DIY

CIRCUITS

TRANSISTORIZE YOUR IPOD

Get vintage sounds from time-warp radio.

By Nick Archer

Hearing “Monday, Monday” on giant stereo speakers doesn’t pack the emotional wallop of listening to it through the 2¼" speaker of my childhood transistor radio. When the iPod shuffle came out, it hit me: I could wire one of them into a vintage radio and recreate that experience.

I got an old radio from eBay, hooked it up, and it worked! Then I loaded up the iPod with old airchecks from DJs of my childhood, plus old songs and commercials from the same era, and now I can listen just like when I was 12. Everyone I’ve played it for says it’s spooky, like the radio just arrived from the 60s.

Rewiring It

The idea is to route the output from the iPod to the audio input and to the radio’s volume control. Open up the old radio (Figure A, on next page) and

172 Make: Volume 13

MATERIALS

Old transistor radio
iPod shuffle
3.5mm stereo mini plug
3.3kΩ resistors ( 2)
Insulated wire
Jeweler’s screwdrivers
Soldering equipment
Wire cutters/stripper
Rubber cement if radio speaker cone is damaged

remove the guts. Stick the tiny screws to a piece of tape for safe storage. My speaker had a hole in it that caused a buzzing sound at high volume, but here’s an old trick: layer rubber cement over the hole until it’s covered (Figure B). No more buzz!

Photography by Nick Archer