I would like to buy Germanium Diodes for crystal radio but i am seriously concern about the originality of the products. There are plenty of them on eBay until i got confuse if they are genuine or not especially when many people are complaining on other electronic forums many of those diode are fake being sold on ebay.

So my question is anyone here have purchase any of those the real genuine one so i can have less doubts of getting them.

 

Buy from a reputable seller. I'd trust the usual: Mouser, Newark, Jameco, DigiKey.

On eBay, if it's shipping from China it's probably counterfeit; especially if the price seems too good to be true.

 

If crystal is for professional AM station detection of just few MHz then as my experience schottky diodes like 1n5819 is the better choice. It has lower voltage drop than germanium diode which gave me louder sound output than germanium. And has enough speed for receiving AM stations too. Also schotty diodes are already available in expired power supply around our home. Maybe power schottky diodes in TO-220 works too.

 

I just checked RS Components because they have an outlet in Malaysia, if that's helpful.

They don't appear to have any germanium diodes but they have a nice selection of inexpensive Schottky RF detector diodes that whoudl work very nicely in a crystal radio receiver...up into the microwave region

http://my.rs-online.com/web/c/semic...chottky-diodes/?applied-dimensions=4293517483

 

If crystal is for professional AM station detection of just few MHz then as my experience schottky diodes like 1n5819 is the better choice. It has lower voltage drop than germanium diode which gave me louder sound output than germanium. And has enough speed for receiving AM stations too. Also schotty diodes are already available in expired power supply around our home. Maybe power schottky diodes in TO-220 works too.

SB rectifiers tend to have higher junction capacitance - I've seen a project that uses TO220 SB rectifiers as varicaps in an AM preselector.

There are lighter SB diodes than the 1N5819 that someone suggested, at the other extreme - microwave diodes could be a bit fragile for an experimenters crystal set.

SB diodes can be static sensitive, but its not been a big problem IME.

 

If crystal is for professional AM station detection of just few MHz then as my experience schottky diodes like 1n5819 is the better choice. It has lower voltage drop than germanium diode which gave me louder sound output than germanium. And has enough speed for receiving AM stations too. Also schotty diodes are already available in expired power supply around our home. Maybe power schottky diodes in TO-220 works too.

Thanks for the suggestion and i did't know schottky can be subsitute as good as germanium diode

 

I just checked RS Components because they have an outlet in Malaysia, if that's helpful.

They don't appear to have any germanium diodes but they have a nice selection of inexpensive Schottky RF detector diodes that whoudl work very nicely in a crystal radio receiver...up into the microwave region

http://my.rs-online.com/web/c/semic...chottky-diodes/?applied-dimensions=4293517483

perfect thanks