“In these disaster-ravaged times, whether natural or otherwise, the refugee radio is more than an object of convenience. Mareike Gas has created this handy, energy-independent AM-receiver radio. The Refugee Radio is powered by the energy of radio waves (crystal radio) and was primarily conceived for two situations in mind – any emergency crisis and a long-term refugee circumstance. The Refugee Radio is a great device for calamity-prone/conflict-plagued areas or simply for those insufferable power blackouts.” [via] Link.
12 thoughts on “Refugee Radio – An energy-independent AM-receiver radio…”
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other ways to build crystal radios with house holdign materials and other very simple crystal radios.
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/radio/radio.html#crystal
I like the art aspect, but keeping the instructions on how to
build the darn thing secret is really not in the spirit of MAKE:
Nice idea, but I doubt that a Germanium diode is going to be readily available when you need one, which means you need to build this project ahead of time. The posting also seems to be a slightly veiled ad for scitoys. I very much prefer the “Foxhole radio”, made from an frozen orange juice can, 50+ ft of wire, a razor blade, safety pin some tacks and any sort of earphone. When I was a child, I used to make these at my grandparents’ each summer; the construction is that easy and the only part that is not found in the recycling bin is the earphone.
Maybe the idea is that armed with this knowledge you should cache the Germanium diode, or better yet, the completed radio in anticipation of the disaster.
Myself, if the proverbial crap really hits the societal fan and for some reason my hand-cranked Grundig SW radio konks out, I’ll simply join the swarming mob below and loot some double-A’s from the corner store. Anarchy now!
…heh, yeah or just have a solar battery recharger. Heck, just convert any junky AM/FM to solar and keep it in your emergency kit. I think I was considering what could be built MacGuyver style if one WAS a refugee, not what could be mass produced on the super-cheap and dropped on fields of refugees, perhaps that’s what the original article intended.
I built something like this when I was about 14. I was amazed that it didn’t need a battery, it just got the energy from the radio waves. Of course it wasn’t very loud, but it was still neat.