Darn. I was hoping someone had made one for military E&E or something, in a waterproof case.

Oddly enough, they are the one thing I've never made. Guess I'll have to get a couple of part sets, see if I can embed one in resin or something.

Thanks for all the feedback. I've given the radio a try and it seems to work great. Holds a charge well and gets decent reception, though it is an analog dial, so you have to hunt a bit. The only issue is bulk, but it fits great in the side pocket of my BOB. Weight's not bad, especially since I don't need batteries. If size were more of a concern, I'd definitely hit CountyComm but, for the moment, this piece is an item I'll use and recommend. Plus, I'm wanting to keep everything on AAs not AAAs, which I think the CountyComm radios use. As for the crystal radios, I'd love to learn more about those and see someone's setup who's had some success with them.

Crystal radios are only good in urban areas where there's a very strong xmit signal that's not too close to other strong xmit signals. In the boonies (no strong signals) or in denser cities (too many strong signals) they don't have the sensitivity and/or selectivity needed.

There are all kinds of xtal radio kits that let you do the whole thing with the crystal and cat whisker, but if you just want a simple no-battery radio, you could use a germanium diode detector (1n34 maybe) instead of messing with a crystal. Scrounge a loopstick antenna and tuning cap out of an old AM transistor radio and use a high impedance earphone.

Really though, an earphone radio doesn't take much battery power, so a conventional radio makes a lot more sense.

Yeah, unless you tinker with them a bit, they can be rather sloppy on the band, but they aren't bad. My first xtal radio kit was a radio shack special, and with the way I worked it (I was 9 at the time) I could get KGO out of San Francisco at night from Seattle (granted they pump out the power, but it is possible to pick up the long wave with them if you finesse it).

Really, the items sold as xtal radios today aren't, they use the low voltage diode junction as the detector, like you say, which is fine. In fact, it makes the kit that much less expensive and more rugged I think.

You do get to the crux of my vision, which is that if you know a little about the technology, it is easy to come up with a "xtal" radio circuit by scrounging on powered radios that no longer have a power source. Wasn't that a Macgyver episdoe? <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

In the event of an emergency, wouldn't all the radio station go to that emergency broadcast system anyway? Would one of these small radios pick that up? Could I actually make one to fit in an Altoids tin? I would love to have a radio in an Altoids tin that I built. "Coming to you on the Altoid Forces Radio Network". I know that would get at least one more person around here into preparedness, and that is my goal.

I bought an earphone radio at Walgreens a few months ago for something like $5. It runs on a watch battery. Yes it would fit in an APSK pretty easily.

I wnet to Radio Shack and they do not carry crystal stuff anymore for making radios. They had a small earphone radio but I didn't buy it becuase the one I have does not work good. All it does is aggravate me when I try to tune it.