Growing up in the 60's mostly.... my Dad ran a production line at EAI in Long Branch, NJ for the 231R vacuum-tube analog computer, from the late 1950's to 1961. He also managed to have a lot of tubes, sockets, resistors, caps, transformers, etc. all setup and labeled in the basement and a nice bench with 3 soldering stations, a Heathkit VTVM, a custom power supply that was all tube based and regulated DC up to 500V and 250ma. Yea... I was spoiled on that side.... He also built a small 2-tube short-wave receiver on an "L" chassis with a speaker.... but the sides, rear and bottom were open. He used the standalone power supply to power it... and held it in his hand.... I tried it once... and got my first electric shock!
I spent too much time in the basement growing up and was able to solder by age 5... not that anything I made really worked, but practice makes perfect. Shortly after that, I would bug Dad to take me to Atkinson & Smith... local electronics supplier, which had an amazing surplus room upstairs... as Fort Monmouth was literally around the corner in Eatontown. That was the U.S. Army Electronics CORCOM center, so they would be getting rid of all kinds of Army electronics and parts regularly.
He also had a small collection of electronic manuals... a 1956 ARRL, some Sylvania and RCA tube manuals and some others... most which I still have to this day.
In any case, I nicked Dad's WW-II headphones for my earliest radio experience... not a cat whisker... but an actual 1N34 germanium diode, a hand-wound coil on a toilet paper tube and a variable capacitor I found in Dad's parts stash. I also nicked a roll of wire and strung about 50 feet out the window to a tree in the back yard for an antenna. The headphones were 2000 ohm impedance and quite sensitive. it was trivial to pick up The Asbury Park Press AM radio station, which was less than 10 miles away... and I'm pretty certain they were pushing over 25KW back then.
This is about as close a pic to what I was using in the 60's to listen to anything I could tune in.
Attachment:
WW2-headphones.jpg [ 62.17 KiB | Viewed 727 times ]
Ah... the good ole days...
In any case.... I would highly recommend getting some decent tools and soldering equipment to anyone who plans on doing hobby stuff around here... great learning, keeps your mind active... eye-to-hand coordination, etc.