Gilligan's Island Radio Transmitter

In summary: You are stranded on an island with only 10 meters of copper wire and some other items that have been naturally found on the island. You need to run a radio using 3 volts to contact people on the mainland. You could make a dry pile battery using lemons and limes, or you could make a water drip based electrostatic generator. You could enlist the help of Gilligan, Mary Anne, and Ginger and have them run around in the sand scuffing their feet to make electrostatic charge and deposit it on a leyden jar capacitor the size of a city block. Finally, you would need to learn to identify and refine/melt/cast the ores of zinc, copper, maybe iron to get to a level of
  • #1
PHYSICS2GRL
1
0
supposedly u are stuck on an island

battery died on your radio

u have:

10 m of wire (copper?) and stuff found naturally on the island

and u need to run a radio at 3 volts

what would u do?:bugeye:
 
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  • #2
Welcome to PF, Physics2grl.
In keeping with the Gilligan's Island theme, you need a couple of coconuts...
Seriously, if the battery is the only crapped-out part, I'd gather up a ****load of lemons and limes and use them to make a voltaic cell. (But I still love the Professor and his coconuts. :biggrin:)
 
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  • #3
I'd build a house on the island and stay there living the
good life eating the fruit and nuts and seaweed, unless
it had major vulcanism / tsunami risks! :D

Yes, using a lot of lemons and limes might work well with
the copper, though you'd need some other metal to be
the other plate in the galvanic cell, and that might be
a problem.
Actually I just read a good article on the fruit battery
thing:
http://amasci.com/miscon/miscon4.html#lemon


You could make a dry pile instead of a citrus fruit
battery, if you had the right metals to stack:
http://amasci.com/emotor/duluc.html

If I could find some good lodestone then I could try making
a generator with it and a coil of the copper wire, though
I'd have to rectify the AC to feed to the radio.
I don't recall that very good (highly magnetized)
natural lodestones are common, though, so that might
result in quite feeble power output.
http://amasci.com/amateur/coilgen.html

I suppose I could try smoldering some coconut shell or
wood chips in the absence of oxygen to make charcoal
as a conductor to work with the copper in
an electrochemical cell, though I don't recall what voltage
that might provide per cell... and the resistance
would probably be depressingly high... hmmm...

I could make a water drip based electrostatic generator
and use that to charge a battery, but that'd depend on
having a rechargable battery, and it'd be problematic since
the low current and high voltage wouldn't suit a battery
or radio very well..
http://amasci.com/emotor/kelvin.html

One could use a water stream or water fall or wind-mill
or hand-cranking to turn a generator once one had one,
but one would need a good magnet for that to work.

One might be able to find gold naturally to melt down
and beat into more wire or conductive plate, eventually.

Iron ore would be handy and could be smelted from
natural iron ore oxide deposits to make some chunks
that could be magnetized and/or used for
electrochemical cell plates. Though an easier sourse of iron
might be from iron meteorites that might be found.

Ah I know, one could use a gold-panning type technique
or lodestone magnet to help sort out the iron ore
dust from the beach sand since there's often a lot there
that's easily sorted out.

I could enlist the help of Gilligan, Mary Anne, and Ginger
and have them run around in the sand scuffing their
feet to make electrostatic charge and have them deposit
it on a leyden jar capacitor the size of a city block... :)


It is interesting to think that in only 20,000 years or so
people have developed such kinds of technologies to
go from stone age to bronze age to metallurgy / iron age
to technologies of steam power, chemistry, electronics,
etc. with most of that change taking place in just the
last 3000 years.

I wonder in the course of 40 years how well even the
most technically educated of us could progress if we were
left on an island with lots of stone age raw materials,
ample food/water/shelter, temperate weather,
but no real technological materials or references for
construction other than what one could devise oneself.

Even making fire would be challenging for most people,
as would making good stone / wooden tools, weaving
rope, etc. Something like making glass, making a furnace
capable of melting copper/gold/glass could be quite
a project.

Learning to identify and refine/melt/cast the ores of
zinc, copper, maybe iron would be needed to get to a
level of technology even ~3000 years old for
copper/bronze/iron.

I suppose the easiest radio transmitter would be a
morse code keyed spark gap transmitter that wouldn't
need much more than wire, a good dry-pile or
few leyden jars and water generator, though you'd be
pretty lucky or very talented to get it to output enough
of a signal to be useful.
 
  • #4
I'd try to do my homework myself before posting it on the internet :tongue:
 
  • #5
J77 said:
I'd try to do my homework myself before posting it on the internet :tongue:

haha, it's a fun topic, but definitely agreed. :approve:

--
Joanna Georgie
http://www.nextstudent.com" [Broken]
 
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  • #6
Why do people insist on putting exclamation marks at the end of their thread title? Does it make it seem more important?
 
  • #7
My apologies to the Moderators; it never crossed my mind that this was homework, or I wouldn't have answered it directly.
 

1. How did the characters on "Gilligan's Island" build a radio transmitter?

The characters on "Gilligan's Island" did not actually build a radio transmitter. In the show, they were stranded on a deserted island and had to make use of the resources they had. The radio transmitter was already on the island and the characters were able to repair it and use it to try to contact the outside world.

2. What type of radio transmitter was used on "Gilligan's Island"?

The radio transmitter used on "Gilligan's Island" was a low-power AM transmitter. This type of transmitter is often used for short-range communications, making it suitable for the characters' attempts to contact help from the nearby islands.

3. How did the radio transmitter work without a power source?

The radio transmitter on "Gilligan's Island" was powered by a hand-crank generator. This type of generator uses mechanical energy from the cranking motion to produce electricity, which powers the transmitter. This allowed the characters to operate the transmitter without access to traditional power sources.

4. Did the radio transmitter on "Gilligan's Island" actually work?

In the show, the radio transmitter did work, but the characters were unable to make successful contact with the outside world. This was due to various factors such as interference and limitations of the transmitter's power and range. In reality, a low-power AM transmitter like the one used on the show would have a limited range and may not have been able to reach help from the nearby islands.

5. Could a radio transmitter actually be built and operated on a deserted island?

In theory, it is possible to build and operate a radio transmitter on a deserted island. However, it would require a significant amount of technical knowledge, resources, and luck to make it work effectively. The characters on "Gilligan's Island" were able to do so because it was a fictional show, but it would be a challenging feat in real life.

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