One of the assignments I set myself to undertake during Love is Awesome, was the recreation of the transistor radio detailed in the 1972 Ladybird book, ‘Making a Transistor Radio.’

I am not the first person to have thought of this and I am poorly versed in the complexities of circuitry. But the clear diagrams and the fact that the book was designed for children made the concept accessible to me in some way.

Of all the assignments this is the one designed to stretch my abilities the most as it involves grappling with elements of physics and sound that I struggle to comprehend. As with letterpress or other manual tasks which involve a lot of physical building and making, I am attracted to the physicality of the radio making procedure detailed in the 1972 Ladybird book. The circuit is created using copper wire and screws on a softwood base, rather than by soldering components onto a breadboard. The comparitive impermanence of the screws and wood arrangement means that my fallible approach and inevitable mistakes will not result in expensive electrical components being forever soldered into uselessness, and the step-by-step guidance involving screwing everything down stage by stage will hopefully result in a lot of learning with both hands and mind.

The biggest headache so far has been tracking down the same components that are specified in the Ladybird book. The ‘local radio dealer’ so blithely cited throughout the book is clearly an institution of the past and every strangely termed resistor, transistor or variable capacitor that I can’t find in the Maplins catalogue has sent me running to Google. I have discovered a secret and exciting underground network of vintage radio enthusiasts, for sure. But no ‘local radio dealer.’

Many mail-order components…

My approach to building the radio has been very literal; I have read and re-read each page, double checked everything against its circuit diagram and then returned to the beautiful illustrations to validate and double-check my component placement. I therefore present my photographs of the procedure so far in a step-by-step format, with the book illustrations first, followed by the photographs of my cack-handed immitations.

Let us begin with the extremely basic circuit-tester. This is an arrangement of battery, bulb and wire, and it is used to check whether or not current is flowing correctly through a circuit. Touching the ends of the wires onto either side of a connection in the circuit, the buld either lights up, (good) or stays dim (bad.) I was foolishly happy when the bulb lit up.

Now let us move on to less pedestrian activities. As per the book, I marked out a piece of wood with the correct points on it.

And then, because someone in the gallery was listening to the sound installations, I did not immediately pre-drill for the screws; instead, I concentrate my energies on the frustrating task of building my aerial using a piece of ferrite and some enamelled copper wire. I am confused as to whether or not I was meant to use a 6″ piece of rod and then snap it in half and tape it back together? This certainly looks like what they have done in the book, but I do not understand why the snapping in half is necessary. In any case, my ferrite rod came from a Maplins crystal radio kit and is only about 3″ long… this is what I did with it.

I confess to finding the task of winding that fiddly copper wire around the ferrite exactly 45 times extremely trying; perhaps on the same level of irritation/technicality as seaming up garments that were knit on the bias, whilst wearing motorcycle gloves.

Finally it was time to start placing things on the softwood base.

Once the first, most basic circuit was made, there wasn’t a lot to be heard through the earpiece. BUT, I didn’t really put a lot of any effort into sorting out the aerial and the earth wires required to get a signal. As I understand it, the aerial and the earth for this stage of the radio are crucial for getting any kind of signal. Having failed to do this, I contented myself instead with moving impatiently onto the next stage and adding in the first transistor.

There is much to do to complete the Transistor Radio, but I am very happy with how this project is shaping up so far and I am indeed understanding the physics a little better for my creative investment in radio building.