[Boatanchors] Fox Hole Radio

[William L Howard]

Subject: Re: [Boatanchors] Re Fox Hole Radio
Duane Fischer, W8DBF wrote:

> I have heard the stories of WW2 soldiers making a radio from a razor
blade, some  wire, a lead pencil and a safety pin. My question:
precisely how? Perhaps one of you who made one can enlighten the rest of
us? Thanks.


> You needed more than that. You needed some wire and a form to make a
coil, and an earphone. It was a standard crystal set circuit, perhaps
with a tuning cap and perhaps it used stray capacitance. I assume
tuning, if any, was very crude. The
> detector was the razor blade and pencil lead. The blue oxide layer is
non-linear and is a crude point contact diode sort of thing. The safety
pin was used as a spring to hold the pencil lead against the blade, as I
remember.
> -John

AES sells a kit to make this radio set and I built it some years back.
It is very crude. I asked the WW II discussion lists if any of the
veterans remember such a set and the answer was none had ever seen one.