Again, the reader is not talked down to, being introduced to all the useful things you need to know if you are to maintain an interest in radio. Fortunately the ethos of this book has its roots in a far more can-do era, and an action such as fracturing a ferrite rod to create the 3″ (75mm) length required is taken in its stride. It is easy to believe these days that children are shielded from anything that might be remotely practical, for fear that they might hurt themselves. With this complete, we are ready for our first construction, the crystal set with its coil wound on a ferrite rod. The reader is introduced to these, and the tools the might have to master, before being shown the measurements for the board. This was the 1970s, just how many boys would have been dressed like that, really!ĭespite the introduction to soldering inside the cover, the signature construction method used in the book is the use of woodscrews and screwcups on a wooden baseboard. One of the first illustrations shows a young boy wearing a shirt and tie, typical of the slightly idealised world of children’s’ books of the era. You are then launched into your first radio circuitry, first with a tuned circuit and then with the addition of a germanium point-contact diode and earpiece, a simple crystal set. Past the title page, and the you are introduced to radio shown a block diagram of a receiver, and then simple circuitry with a torch (flashlight) battery and bulb as a first example. You are here to learn about electronics, not to be reminded that you are a child. This is an optional construction method, but it is presented in a style that does not talk down to the reader. When you open the book, the first thing you see sets the tone, for there is a guide to soldering on the inside of the front cover.
Including me as it happens, I received my copy in about 1979, and never looked back. It’s a book you must read not because it is a seminal work in the vein of Horrowitz and Hill, but because it is the book that will have provided the first introduction to electronics for many people whose path took them from this humble start into taking the subject up as a career. This one was published at the start of the 1970s when Ladybird books were in their heyday, and has the simple objective of taking the reader through the construction of a simple three transistor radio. These slim volumes in a distinctive 7″ by 4.5″ (180 x 115 mm) hard cover format were published on a huge range of subjects, and contained well written and informative text paired with illustrations that often came from the foremost artists of the day.
#Old transistor radio circuits series
Making A Transistor Radio, by is one of the huge series of books published in the UK under the Ladybird imprint that were a staple of British childhoods for a large part of the twentieth century.
So you might find it a little unexpected then that our subject here is a children’s book. Ladybird books covered a huge range of topics. Those books that you don’t sell on at the end of your university career. The kind of book from which you learn your craft, and to which you continuously return to as a work of reference.
Horowitz and Hill, perhaps, or maybe Kernigan and Ritchie. When a Hackaday article proclaims that its subject is a book you should read, you might imagine that we would be talking of a seminal text known only by its authors’ names.
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