Monday 22 September 2008

A Radio I Wish I Still Had


I had a radio many years ago, grade 7 if I remember. It was a crystal radio in the shape of a Mercury Space Capsule. It was about two inches long with a tuning probe at the top and two wires coming out of the bottom - one a crystal earphone and the other had a clip on it to connect to a convenient antenna. During the hot summer nights in Tecumseh near Windsor I would listen to CBC Windsor and the great AM station WJR (760AM) on the other side of the river in Detroit. At night WJR was all talk radio and CBC would broadcast adventure stories. WJR began as WCX in 1922 and was located in the Fisher Building in downtown Detroit. It began its callsign with "WJR Detroit, from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building." Many nights were spent tuning that little radio trying to dig out some real distant DX. It needed no batteries or other power source. I wish I'd held on to that little radio.

Crystal Radios: Stay Tuned Crystal Sets

3 comments:

Daniel Wright said...

Wow, great post. I had one of these too! Well, my big brother did anyway. We used to clip it to the metal Venetian blind and it would sing. I was young back in 1962-or-so, but have fond memories of playing with that awesome battery-less radio!

michaelbarkdull@comcast.net said...

I had one in 60,it was powerful, wish I hadn't traded it probably for more marbles!

Unknown said...

I had one in Port Huron Michigan. Think I also picked up Detroit Station great memorys