Quaker Oats Box Radios.

Wikipedia

With Russia cutting off the internet and banning the news from printing anything negative about the war, their only option for the truth is shortwave. BBC World News Service, Voice of America (Which Trump wanted to strip and pack it with his cronies.), Radio Free Europe.

On the internet I see all these conversion kits to make shortwave radios that have printed circuit boards, integrated chips, and electronic components and directions on how to solder and etch the circuit boards with pages and pages of technical instructions. 

Talk about over engineering it! KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

How about a shortwave radio using a Quaker Oats round carton, earphones, wire, a resistor, a capacitor, and a diode? That’s it.

I built one when I was around ten.

In my day we called a… now get a load of this, a… “Crystal Radio!”

From the Crystal Radio website:

You will need the following items

1   Quaker Oats box (4" Diameter size)

1   Mounting Board (Wood)

1   100 foot spool of #24 or #22 solid plastic insulated wire 

1   Germanium Diode 1n34, 1n34a, 1n60 etc.

1   47K resistor 1/4 or 1/2 watt

1   alligator clip

1   Ceramic Hi Impedance Earphone

  Please remember: A earphone or headphones or "ear buds" from Radio Shack

      etc will not work.  They must be Ceramic "HI Impedance" earphone. NOT the

      kind used on transistor radios)

4   Fahnestock Clips (You could use a machine screw up through the bottom of the board

     and a nut. Then a knurled nut or another nut to tighten the wires down.

1    365 pf Air Variable Capacitor

The website has links to the part suppliers.

Now isn’t that much easier than;

OWNING A SHORTWAVE RADIO IS ONCE AGAIN A SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY