Seventy years ago this month, the February 1948 issue of Popular Science showed how to put together this handsome one-tube converter to pull in shortwave signals with a standard broadcast receiver.

The simple circuit, by S.T. Van Esen, W2OXD, was built around a 6BE6 pentagrid converter tube, and tuned 6-16 MHz.  The radio was set to an empty spot on the dial near 1500 kHz, and tuning was accomplished with a tuning dial on the converter.  A second variable capacitor was used to peak the mixer section.

For power, you could tap into the power supply of a transformer set.  Or if the proper voltages were not available, or if an AC-DC set was being used, the schematic for an appropriate power supply was also included.

The article promised the ability to pull in London, Lima, Sydney, Johannesburg, and other sources of news, information, and entertainment that were pouring out of foreign skies.