Did you ever attend a "silent" dancing party?
The dancers wear
earphones and only they hear the music. The effect is eerie...
By JOHN POTTER SHIELDS
Y ES, you can hear loud and clear with
no physical connection between your
earphones and radio or hi-fi. What's more
you can hear when others cannot. The loop
system is great for getting the sound from
your television without interrupting grand-
ma's nap. With loop listening a housewife
can keep up with her chores while hearing
her favorite programs without trailing
wires and without having the radio or hi-fi
blasting through the house. Here's how
your loop system works and how to build
it.
In Operation, as the signals flow
JUNE, 1963
through the transmitting coil, they gener-
ate a magnetic field around the coil which
varies in proportion with the currents. The
field produced by the transmitting coil in-
duces currents in the receiving coil which
are a facsimile of the signals applied to the
transmitting coil. These currents in the re-
ceiving coil are applied directly to phones
or an amplifier for further amplification.
The action is exactly the same as a trans-
former.
For Maximum Range, the transmitting
loop should be as large as possible and con-
sist of many turns. To wind the coil, trace a
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1. WIRE loop and speaker to select. 2. SCHEMATIC for transistor amplifier which boosts sound.
line conforming to the desired overall di-
mensions on your workbench. Drive 1-in.
nails equal distances around the marking
to form a coil form. When the winding is
completed, remove the coil from the form
and secure its turns in place with tape. Re-
move the insulation from the leads and
attach them to a convenient length of
ordinary "zip cord."
Due to its low impedance, the transmit-
ting loop is connected to the transformer
terminals of the particular amplifier being
used. Due to the low impedance of the out-
put transformer secondary, #20 or heavier
wire should be used to wind the transmit-
ting loop. The coil should not consist of
more than 50 turns. If you like, a S.P.D.T.
switch can be included in the setup so that
either the loop or speaker is connected to
the output transformer.
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The Receiving Loop should be as large
in diameter as possible. Since the receiving
loop will normally work into medium to
high impedance inputs, it should have as
many turns as are practical as this will in-
crease both its sensitivity and impedance
match. As mentioned earlier, the receiving
loop can be connected directly to a pair of
phones for short range operation. The
phones should have an impedance of be-
tween 500 and 2,000 ohms.
A self-contained amplifier can be used to
considerably boost the operating range.
With the transistor amplifier between the
receiving loop and phones, the operating
range was extended to about 20 feet. A five
inch coil wound with 100 turns of #30 wire
yielded an operating range of about 15 feet.
The transistorized amplifier is straight-
forward with the exception that a common
base input stage is used rather than the
more conventional common emitter con-
figuration. This provides a better imped-
ance match between the receiving coil and
the amplifier's input. The output trans-
former shown in the schematic matches the
last transistor to the four ohm stereo
phones.
Placement of the receiving coil need not
be a problem if a reasonably sm,all loop is
used.
As Much Power As Possible should be
used to drive the transmitting loop in order
that the amount of amplification between
the receiving loop and phones can be kept
to a minimum. Excessive amplification at
the receiving end can cause an objectional
amount of hum and spurious noise. The
ratio of the energy emitted to the sur-
rounding radiation should be as high as
possible. •
SCIENCE and MECHANICS