Rap 'n Tap
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From:
Date: 6/1/00
Time: 11:18:18 PM
Remote Name: 12.73.105.218
Charlie: I'm not speaking for Kelly. He's the Man on this Mega Project, not me. But I'll lay a few "details, details" on you as I have 'em:
1. My speaker was left in the handset of the old phone and it werked fine. I tried the mouthpiece, too, but no matter how loud I yelled I got no response, so I took it out. Then I just extended the EP wires out 3 feet, installed alligator clips on each one, and had me an EP.
2. This was an old Bell telephone dating to about 1975. It was Pink. I always hated that phone but it always werked even though every kid in the neighborhood coated it with peanut butter and jelly over a period of 12 years. I was amazed.
C. The coil was a little guy in a white plastic housing (how's that for details, Charlie? Ha!) which I de-soldered with a 100 watt virtual-antique iron (which explains why I ruined so many of the little diodes) and was configured this way: draw a square on a piece of paper. Label the top edge "TOP". Now draw 4 little lines stickin' out down the right side equally spaced and 4 down the left also equally spaced. These will represent the solder lugs as found on the unit. Number the ones on the right (top-to-bottom) 1,2,3, and 4. Number the ones on the left (also top-to-bottom) 5,6,7,and 8. So here's what I did:
D: With a jumper I hooked up a long outdoor antenna lead to a diode (on the proper side of the diode, the blunt side of the arrow as represented on drawings)(i always do things proper) and those 2 to every lug on the 1-4 side of the coil, one at a time, hoping to get something. I didn't get anything so here's what I did next instead of turning the coil over (O yes, I removed the core as Kelly did. Thanks Kel). What I did was I left that former mess on one random right-side lug and went to the other side with another mess of clips: I hooked up a ground wire + one wire from the EPs to a random lug on the left side (the 5-8 side).I probably forgot to say that I hooked up the OTHER wire from the EPs to the little wire from the diode which I will call the "improper side", that is, the wire that is on the pointy end of the detector symbol in all the drawings. But back to the Left side of the coil: now you have 2 (Green,i.e.: ground) alligator clips gnawing on each other and hunting a lug to eat. They found one: #7 on the left side for the gnd/EPs and #4 on the other side for the other ones. And Boy Howdy did them stations pour in! I haven't
5. figured out how to separate them but by gosh I'm having a ball trying to sort them out acoustically. Heck, at this stage of my Xtal Education NOISE counts as much as anything else. MORE, really, than anything else. I still haven't figured out how to spell selectibitty.
F. I will say this for myself: I had the brains to try and stuff a round ferrite rod into the square hole of the coil housing so I could tune things but (duh) it dint fit. So I still get mainly a car salesman out of Renton, Washington by the name of Bob Something. Sounds like a heck of a nice guy. Too LOUD, yes, but he has six or seven DX friends backing him up so I guess I won't file an FCC complaint. I'm out
8. numbered.
9. Oh, if you turned your little white coil form upside down so your Top is my Bottom, don't worry; the numbers I listed will be just the opposite and, as in quantum physics, will work the same.
10.. PS: Everybody say hello to Rebecca's baby. That's the cutest baby I never saw in my life. Just say HEY BABY! They all know their name.
J: Kelly: Maybe you oughta talk Details now. I'm fresh out. And listening.
11. PS: if anybody wants to hire me as a technical writer for this publication I work cheep.