About one ring

My son provoked me, to lead a radio ring in elementary school. Ten, who of you was trying to do something similar, he knows what the current conditions are for ring activity. Nevertheless, I managed to get the ring going. We started in primitive conditions. The local school currently does not have workshops for technical education (the hygienist closed them due to high humidity). So, thanks to the understanding of the school principal, we were able to start in one class. She came to the first meeting 13 children, pupils 6. a 7. year, plus my daughter – fourth grader. Here we finally agreed, that we will meet every week on Wednesday o 17.00.
They should have brought their children to the second meeting “breaker terminal blocks”. They have already arrived 15. So that I don't discourage them and especially the parents in the current economic situation, we started by building a crystal with a single-transistor amplifier. I scavenged most of the parts from mine “veteshniky” supplies. GC520 germanium transistors and telephone handsets 50 ohm. The children wound the coils on paper tubes with varying degrees of success, which originally featured microtene bags in food. The biggest problem was the rotary condenser. Where should I have gotten it? 15 at least approximately the same number of turns. I remembered the old designs and tried a sliding capacitor from a matchbox. Milo surprised me, when I found out, that it has a maximum capacity of approx 140 pF and a minimum around 40 pF. Absolutely perfect parameters for such a primitive product. And mainly from available material. What we used? One matchbox, a piece of aluminum foil, about two 10 cm pieces of conductor from the telephone cable, and Chemafol wide transparent adhesive tape as a dielectric. The success was huge. Children don't want to leave at half past seven and are curious, what are we going to do next?.

Now I keep them busy with a bit of theory, but only within the limits of their understanding and knowledge, mainly mathematical. Of course, we will not only focus on the construction of facilities, the component base would not be enough for us. I will show them amateur radio connections and they will also learn the basics of serious CB operation. As if I could hear some voices: ” You go to CB to teach them?!” Yes on CB, but so that, they did not have to be ashamed of the way of operation even in front of experienced OMs. After all, CB is more accessible than classic amateur operation. After all, for the price of one M160 today, you can get a simple CB station. Children have to wait at least for operation in amateur bands 3 years (do 15 years) and they will be able to start on CB now. I'm thinking about it, that if enough CB stations can be obtained, we would start with local network operation and possibly sea training via CB. So that we don't just stay in operation, I plan to gradually build an amplifier with LM386 with them, feedback audio and possibly also directly mixing RX on 80 m.

By the way, Does anyone have unnecessary rotary capacitors with a capacity of around 100 pF? For short waves, ours “boxes” they don't fit. I am attaching two pictures of the ring. On the first is the children's part and on the second is our crystal with box tuning.

Miro OM3CKU
om3cku@centrum.sk