"Peebles Originals" PO-1956 Crystal Radio Kit

Analog Dial

Shown here is a Peebles Originals PO-1956 radio kit reproduction. The PO-1956 was a reproduction of a radio kit that Mike Peebles' father gave him in 1956 when Mike was 10 years old, so the radio above is a reproduction of a reproduction. The PO-1956 kit appeared on the Peebles Originals website sometime between October and December of 2009. According to Mike, this was the third version. He never mentioned exactly what kit his father gave him, but it had a transistor amplifier. It's unlikely it looked like the one above.

This clone of the PO-1956 crystal set was assembled in September of 2023.

The kit was made by Victor Rodriguez.

The front panel is laser cut, an improvement over the original kit.

This is a crystal radio with a one transistor amplifier.

To assemble the radio, you attach the base drawing to the base, then just follow the picture. You also have to wind the coil.

Here is a layout of the parts that came in the kit.

The kit made by Vic came with battery skins to make 1956 vintage batteries. Unlike the paper skins from Mike Peebles, these are pressure sensitive vinyl stickers. They make a more realistic battery.

Vic meticulously recreated the graphics for the kit. On the left is Mike's battery label, included with the instructions. On the right is a much higher resolution label made by Vic.

The patent numbers on Mike's battery skins were indiscernible, so rather than looking up the actual battery, Vic made up his own numbers. The top number is the day Mike was born. The middle number is the day he died. The third number is the day Vic made the battery label.

On the left is the "Peebles Originals" logo from the kit instructions. On the right is a recreation of the logo made by Vic. It is unfortunate that we don't have access to Mike's original files. It's even more unfortunate for Vic, who spent hours on it. This could be considered the Mike Peebles' trademark, though he never registered it.

On the left is a detail from the base plate drawing that came from the Mike Peebles website. On the right is the same detail from the recreated artwork made by Vic.

There isn't anything wrong with Mike Peebles' excellent artwork. The problem is that the instructions available from the Peebles Originals website are not in very high resolution. If you ordered the kit, Mike would have included the graphics, printed in more detail.

Interesting that the artwork is "Copyright 1956." Even more interesting is that the "Space Age" didn't actually begin until October 4, 1957. However, since a German V-2 did actually enter space on June 20, 1944, we can let it go.

On the left is the 2N2048 germanium transistor specified in the original kit. It's a substitute for the CK722 available in 1956 to hobbyists. It's not necessary to have the leads that long, but I don't like to cut the leads on a vintage transistor. The transistor was made by Sprague in the 1960s and was purchased from a website in Finland in 2023. On the right is the center tapped tuning coil. It is 78 turns of 28 gauge wire, with a tap at turn 39.     The first time I used this radio, the coil exploded. Then it blew out my headphones. I think it had something to do with the lightning bolts on the Peebles logo.

The part about the coil exploding was just a joke. The radio works very well. It picks up the five local stations here, about 20 miles north of Philadelphia, PA, with decent selectivity. It easily tunes the entire AM band, at least up to 1440 kHz. There are no locals above that, so I don't know how high it tunes. The volume isn't ear-splitting, but it's nice to have the volume control.

PO-1956 Radio Kit Instruction Manual   Peebles Originals website

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