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We previously showed you a radio at left that was sure to delight the youngsters of 1939.  It featured a creepy face with eyes that lit up in time with the music.

Not to be outdone 23 years later, the publishers of Popular Mechanics published in the March 1962 issue the plans for the same general idea shown here. This time, the face, a clown, was a little bit less creepy, but it still had magic eye tubes in the place of eyeballs, and the eyes flashed in time with the music. The magazine gave two options for the project. If you didn’t have a radio to spare, then you could build the entire radio, which was basically a crystal set using 1N34 diode, with two tubes to provide loudspeaker volume. The magazine noted that this worked satisfactorily in downtown Chicago, and pulled in three different stations with a 50 foot antenna on the roof. According to the magazine, this simple circuit was “the minimum performance which might satisfy youngsters.”

But for better performance, it was recommended to just use an existing radio, and tap in the additional circuit, shown below, to flash the eyes. The magazine showed a template for cutting the clown face, but also noted that the prepunched chassis and clown face were available from the Experimenter’s Supply Co., 1924 W. Columbia Avenue, Chicago.