TubeNet

The oldest working receiver I have is an CAY-4677 shipboard receiver from WWII (part of an RBM-4 rig). Made by Westinghouse, covers 2-20 Mhz in 4 bands. I power it from an equally old Western Electric telephone equipment power supply. There's sticker inside saying that it was last serviced in Okinawa in 1944. It's actually very sensitive.

But I'm sure that a bunch of TubeNetters have some very old broadcast receivers using 01-As and powered from A and B batteries.

I can remember lusting after a National HRO or a Collins 75A-4, though. A boyhood dream never realized. I had to make do with a Hammarlund HQ-140X.

I remember back in the 60's, visiting a friend who had just gotten a Drake 1A, marveling at the small size of it and wishing I that had one.

The big problem with my big-box-of-a-receiver HQ-140 was temperature drift. I used to leave it powered 24x7 to combat the problem.

I've been surprised at the prices the old gear's fetching at eBay. The practical side of me has never been tempted to bid on it, given those prices.
----------------
On a whim back then, I decided to try 6 meters. I think I spent every spare buck I had buying high-pass filters for the neighbors' TV sets. I could still wipe out channel 2 on several of them, so eventually I gave that venture up. My receiver was a hacked turret-type TV tuner (when they still had 21 MHz IF's) hooked to the Hammarlund.