One hundred years ago this month, the June 1926 issue of Boys’ Life magazine showed scouts how to build this receiver, touted as having a range of 200 miles. But that wasn’t an idle claim. Radio editor Zeh Bouck reported that from his Niagara Falls, NY, location, he was able regularly to pull in Pittsburgh, Springfield, Schenectady, and Chicago, the latter being 450 miles away.

The circuit calls for a carborundum crystal, although Bouck notes that other crystals could be used. If the design, and the carborundum crystal, look familiar, it’s because we previously featured a very similar design, also from Niagara Falls but different authors, in a magazine article two months earlier

Bouck called for an antenna of 100-200 feet. The entire circuit was optimized to be low loss.