting section.
Disillusioned December 26, 2009
Chris (Michigan)
I have a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, and one of the greatest gifts that led me in that direction was my Crystal Radio set that I received one Christmas back in the late 1970s. Now it was my turn to pass the same thing down to my son for Christmas.
I chose to pay a little more and get the set with the pre-wound coil (the hardest part of building one of these kits). Any one of these kits would be relatively easy to build. There are only 4 main components, the coil, the diode, an ear piece and a variable capacitor. What could go wrong?
The mechanical connections are important. In electronics, the electrons never fail, it's always the mechanical joints. The connections in this kit are just twist-together, but after the first failure, I grabbed a soldering iron and made sure the connections were good.
This kit does not work. Perhaps the diode is bad? Don't know. After trying to get it to work (twice), my son's attention was already starting to fade and we made no progress. So much for passing along the spark. I won't buy one of these for any of my 3 daughters, that's for sure.
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