YOUR OWN WIRELESS RECEIVING STATION
MOST boys are interested in wireless telegraphy, and it is possible for any one of them to make a simple apparatus by which they can “cut in” and receive any wireless message that happens to be passing through their particular zone.
The receiving set will require a number of different parts, but they are easily made—when one knows how.
For actual hearing you will need a telephone receiver of some sort. One may be bought for about seventy-five cents at an electrical supply house, or an old one, provided it is in good condition, may be used.
Next comes a “detector.” This consists of a wooden base about six inches long by four wide and an inch thick, on which is mounted a piece of silicon about the size of an egg. An insulated wire passed once around the silicon and then through two holes in the base will hold the silicon in position in the center of the block. Put a brass screw an inch long at each end of the block and “connect up” the silicon in the following way: First take a piece of No. 22 single-covered copper wire, scrape off a few inches of the covering, and wind this bare copper wire several times around a small round stick to form a spring. The bare end of the spring must be filed to a point and rest against one end of the silicon, while the other end of the wire is wound around one of the brass screws. Next, take a piece of ordinary insulated telephone wire, bare one end far enough to wind firmly around the free end of the piece of silicon, and then wind the other end of this wire around the second brass screw. This makes a metallic circuit through the silicon which will “make” or “break” with the touching or removing of the spring.
Detector.
