Sixty years ago, the British magazine Pracitcal Wireless, August 1955, carried the plans for this “sensitive two-valver” receiver suitable for local broadcast reception. It featured a regenerative detector and one stage of audio amplification sufficient to drive a speaker. It ran off the 230 volt AC mains, but employed a transformer to isolate the chassis. The article noted, however, that it could be used without the isolation transformer, but warned that if constructed without one, “the operator must stand on a dry board when touching metal parts of the live chassis.” The set was designed to be sensitive enough to be used with a short one-foot antenna. The article noted that neither of the alternatives, either “a few feet of wire hanging from the back” or a frame aerial, add to the decorative effects of a room.

The two tubes employed by the set were the EF50, which were probably available in large supply from surplus equipment. The tube, which has been called “the Tube that helped to Win the War,” was a major concern during the early days of the war. It was very versatile with uses in VHF and radar equipment. And it was manufactured by Philips in Holland, which was about to be overrun by the Nazis. Just before the invasion, the British managed to import a truckload of 25,000 of the tubes, along with more of the bases. Philips hurriedly dismantled its Dutch assembly line for transport to England. Members of the Philips family, along with members of the Government, escaped the day before Rotterdam was flattened aboard a British destroyer. They carried with them a wooden box containing the diamond dies that were required to make the tungsten wires inside the tubes.

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