Today with nothing better to do I was going through some boxes of stuff I'd had for years with a view to clearing out anything that was of no further use. I found stuff that I'd had for over 30 years and never touched since...mainly bits of old construction projects...nothing of any real worth. Then to my surprise, I found the remains of the very first successful radio I'd ever built. I actually think it was a re-build since the original had been built on a piece of hardboard. I think this was the second version, identical to the first but built in a neater form with guidance and help from my brother.
The remains still had nearly all the parts including the two transistors, an OC45 and OC71. It was missing the tuning gang, coil, trimmer and choke. I had a sudden desire to see if I could make this circuit work again after all these years. Gang, trimmer and choke, no problem but I would have to wind another coil. I couldn't remember the exact details but something suggested 40 turns tapped at 10 and 10 turns for reaction. I found the original article in Practical Wireless thanks to the wonderful American site that is building up a huge library of all the popular mags. September 1965 ( I remembered 1965 but couldn't remember the month so had to search).
Anyway the upshot of all this is that an hour later, unbelievably, this little set was working again with very little effort. Now what to do? My thoughts are to build it into a small cabinet as a reminder of my first faltering steps into the world of radio. Maybe I should improve it by adding an output stage so that it drives a small speaker...
I remember spending many happy hours listening to this set...Radio Caroline came in exceptionally well.... I've had to use a different earpiece (it was designed for a small crystal type) since my one and only crystal earpiece has deteriorated so I've used a 1000 ohm 'stethoscope' type which I've had for years.
In true 'lash-up' form, I've replaced the missing parts in the original circuit. Amazingly the two electrolytics checked out fine.
Anyone else still have any of their early efforts?