Front Back Foote Phila.
Pat Pend
adjustable Crystal assembly20 mmf Capacitor
I think this is a home made crystal radio (Wiki) from about 1800 (?). The "Foote Phila. Pat Pend" is an assembly that has a Geltina crystal in a lead holder, but it has a threaded rod out the back. On the front panel there is a knob that turns a threaded rod with a Berrillium copper spring that can be adjusted so that it touches various spots on the crystal. I was able to adjust it for 2 volts and 0.9 volts (reverse and forward at 1 mA) using a Fluke 87 DMM.On the upperleft corner of the front panel is the ANTENNA connection. The bottom left terminal is GROUND.
On the right lower corner are the PHONES terminals (lower one is ground).The wire appears to be bailing wire or some other Iron wire, not copper.
The front panel terminals use an 8-32 threaded pinch screw with the threaded portion 5/16" long..
I'm looking for 3 of these.
Circuit
From ANTENNA to PHONES is the diode.
From ANTENNA to GROUND is a coil, where the upper 10 position switch sets coarse taps and the bottom 10 position switch sets fine taps.
From PHONES hot to PHONES ground is a 20 mmf capacitor that looks like a Copper bar with something wrapped around it and maybe some shim stock sandwidched between two thin wood boards.
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
331 s/n
stamped in bottom wood in addition to the name plate s/n. ![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
The FE-50 speaker driver above does not use the lever arm type movement from the Sound Powered Telephones, but it still has great sensitivity.
I got this after studying Sound Powered Telephones and the very efficient speaker elements they used. This speaker driver uses a similar if not the same drive method.
Both of the below patents cover the
957403 Telephone-receiver, Nathaniel Baldwin, May 10, 1910, 381/418 -
1604251 Telephone receiver, Nathaniel Baldwin, Oct 26, 1926, 381/418; 381/419 -
The Xtal Set Society -
Wiki: Crystal radio
Gollum´s Crystal Receiver World - Crystal Set Testing
Crystal Radio section on Brooke's Electronics web page.
crystal-radio.eu -
Back to Brooke's PRC68, Alphanumeric index of web pages, Products for Sale, Telephones, U229 Audio Accesories, Audio Connectors, Military Information, Electronics, Personal Home page
page created 17 Nov 2001.