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by danbruc 813 days ago
If you are building an AM crystal radio. [1] You will also need a high-impedance speaker [2] if you want to operate it without a power supply, otherwise you will need an amplifier. You can avoid using a commercial diode by making your own point contact diode as done in Foxhole radios [3] and you can make your own piezoelectric speaker from Rochelle salt [4]. Here [5] is one personal projects site touching all those topics.

In conclusion, you should be able to build a simple radio from copper wire, aluminium foil, a pencil, a razor blade, and baking powder.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_earpiece

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_sodium_tartrate

[5] https://rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/index.htm#S...