* Quantum Weirdness strikes again, don't have much of the details yet, but Patrick Flanagans Neurophone is NO LONGER being sold through www.throne.com!

The following information was sent to KeelyNet by an anonymous Neuro researcher. KeelyNet does not take a stand either way on Neuro technologies, though we do promote the open sharing of information, including circuits that people can build that relate to Neuro technology (and other) fields. Dr. Patrick Flanagan IS the RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY and original developer of the original Neurophone.

For updates on Neuro type technology, check out Terry Bastians home page at http://www.bdsnet.com/~tabastian

I ordered a GROK box which arrived this afternoon. I had to know what was inside, so I tore it apart. Inside was a simple circuit board, for which I will provide a diagram at a later time, hooked into a TBA810S chip, the only thing I can find about the chip is it seems to be available from http://pepe.online.ee/~m.aug/tevalo/must.txt for $11.00. The circuit board says SOUND MASTER on the top and TUNG YUNG on the bottom. TUNG YUNG is a Hong Kong company that builds electronics for all kinds of stuff.

The chip seems to be an amplifier. It is described on the web page http://www.cs.tut.fi/~pam/bebek.txt , as a PT VAHVISTIN 7W. VAHVISTIN seems to describe an amplifier. This is rapidly looking like a $149 education, probably well worth it. The transducers look just like garden variety dielectric transducers. The kind in musical greeting cards. Instead of cutting into them however I think I will hook up some others and give them a try in the circuit. Except for the fact that this does work as advertised, I have the feeling I've been had, I will have to do some more experimenting with it to see if the same principals as the neurophone are in place here, but I think not. It seems to work by bone conduction but more later......

p.s. there is voltage on the electrodes just a few micro amps, but there is a potential.

Subject: Build a GROK for $5.00

There has come a "new device" in the "hear with your skin", parade. Dr. Patrick Flanagan developed the Neurophone in the early sixties and has marketed various production models over the years, at a cost of over a thousand dollars to the latest model which sells for around $700. The Neurophone as it has been described to me and in literature produces a ZERO PHASE WAVE which can be picked up by the skin, enabling one to "hear" through skin. This device was issued a patent #3393279 and investigated at Tufts University. It does not operate by any commonly known principal. I have been wanting a Neurophone for years, and had started saving to finally purchase one for use in releated research.

A new device has recently come on the market claiming to allow one to hear through their skin at a much reduced price. The manufacturer rightly claims no connection with Dr. Flanagan or the Neurophone, and claims that this new device works by an entirely different principle than the Neurophone and indeed it does. The different principle that it works by is called hearing. If you would like to experiment with the GROK BOX you don't need to do as I did and spend $149, actually $160 with shipping and handling, that it took me months to save. Follow these simple directions and you too can have a GROK BOX for $5.00.

1. Dig around in last years christmas stuff and get out a couple of those musical christmas cards, the batteries are probably dead anyway.

2. Remove the piezo-electric elements from the music box circuits.These are the metal disks usually in a white plastic resonating chamber. Be careful not to break the lead that attaches to the ceramic part of the elements. The other lead, to the metal base, you can cut or desolder. Pop the element out of the plastic resonating chamber.

3. Solder the leads from the ceramic part of each element to a piece of phono cable with a mono jack that will fit into the headphone jack of your walkman, one to the signal and one to the ground. Only the one lead from the ceramic portion of each piezo-electric elements should be attached to the phono cable. You are actually forming a series circuit with your body as the middle element.

4. Put the phone plug into the walkman, use a stereo to mono plug adapter, and hold both elements by the metal part, or glue them to a piece of purple cloth as a headband with the metal half out. Your body completes the circuit and the elements begin to vibrate. HEY LOOK MA I'M HEARING WITH MY SKIN.....NOT.

A new update from Terry Bastian (tabastian@bdsnet.com and his webpage is ) http://www.bdsnet.com/~tabastian says the Vahvastin amplifier IC is directly replaceable by an NTE 1115 (also equivalent to an RCA brand SK3184 which sells for $8.59). The piezo electrodes Terry has been experimenting with are Radio Shack #273-073.