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The Space Needle
Radio and Art Combined
This set is the first attempt at building what I call 'DESIGNER' radios.
I simply pirate good schematics put together by masters like
Dave and try to assemble the components in a unique and hopefully
attractive presentations.
My very first fascination has been with the magic of crystal sets. I
recall trying to build one as a very young boy but enjoyed little success.
Twenty years ago I saw a galena diode at Radio Shack and bought it out of
curiosity and later that night, with the help of Adolf Coors, I strung
a copper wire out the side door of the garage, wrapped the end of it to a
picket on the fence and came back inside. I attached one lead off my
little earphone to my gas pipe and was considering where to put the diode
when the other lead came into contact with the antenna. Holy Smolie! I
got a signal and a loud one at that! And without the diode! Blew my
little fuzzed mind completely. I later discovered that I lived a short distance
from a cluster of radio and televisin towers concentrated on my side of Tulsa, Ok.
My responsibilities of a demanding career and a young and starving family
stunted my pursuits at the time but that sense of discovery never faded.
And now that I'm retired I find myself submersed in this radio thing that I
have such a flimsy comprehension of. That limitation of technical
knowledge confines me to my 'artistic' renditions of the real engineering
work of others.
Around 1955 I recall laying around in front of my Uncle's big shortwave
receiver and being captivated by those strange transmissions coming in
from unknown places around the world and this memory dominated my first
attempt at building a 'Designer' set. I searched around for a shortwave
schematic and found what I wanted with
Dave's Single Tube Shortwave set. I'd seen some pictures of
what I thought were very old shortwave receivers that had coils made out
of 1/4" copper tubing. I know now they were probably transmitters but I
was smitten with those big old coils.
I bought an inductance/ohm/frequency-counting/resistance/microwaveoven/flight-simulating
meter and went off in search of 50' of 3/16" copper
tubing. A few bucks later I managed to waste the entire length trying to
fashion it into a coil. Then came careful study and contemplation before
another expenditure was considered. This time it worked even better than
I'd imagined. Plus the inductance of this main coil was exactly what the
inductance calculator said it should be. The primary was quickly wound
and a mounting frame was constructed of Padouck wood. This is a
fascinating specie being so hard you can machine it and it's natural
crimson color unlike any other I've seen.
I had lots of brass tubing left over from other projects so it was quickly
decided to mount the tube on brass stilts and arrange the components
encompassing it on their own little stilts. Then came the wiring. And
then came the wiring! Did I mention the wiring?
After days of frustrating solderings, un-solderings, cursings,
re-solderings
and attempted suicides it dawned on me that what I had in front of me was
a mirror image of what the schematic was trying to seduce me with. So
with this patch of wisdom I began re-soldering, un-soldering, cursing and,
when the air around it was cobalt blue from the verbal abuse I'd been
screaming, the set suddenly started to work! Halleluiah Brother!
The hand capacitance is an issue like Dave speculated that it would be but
not as troublesome as one might think with all those long leads. The
control knobs are so far away from the circuits that very little problem
is noted. The ugly knobs I got off Ebay were, however, were a persisting problem
until Dave recommended that I try and making my own wood knobs for it.
And that, my friends, led to a whole new endeavor for me.
I'd love to sell everything I build because I like the money more that I
like the sets. This one, however, would understandably be very difficult
to pack with any hope of safe deliver so it would have to be a pick-up
thing only. But living in the heavily populated hub of humanity of
Crescent, Oklahoma should be short trip for most folks.
Besides, a mere (see pricelist)
for this work of art should lure customers from
around the globe. This radio has been sold! Sorry, better luck next
time. Please come back for new radios for sale.
My thanks to Dave Schmarder for his guidance, encouragement and
confidence.
Order: #T-016
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