This young man is pulling in the shortwaves courtesy of an extremly simple circuit which appeared in the Spring 1962 issue of Radio-TV Experimenter.
The radio consisted of a crystal set, feeding into an audio amplifier module. The amplifiers were available from Lafayette and other retailers, and drove a speaker. The receiver itself consisted of just a germanium diode, along with coil and capacitor. The coil is wound on a ferrite core, and is seen protruding from the top of the set.
Despite the simplicity, the author was able to pull in signals from the strong European shortwave broadcasters with only a short antenna and ground. The set tuned about 3.5 to 7 MHz.