Oh, I've gave up even thinking about all that these days. It's all so stupid and needlessly over complicated. I just says nowadays...gimme the bloody broadband and shut yer gobs. Oh then they say...do you want this or that..I just say shut yer big gobs. I think though...you could have hadde the broadband without line rental, so no phone number etc, Just the broadband only..but the flipping price was more! I gave up..shut yer big gobs I say now.
It looks like we're the last generation that will have made mix tapes, recorded stuff off the radio or copied albums and singles to cassettes for pals. I still have loads of concerts that were recorded off the Radio One, many of which are lying unreleased in the vaults.
Does anyone here still have and use Audio Cassettes? I have a Sony tape deck to listen to my old stuff and one of my kids has a Walkman for audio books from the library.
I was thinking about making my kids some mix tapes of what they call Daddy Music (70s 80s and 90s music). I think they might appreciate it when they get older. That said I still have min-idisc too, as well as a hifi and portable mini-disc unit, so I could make up the kids a mix mini-disc to be really 90s.
I still have most of my music cassettes. I was listening to a Jimi Hendrix Blues cassette as i don't have it on CD. I still have a hi-fi with twin cassette desks. I don't use them much but have started to dig out some tapes and play them. I look after my tapes and they all still play perfectly.
I never could come to terms with digital and prefer analog to this day. I have several good cassette machines including a Sony one for computer tapes which works really well. Of all the brands the ones that I found best were Sanyo even though most people seem to ignore them I find they are the best for amplification and general sound quality. The worst are Norelco/Phillips which is odd as they invented the format.
Here's something none of you will remember - crystal sets!
When I was about ten I built myself a proper crystal set that used a cats whisker and a galena crystal for tuning plus three separate aerials. A long one about 60ft a diagonal one about twenty feet and a short vertical one about six feet. Each was selected by a rotary switch so as to get the widest possible range of radio frequencies.
The crystal was about the size of a large marble, gold in colour and quite rugged textured. You could use threaded rods to rotate and tilt the crystal and the cats whisker was a very fine wire shaped like half a spring coil so as to maintain contact with the crystal surface as you carefully turned it to find the right spots for various stations many of them foreign and quite faint but some were strong like BBC and Voice of America.
Sound was heard via a GPO headphone set, the kind with carbon granules under a metal disc which gave very good results. My dad gave me this crystal set in component form, it came in a big red box from Gamages (a London store) and came with everything required, even the aerial wires and porcelain insulators but you had to provide the grounding rod, the longer the better, we used a six foot rod driven into the earth by the gutter downpipe where the earth was always damp.
I used that set for at least five years as a bedtime sleep aid after having had some fun tracking down new signals which were marked on a card disc with a pointer attached to a tuning capacitor, the metal kind with air gap insulation between the plates - they were the best by far.
Some school friends tried the cheap plastic ones that were advertised in various magazines but they were nowhere near as good as mine.
Interesting I’ve never actually seen anything like that to be honest. When I think of old radio sets, the stereotypical wooden box shaped like an archway with the 2 or 3 knobs and the mesh on the front come to mind.
Although a quick search through images doesn’t seem to have any fully assembled, there are images of some of the components you mentioned.
I assume if you can buy the bits, then there’s still some people out there who have these radios.
During the last war some resistance people built crystal sets from the simplest bits and pieces like using a razor blade for the crystal! The reason being that the Nazis (and our GPO) can detect a radio receiver by some kind of resonance it gives off by virtue of its means of operation. A spectrum analyser can detect the drop in the signal strength as the radio is pulling in the signal.
If you research crystal sets - I know theres at least one website dedicated to them - you are bound to find a few simple sets that can be made from common stuff Boozy.
If you have the spare time and the curiousity its a project well worth doing and you'll learn some interesting stuff in the process.
That takes me back a bit Mike, par for the course in most science lessons back then.
Can still be had though apparently but I believe the galena has been replaced by a signal diode as lead sulphide is a bit of a no-no these days due to health and safety..
I remember crystal sets still being a big thing when I was a young kid and my dad telling me one day how I'd get one. I guess I never did because as the 80s progressed, such technology became old fashioned. Instead, I got a Tandy Electronics Kit which used transistors and coils.
I remember crystal sets still being a big thing when I was a young kid and my dad telling me one day how I'd get one. I guess I never did because as the 80s progressed, such technology became old fashioned. Instead, I got a Tandy Electronics Kit which used transistors and coils.
That looks a cracking piece of kit, something I'd have been proud to have as a nipper.
Never seen or heard of a crystal set, i was born when transistor sets were all the rage (mid 70's).
I do remember in the early 90's we were on holiday in the Highlands in a rented cottage that had an ancient set like the one Boozy mentioned that was arch shaped and had a few knobs on the front. It still kind of worked but all we could pick up was Radio 4 either due to a fault or due to the surrounding mountains.
Never seen or heard of a crystal set, i was born when transistor sets were all the rage (mid 70's).
I do remember in the early 90's we were on holiday in the Highlands in a rented cottage that had an ancient set like the one Boozy mentioned that was arch shaped and had a few knobs on the front. It still kind of worked but all we could pick up was Radio 4 either due to a fault or due to the surrounding mountains.
Valves then transistors were in use in my youth too. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of crystal sets as they were a 1920's thing and by the 30's-40's onwards were only a novelty or school science project and never used domestically since then.
A good design of crystal set, properly constructed and with the right aerials and a good ground can be surprisingly practical and of course costs nothing to run. However microwaves have pretty much spelled its doom altho I believe some experimenters have succeeded in adapting sets to convert the frequencies, not too sure about that info though as its way outside my knowledge base. At the moment though there are still good signals available and its a fun thing to experiment with if thats your thing. Anyone that loves the Speccy ought to be attracted to investigating crystal sets too! Just for fun.
Not so much microwaves as digital radio, Mike. I think there are probably about three stations left broadcasting nationally on analogue AM in the UK and I'm not sure if crystal sets would work with FM but will stand being educated re that.
A good design of crystal set, properly constructed and with the right aerials and a good ground can be surprisingly practical and of course costs nothing to run. However microwaves have pretty much spelled its doom altho I believe some experimenters have succeeded in adapting sets to convert the frequencies, not too sure about that info though as its way outside my knowledge base. At the moment though there are still good signals available and its a fun thing to experiment with if thats your thing. Anyone that loves the Speccy ought to be attracted to investigating crystal sets too! Just for fun.
.
A crystal set is/was a first step for many into the world of amateur radio. You might be licensed operator Mike, or have you ever considered dipping you toe into working the band's?
My radio alarm clock is analogue and is tuned into Radio 5 Live but the AM band still had quite a few stations on it, mostly local/regional ones as the license for AM broadcasting in cheaper than FM.
I do wonder how long before the AM and even FM bands start to shut down and everything is moved to DAB. Someone estimated it'll be within 10 years.
FM was meant to go years ago, but everyone complained about the quality of DAB, so it got delayed.
Anderson shpspqsk to Warner, pshqsphshshbqk (silence... for 30 seconds) shshpqaaaak (silence... for a minute) shpk (more silence...) Austshpkqk 32 for 1 sqrkskpsk pshkqskrrqhskhp (and so on, and so on, and so on...)
I have two DAB radios and they're little more than paperweights. Weirdly, this wasn't the case until about two months after I moved out to the sticks. The power on the signal must have been turned down. So, if I want cricket commentary around the house, I have to rig the PC to a short-range FM transmitter and listen to it that way.
The future will be digital, they said. It will be better, they said.
A crystal set is/was a first step for many into the world of amateur radio. You might be licensed operator Mike, or have you ever considered dipping you toe into working the band's?
[/quote]
I had once thought of it but the business of getting a licence put me off and anyway I had all my hobby money tied up in my trains and computer stuff.
What does a full time HAM do? I always thought it was just hobby and just like the CB craze was just people being sociable around the world, sharing tips and being geeky.
I always thought the BBC micro (whatever its abilities) was the home computer for those who completely missed the point. Of course the Beeb was never really committed to the concept of a community of computer geeks whereas, for example, the attraction of being a radio HAM is exactly that.
In fact in the ZX81 days here in America I learnt to attend radio ham meets to obtain the software, peripherals and advice I needed about getting the most out of the machine and they had written some cool DXing (I think its called) programs that ran on the little ZX81 and kept a record of the stations they'd found and what to look for out in the ether and so on.
Before the WWW there was a strong community of Bulletin Boards swapping software and stories, text adventuring or D&D gaming was also very popular and we attended meets often in costume, right up there with the Trekkies for nerdiness. I was quite proud of my Viking get up and home made broadsword which often got noticed by policemen whilst trolling the local mall advertising our network!
Enthusiasm and fun was what made the Speccy group stand out from the rest and still does.
Comments
I was thinking about making my kids some mix tapes of what they call Daddy Music (70s 80s and 90s music). I think they might appreciate it when they get older. That said I still have min-idisc too, as well as a hifi and portable mini-disc unit, so I could make up the kids a mix mini-disc to be really 90s.
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
When I was about ten I built myself a proper crystal set that used a cats whisker and a galena crystal for tuning plus three separate aerials. A long one about 60ft a diagonal one about twenty feet and a short vertical one about six feet. Each was selected by a rotary switch so as to get the widest possible range of radio frequencies.
The crystal was about the size of a large marble, gold in colour and quite rugged textured. You could use threaded rods to rotate and tilt the crystal and the cats whisker was a very fine wire shaped like half a spring coil so as to maintain contact with the crystal surface as you carefully turned it to find the right spots for various stations many of them foreign and quite faint but some were strong like BBC and Voice of America.
Sound was heard via a GPO headphone set, the kind with carbon granules under a metal disc which gave very good results. My dad gave me this crystal set in component form, it came in a big red box from Gamages (a London store) and came with everything required, even the aerial wires and porcelain insulators but you had to provide the grounding rod, the longer the better, we used a six foot rod driven into the earth by the gutter downpipe where the earth was always damp.
I used that set for at least five years as a bedtime sleep aid after having had some fun tracking down new signals which were marked on a card disc with a pointer attached to a tuning capacitor, the metal kind with air gap insulation between the plates - they were the best by far.
Some school friends tried the cheap plastic ones that were advertised in various magazines but they were nowhere near as good as mine.
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
Although a quick search through images doesn’t seem to have any fully assembled, there are images of some of the components you mentioned.
I assume if you can buy the bits, then there’s still some people out there who have these radios.
If you research crystal sets - I know theres at least one website dedicated to them - you are bound to find a few simple sets that can be made from common stuff Boozy.
If you have the spare time and the curiousity its a project well worth doing and you'll learn some interesting stuff in the process.
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
Can still be had though apparently but I believe the galena has been replaced by a signal diode as lead sulphide is a bit of a no-no these days due to health and safety..
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/881740008/portable-crystal-set-radio-kit-of?click_key=e0639b54d27100429e81e72af72996f8405484fb:881740008&click_sum=b3de51c0&rec_type=cs&ref=pla_similar_listing_top-4
A few pictures to give an idea.
That looks a cracking piece of kit, something I'd have been proud to have as a nipper.
I do remember in the early 90's we were on holiday in the Highlands in a rented cottage that had an ancient set like the one Boozy mentioned that was arch shaped and had a few knobs on the front. It still kind of worked but all we could pick up was Radio 4 either due to a fault or due to the surrounding mountains.
Valves then transistors were in use in my youth too. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of crystal sets as they were a 1920's thing and by the 30's-40's onwards were only a novelty or school science project and never used domestically since then.
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
A crystal set is/was a first step for many into the world of amateur radio. You might be licensed operator Mike, or have you ever considered dipping you toe into working the band's?
I do wonder how long before the AM and even FM bands start to shut down and everything is moved to DAB. Someone estimated it'll be within 10 years.
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
I have two DAB radios and they're little more than paperweights. Weirdly, this wasn't the case until about two months after I moved out to the sticks. The power on the signal must have been turned down. So, if I want cricket commentary around the house, I have to rig the PC to a short-range FM transmitter and listen to it that way.
The future will be digital, they said. It will be better, they said.
A crystal set is/was a first step for many into the world of amateur radio. You might be licensed operator Mike, or have you ever considered dipping you toe into working the band's?
[/quote]
I had once thought of it but the business of getting a licence put me off and anyway I had all my hobby money tied up in my trains and computer stuff.
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
Besides, only BBC micro owners tend to be Hams. Square computer, Square hobbies. =))
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
Isn't that what WoSF is supposed to be :D
True, true, but most of us don't own BBC micros. We're the cool crowd who like being a bit geeky.
:))
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
In fact in the ZX81 days here in America I learnt to attend radio ham meets to obtain the software, peripherals and advice I needed about getting the most out of the machine and they had written some cool DXing (I think its called) programs that ran on the little ZX81 and kept a record of the stations they'd found and what to look for out in the ether and so on.
Before the WWW there was a strong community of Bulletin Boards swapping software and stories, text adventuring or D&D gaming was also very popular and we attended meets often in costume, right up there with the Trekkies for nerdiness. I was quite proud of my Viking get up and home made broadsword which often got noticed by policemen whilst trolling the local mall advertising our network!
Enthusiasm and fun was what made the Speccy group stand out from the rest and still does.
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131