Harrison 302 theremin antenna change

"Art, I have no direct experience with the 302, but have you considered perhaps spacing the plates farther apart and enlarging the fields?"

To my experience the plates are optimally placed, although I prefer to set them at an angle for seated play, and the "fields" are adequate for play throughout a seven octave range and if one pushes it, more. No one wants the top octave anyway.

If one is concerned with the volume hand interfering with the pitch hand I have found no such issues and even if one did have such issues making the volume field tight and close with a range of two to three inches eliminates any possibility of interference and also enables staccato play. If you restrict the range of the volume hand its motion has little influence on pitch.

There are thereminists who play pitch by moving their pitch hand to the left and right just above, and parallel to, the cabinet . Anyone using this kind of technique could have issues if they were to move too close to the volume field. French thereminist Claude-Samuel Levine is one of several musicians who play in this way.

I don’t think this method is the most efficient way to play the theremin but what the heck, NO RULES. 

The rule is proximity, not direction.

"Art, I have no direct experience with the 302, but have you considered perhaps spacing the plates farther apart and enlarging the fields?"

Hi Dewster,

Making instruments which reliably detect large hand distances and still provide reasonable linearity, along with other merits such as low noise and drift, often increases the design complexity. Doing so usually requires more circuitry and an increased current budget that makes batteries less practical. This instrument is designed for the practical span of the musician's hand distances, while retaining portability and exceedingly low energy consumption. The 9 volt alkaline battery will last about 24 hours.

Here's a typical rendition on a 302: It's All in the Game (Charles Dawes, Carl Sigman 1911/1951)

"Making instruments which reliably detect large hand distances and still provide reasonable linearity, along with other merits such as low noise and drift, often increases the design complexity. Doing so usually requires more circuitry and an increased current budget that makes batteries less practical. This instrument is designed for the practical span of the musician's hand distances, while retaining portability and exceedingly low energy consumption. The 9 volt alkaline battery will last about 24 hours."

My bipolar Colpitts oscillator is pretty simple and only draws ~0.3mA @ 3.3V including output buffer: [LINK]

A high Q coil gives pretty good voltage swing at the antenna.