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Radio Reactions

December 2023
1min read


It is my recollection that we used a chunk of galena as a rectifier in building the early radio sets. One contact was through the mounting clamp, the other through a very delicately adjusted “cat’s whisker,” a stiff wire spring. I believe the germanium rectifier was a later development and may have eliminated the cat’s whisker contact, which was always quite frustrating, the signal being very intermittent.

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