How to Make a Metal Detector with a Radio and a Calculator

If you have been trolling the Internet for how to videos on sites like youtube and metacafe you may have heard about the video of how to make a metal detector from a radio and a calculator. You probably then wondered if such a trick really can work. Well if you don't know the trick this article will tell you how the trick should work. If you want to know if it will work I will tell you what I have seen when trying this trick myself.

The idea from the video is actually a very old idea that has been around for many years and been seen in many older books and recently revived with the Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things series and even more recently revised with the introduction of the metacafe video showing a method as well as a sequel showing a second method.

The method used follows a simple loop system as used in early metal detectors like from WWII. The same idea was first shown in popular science magazines during this era but instead of using items you already have you had to make the thing with some wire and other parts and it was much bigger.

What you need is an AM radio which is hard to find, sure you can get a mini FM radio from the dollar store but its hard to find AM radios on there own anymore, this is probably one of the reasons this video has been so popular because it is hard to test unless you want to go about looking for the items. Next you get a calculator. A simple explanation of what you need to do is to tune the radio to the high end of the band; you need to find a frequency that does not have a station just static. Next you have to put the calculator over the radio and turn on the calculator. Then you pass it by metal and it should beep.