[Boatanchors] Re Galena Vs Germanium

[Chuck McGregor]

>Does anyone know when the crystals used in early sets, Galena I think, were
>changed over to Germanium? I know that Germanium was used in a diode, later
>Silicon, but was Germanium used as a crystal with cat whisker prior to 
>that?
>
>I am quite sure what I used in the early sixties was a piece of Germanium 
>with a
>cat whisker, even though the diode may have been available then.

If you had a chunk of the material big enough to manually position the 
catswhisker, it was almost surely Galena.  A piece of refined germanium 
that big would have been expensive in the '50s.   The well known 1N34 diode 
used a tiny cats whisker with a tiny piece of germanium, factory aligned 
and sealed.

Galena is still readily available, by the chunk, at a low price, in 
lapidary shops (they cater to people who collect rocks, rather than 
boatanchors).

--Chuck  N7RHU 


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