crystal radio: the first real free energy device

[Brian516]

This youtube video suggests attaching a wire to the secondary of the tesla coil to use it as an extended antenna to be able to pick up charged ions from the air - this concept was suggested by Tesla himself in his radiant energy patent.
Regards

Well, who here is going to give this an honest attempt?   If I had anything more than a 10" mini Tesla coil built, I would do it.   I do intend to build a bigger Tesla coil in the near future, using actual proportional measurements and all that, but does anyone paying attention to this thread have a setup that the connections can be modified on to run some quick tests on that idea?

[Brian516]

HMMM....

I am getting WAYYYYYYYY better signal, tuning range, and volume using a galena crystal and copper phosphorus catwhisker than I am with either 1n34A and 1n60 diodes.  I can hardly hear it with the 160W amplifier on max when I use the diodes, and with the galena I have it quite loud with the volume midway up.

here's something else that's weird.... I had to put several layers of heat shrink tubing over the detector pieces that I need to touch to adjust, because if I touch it with bare hands, with rubber gloves on, with a rag, etc it makes the amp POP and shut off.  fortunately it has a safety feature so that I don't blow it or the speakers up...

but it's 3AM now, and as much as I want to keep messing with this, I need to go to sleep or I won't do anything tomorrow! haha.  Well, let me know what you guys think of all this. I can make a vid if need be. 
Oh, and for my antenna coupling, I ended up having to put the cap between the antenna and the aerial input to the radio. doesn't really make any difference otherwise.

[Brian516]

Just want to add an update on my setup:
I received my two 365pf variable caps, cat whisker, and 2000ohm earphone from midnightscience.com today.
Unfortunately, using the TK style Australia variometer there is very little tuning range.  Also, there is 2.5kw(daytime, 44watt nightime)  transmitter just over a mile away from me. That is the only station I am able to pick up right now.
I have a long, springy piece of blue steel that is the scrap from a lathe that I strung up across my ceiling as an alternative antenna.  I figured it would be similar to the TK's slinky.  It pales in comparison to the phone wire I have on the roof, but that may also be because I live in a stone house, and the stone may be deadening any radio waves that would normally penetrate standard wood walls.
I also received some more 1n34A diodes from a different source, and they perform the same as the other ones I tried yesterday.  The galena crystal and whisker still beat the diodes (both 1n34 and 1n60) by at least 3x.   Thus far, it seems that the sharper the point of the whisker is, the easier it is to get good contact, and the cleaner the sound is.  The copper phosphorus is also outperforming the phosphor bronze thus far.
I'm going to do some testing with the scope shortly and compare the various options I now have.

[gyulasun]

....
here's something else that's weird.... I had to put several layers of heat shrink tubing over the detector pieces that I need to touch to adjust, because if I touch it with bare hands, with rubber gloves on, with a rag, etc it makes the amp POP and shut off.  fortunately it has a safety feature so that I don't blow it or the speakers up...
...

Hi Brian,

If you switch your scope input to a sensitive amplitude range, and you touch its direct hot input (no probe) with a small piece of bare wire you hold in your fingers, what can you see displayed? Of course this depends on the time base selection too, I mean the 1 or 5 millisecond per DIV, and I assume you will see a sine wave on the normal mains frequency 50 or 60 Hz you have. The amplitude of this signal will change as you touch anything nearby like the metal body of the scope with your other hand. If this is so, then this signal (your body picks up from the EM field of the house mains wireing) makes your audio amp pop and shut off, I think. It is also possible that your hand or body picks up some other unwanted local signals from your enviroment which is already able to drive the audio amplifier.

IF you happen to have some Germanium transistors in your junk box (or in very old, at least 40-50 year old) discarded AM pocket radios, then you could test the base emitter diode of them as a diode, how they perform.
Also, you could test paralleling 2 or more 1N34A diodes (anodes to a common anode and cathodes to a common cathode) and hear how they perform.  You may try this parallel operation with the galena crystal and whisker too if you have more.
Maybe your variometer has too small inductance for the frequency your local AM station operates on.  At least each coil ought to have inductances above 100 uH at least or higher.

I found this link a very good experimental help on crystal radios, it is worth reading: http://www.bentongue.com/xtalset/xtalset.html    you can read on diode types and on the effect of giving some DC biasing to them and on several other topic important for reception.   

Addition:  this file includes good experimental findings on crystal receivers, their diodes tests etc: http://www.qrparci.org/wa0itp/chap4.pdf

Gyula

[Magluvin]

Hey Brian

If you dont mind me asking. Can you measure the resistance of your coils? Also, if you have a meter, measure the output?  The meter might lower the output being the meter a high impedance load.  Just curious.

Wonder if we made a huge coil. !6awg wire, etc.  Could there be more output?

Mags