Crystal set cat's whisker

[NavySEAL]

Another over 60 radio buddy and I have been discussing crystal sets and remembering our first one when we were kids etc........here is where the trolley leaves the rails..........he swears that a living cat's whisker can be used for the crystal sets whisker which is usually fine springy wire.......I told him that I didn't think a living cats whisker would conduct and he said that his father who was a double E told him that there was a nerve that ran down the center of the whisker that would conduct and that the two of them made a crystal set using a whisker from the neighbors cat........it was touchy to run but did work.........I find that hard to believe.......anyone else ever heard about using a living cats whisker on a crystal set?
Thanks
NS

[cockpitbob]

Mmmm, I'm not buying it.  Even if it is conductive, it has to have the right atomic structure to form a P-N junction rectifier with the galena crystal it gets pressed against.

The one crystal set story that is kind of cool and true is the Gillette Blue Blade sets.  During WWII times Gillette gave their blades a gun blue finish.  For some reason using a pencil lead pressed against the blued razor blade made a workable diode.  Someone is even selling kits on amazon.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gillette-Blue-Blade-Crystal-Radio-Detector-Kit-/250495237073

The legend is that POWs and spies behind enemy lines would use them to make a "foxhole radio" so they could get some news.

[NavySEAL]

I am not buying it either......I got my first crystal set in 1954 and have been playing with them off and on since......a google of crystal set will bring up some very beautiful current builds.......lots of brass etc......now back to the cat's whisker......any fine wire will do but some do better.......the crystal turns the ac sig to dc so all the whisker does is find the right spot on the crystal.........the whisker is springy so the pressure  it not so great or it will pass ac which we cant hear on an earphone.......all that is what I have been told over the years.........now comes this story of a real cat's whisker from someone  that I have known a long time and doesn't engage in BS or Paul Bunyon stories etc.........I tried 3 different real cat's whiskers and none would conduct.

[NavySEAL]

It has been said that the reason "foxhole radios" came into being was that the Germans developed a way of detecting our receivers oscillators not the transmitters but the receivers.........didn't know that was possible.......so no radios with oscillator circuits were allowed......thus the foxhole radio

[cockpitbob]

NavySeal, I've never heard that, but it makes perfect sense.  A little of the VFO does leak out the antenna.  That's how cops catch people with radar detectors in states that don't allow them.  I've also heard that high end radar detectors listen for the cop's detector and shut off the radar detector. 

Now, try to keep up.  The cop's have a radar detector detector.  But, the high end radar detectors have a radar detector detector detector.  Got it?

[Quietguy]

That's how the TV Tax cops in Great Britain catch people who watch TV without paying the "Telly Tax" that funds the BBC.  Radios and TVs are tuned by mixing a variable frequency local oscillator signal with the incoming RF, and the weak local oscillator signal is radiated out the antenna.  You can tell which radio or TV station is being received by the frequency of the local oscillator.

For a little boost in your paranoia level... a couple of years ago I read an article about an advertising agency setting up a monitoring station adjacent to a busy freeway leading into a major city.  They detected and recorded which radio stations car radios were tuned to as they drove past; the information was used to sell marketing campaigns to radio stations.  They insisted they had no way to associate any given record with a specific vehicle so there were no privacy concerns.  And that is probably reasonable during rush hour when all lanes are bumper-to-bumper with traffic since they are looking in from the side using detectors on adjacent private property.

However... a government agency could put detectors above each individual lane looking down from an over-crossing and merge the records with video and license plate readers to build a profile of traffic.  They would know you are secretly listening to Glenn Beck and the Bernie bumper sticker on your car is just camouflage.  Or that dark green helicopter that is hovering over your neighborhood...

Wally

[cockpitbob]

Yup. I remember in the 1980s when HBO was broadcast over the air with minimal scrambling (at least where I lived in the Silicon Valley area).  There was a kit you could by to receive it without having to buy their hardware and subscribe.  HBO had vans drove around looking for that local oscillator frequency and would fine that address, not an individual.

[NavySEAL]

Always wondered way back when a TV survey truck with an antenna would drive through the neighborhood and we were told it recorded (probably reel to reel :)) the channel each house was  watching and at the time I wondered how can you know what a receiver is receiving........well now I know.

[Sparks]

Another over 60 radio buddy and I have been discussing crystal sets and remembering our first one when we were kids etc........here is where the trolley leaves the rails..........he swears that a living cat's whisker can be used for the crystal sets whisker which is usually fine springy wire.......I told him that I didn't think a living cats whisker would conduct and he said that his father who was a double E told him that there was a nerve that ran down the center of the whisker that would conduct and that the two of them made a crystal set using a whisker from the neighbors cat........it was touchy to run but did work.........I find that hard to believe.......anyone else ever heard about using a living cats whisker on a crystal set?

I tried to do a little research. Seems that it was just a way of speaking about crystal receivers (and one of its components):

What is a Crystal Radio
• Crystal Radio Receiver
–
AKA "Crystal Set", "Cat's Whisker Receiver", "Foxhole Radio"
...
Cat's Whisker Detector

Step back in time with a galena detector kit and experience the soft detection that comes from minerals.

Delight in the first broadcast reception using the galena as a replacement for those 1N34 diodes

Wood base, mounted galena, phosphor-bronze cat whisker, 3- inch brass rod, compression spring, and brass parts.

So the cat whisker could made of "phosphor-bronze". A few links to corroborate that it was not an animal product:

The cat's whisker wire was generally of steel to allow more force to be applied to the carborundum.

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/cats-whisker-crystal-crystal-set-275317672

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s-whisker_detector

[Sparks]

It has been said that the reason "foxhole radios" came into being was that the Germans developed a way of detecting our receivers oscillators not the transmitters but the receivers.........didn't know that was possible.......so no radios with oscillator circuits were allowed......thus the foxhole radio

Wikipedia has this explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio

There are links to these articles, one of them I referred to in my foregoing post:

   
• Crystal radio
• Cat's-whisker detector

Here is a DIY: https://survive-prepare.com/2012/12/28/survival-radios-diy-radio-1-the-foxhole-radio/

[RadioRay]

I built cat's whisker detectors for my crystal radios  when I was a boy. 


The 'cat's wisker' is the tiny wire on the end of the adjustable arm.  The whisker is gently pecked around the galena (or iron pyrites ) crystal until a sweet spot if found so that it's a simple rectifier / diode.  Then you're in business, until oxidation or near-by lightning strike or your idiot sister destroys the crystal detector - repeat as necessary.

73 de RadioRay  ..._  ._

Ps.  The 'local oscillator' in tube sets of the WW II era were notoriously easy to locate.  Tube radios had LOUD local oscillators, not like the pico-Watts in our modern sets.  You are correct: German DF was very good and was routinely dropping artillery on the locations of local oscillators tuned to likely American frequencies.  Me - nasty fellow that I am - woul likely make a run behind the lines and set a radio to Armed Forces Europe at Nazi HQ and then exit the area and watch then shell their own positions.  But, Germans being Germans, they are likely to look at the map before pulling the cord. If they were DRAFTED, they might just fire anyway...

Pps.  Dog-Whisker radios we not nearly as effective.

(nor appreciated by the dogs. )