Eighty years ago this month, the February 1937 issue of Popular Mechanics carried the plans for this “hurricane receiver.”

Even though it required only about $5 worth of parts to build, the ultracompact set would serve as a rugged portable set which could pull in news during emergencies such as hurricanes. The set, both B+ and filaments, required only 6 volts, and could be run off dry cells for about 12 hours, or from a 6 volt car battery for about 75 hours.

The circuit was a regenerative detector followed by one stage of audio amplification to drive headphones. A 25 foot antenna was recommended, and the set was able to pull in stations up to 500 miles away.

If this set looks familiar, it’s because we’ve featured it here before.  After the plans were published in Popular Mechanics, the set was available as a kit from the  1939 Allied Radio catalog, as we featured in an earlier post.  We’ve also covered an updated 1943 version of the set, which was billed as a wartime emergency blackout set.