If you were lucky enough to have in your wartime junkbox a dual triode such as the 6C8G, you could turn it into a regenerative receiver suitable for both broadcast and shortwave bands.  This circuit was sent in to the March 1943 issue of Radio Craft by one Leo Silber of Springfield, Mass., who appears to have been a high school senior at the time.  It used one half of the tube as a rectifier, with the other half serving as a regenerative detector. To deliver the filament voltage, the set used a 390 ohm “curtain burner” line cord. With four plug-in coils, the set would cover 500 to 15 meters.

Mr. Silber reported that the set pulled in signals from all over the world. His best DX was apparently logged before the War, KC4USB at Little America.  He doesn’t appear to have been licensed before the War, but the 1949 call book shows him as holding W1NRP.  A 1981 biography is available at this link.

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