Crystal radios are old news, but great fun. What would happen if a PhD designed a crystal set? By PhD we mean Pizza Hut Deliveryperson and [John Greenlee] (who may not actually be a PhD of either kind; we don’t know) gives us a good idea with his crystal radio in a pizza box.
Pizza boxes aren’t the only food-related material in this radio. [John] makes a tuning capacitor out of cake rounds. Coincidentally, he decorates the tuning capacitor to look like a pizza.
The schematic itself is unremarkable–just a common crystal set. But the construction of the chassis and the capacitor make it an interesting project. If you know a young person that has any interest in radio, a crystal receiver is a rite of passage you shouldn’t deny them and this one is certainly a novelty. The picture of a pizza takes it even one step further than this YouTube build, which is nonetheless a good resource.
The instructions are well done, although some of the parts may be slightly hard to find. Germanium diodes and high-Z earphones are not as plentiful as they used to be, although you can still find them if you look.
This pizza box rig could be a gateway drug to more serious crystal radios. Or you could go smaller and try building one in a match box.
pizza is the little known dielectric of the future!
Haha
It’s mostly mozzarella.
math volume of pizza:
for a pizza of radius ‘z’ and and thickness ‘a’, its volume is defined by:
pi*z*z*a
(oldie but goodie!)
I wonder if pizza could be used as a mm-wavelength AR coating for astronomy – it would be a great improvement over the difficult materials-science problem we are currently working through in the lab I work in!
No. Obviously not.
inb4 but i was making a joke
Jokes have to be funny.
Oh Posh.
Mozzarella is a fine dielectric!
Try supreme topped pizza. It has everything you could want.
(Hey aklsdjfkj, This is a joke.)
No.
Now just replace the germanium diode with a flame diode, and you’ll win the Internets
It could, uh, keep the pizza warm also!
When you eat a slice, you change the station!
Aw dammit, you beat me to it. +1 to Mano
Where’s a good source for Germanium diodes? I have plenty because I keep older computer cards. They are usually the glass ones.
“Where’s a good source for Germanium diodes?”
Germany. Duh!
(Try surplus electronics or radio shops.)
Haha? You got me.
.
I try not to walk into those. I would walk out with 2 carts full of stuff! Thanks. Found a military surplus place, better wait till I have room to desolder first.
That was supposed to be !
Post looks really funny like I couldn’t figure out how to laugh!
No more double posting be me ever again, I promise!
They’re not cheap, but still seem to be available new: http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/discrete-semiconductor-products/diodes-rectifiers-single/1376383?k=1n34
http://www.newark.com/microsemi/1n34a/std-recovery-50ma-65v-do-7/dp/88F1645
“To tune the radio, one must eat pizza until the desired frequency is achieved, probably.” – me,
Remove the quotes and -me and this is fine, otherwise it’s just stupid
Somebody’s grumpy because they have no pizza, eh?
Actually had two slices today. I love that typing something out automatically == mad or angry. These days people are so easily triggered.
Was sarcasm. I’ve noticed that most of your posts have a certain lack of quality, and responded in a similar manner.
.
Or was it? Dun dun dun.
I tried this with a pizza bagel but all I could get was Kol Israel on shortwave.
My sides are full orbit now.
pizza bagel radios won’t tune-in after sundown on friday. that may or may not be a problem, but you have to plan for it.
Is there a spice simulation for it?
No But there is a slice simulation
(claps)
good one.
On a tech note I see it is a loop design, cool. My experience with crystal sets was always with the long wire and the necessary ground. The pizza box makes for large or xtra large loops. This can also be used as a passive tuned loop antenna coupled up next to the loop antenna built into virtually all radios except the easily lost little loop antenna that comes with microprocessor run stereos where they would pollute the otherwise builtin AM antenna. If the wires in the loop were air spaced 3-5mm it would have higher gain with the higher Q.
tune in next week when we construct a gain antenna using a kentucky fried chicken bucket and some drumstick tuning elements.
Would a New York style pizza only receive radio stations broadcasting from New York?
+1
Why did I laugh so hard at this?
.
Ham and Pineapple pizza would recieve……
HAM radio pizza….WiFi Pineaplle pizza….mmmmm pizza.
Finally, someone has found a worthwhile use for a Domino’s Pizza… :)
btw.. the earpiece can be made of piezobuzzer ( cermaic?)
I enjoy pizza from time to time. It is good to eat as well.