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June 1924. Washington, D.C. "Radio nut -- this set with everything necessary for receiving music and speech by radio has been put into a coconut shell. It was built by H. Zamora, a native of Manila, Philippine Islands." Marketing suggests we call this the iNut. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.
Submit, puny Earthlings! Resistance is futile.
There's a long-standing tradition among the real nuts of radio -- ham radio operators -- of building homebrew circuitry into odd, discarded containers. Tuna fish cans are a favorite, although things get a little funky once the resistors heat up... what's that smell? Margarine tubs, cereal boxes -- hams are nothing if not thrifty.
The gizmo that she's fondling is likely to be the cat's whisker, a metal pin that is poked onto a galena crystal to make a crude rectifier for demodulating the AM signal. It needs to be moved now and then to get good audio. At least it's something to do.
I suppose their clocks were powered by potatoes.
Looks as if she is receiving messages from outer space!
The Professor did this practically every week.
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