My uncle gave me one of those crystal radio kits, the antenna wire wouldn't reach the tree so it ended up in triangle configuration on the side of the house. Soon I was making my own each with some improvement, even making detectors from scrounged galena potted in scrounged lead. The only station I could get well enough to listen to was WOR which eventually led to my sig line.

BTW, my tongue made a good battery tester until...
"I can not shake the taste of blood in my mouth"
I discovered a 90V B battery was just a little TOO much.

"My father and I had to go back through it and fix about a million cold solder joints."
Sounds like the time we replaced the plumbing in grandma's house. Uncle couldn't sweat a joint to save his life, when we turned on the water it looked like he'd installed a sprinkler system.