Eighty years ago, people still dressed up to listen to the radio, as shown by this RCA ad from the February 6, 1939, issue of Life magazine. This listener is tuning in a standard broadcast station on her RCA model 97K2.  The set also tuned two shortwave bands, 2.3 – 7 MHz and 7 – 22 MHz, but we can see that she is pushing one of the six preset buttons, which were for the standard AM band. In fact, we see that she is pushing one of the two rightmost buttons, which could cover approximately 890-1500 kHz. The first two buttons could be set for 550-950 kHz, and the middle two buttons could be set for 690-1225 kHz.

The set had the following tube lineup: A 6K8 served as first detector and oscillator, with a 6K7 serving as IF amp. A 6H6 served as second detector and AVC, with a 6F5 and 6F6G as audio amplifiers. A 6U5 “magic eye” tube served as tuning indicator, and a 5Y5G in the power supply served as full-wave rectifier. The set featured a dynamic speaker.