[BC] oatmeal boxes

[John BattisonPE]

Somebody's note about a coil on an oatmeal box reminded me of 
my experience with"oatmeal boxes".In 1926 I built a crystal receiver with a coil wound on a toilet roll core. My detector was a piece of crystal(forgotten what kind) with a "cat's whisker" just touching it. The trick was to jiggle the cat's whisker"(a short coil of phospher bronze wire  with one end sticking out). When you were lucky you heard an  actual "click" when you found a good sensitive spot(you could almost hear the set come to life, something like schott noise.Then slowly tuning ,if you were lucky ,you'd hear a faint voice or music and perhaps identify a atation or even a country in Europe.  When I became interestd in transmitters I joined ARRL and read about winding coils on an  "Oatmeal box". this sounded crazy-how could one wind a coil on a floppy rectanguler box?
Much later in my life I learned that in America  oatmeal came in round tub!ular boxes(in England the boxes were rectangular.)What  a relief!!! I finally understood Ham radio!!

John Battison PE    W8KUC exG2AMC