This is nice. Even with all of the other objectively more impressive technology we use on a daily basis, simple radio circuits still seem like magic to me. If

This is nice. Even with all of the other objectively more impressive technology we use on a daily basis, simple radio circuits still seem like magic to me. If you would like to play with a "one transistor" receiver, check out the Armstrong regenerative receiver. This circuit uses a single gain element as tuned oscillator/RF amplifier. The output is inductively coupled back in to the circuit for re-amplification. Since the circuit is tuned, this increases selectivity as well as gain. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_circuit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_circuit Edwin Armstrong invented this when he was in college and vacuum tubes were quite expensive. One gain element handles oscillation, amplification, and demodulation for obvious economy. Despite this, performance is quite good. The ARRL published an easy-to-build transistorized version a while back: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/0009061.pdf http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/00090... This circuit is much harder to tune than it is to build. Once you master the steady hand action required (and learn not to move once you find a signal), you can easily pull in overseas shortwave broadcasts with a wire antenna. Here's a short audio clip of me tuning my version of the ARRL regen receiver across a shortwave broadcast band: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2541109/regen_tune.mp3 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2541109/regen_tune.mp3