Or at least I am darn sure I could still make a
crystal set the hard way
The amazing thing some WWII POWs did was to make a radio detector
with a rusty blue razor blade and a short piece of pencil carbon.
Or was that some Poles. Poked around with the razor blade to hit
an actively-rectifying spot, ala galena cat's whisker.
That's (partly) what I meany by 'the hard way'. Using a ready made diode
is the easy way (although I'll bet a fair few so-called engineers
couldn't make an AM receiver even using such a diode).
Another detector that was tried was similar to the normal galena + cats
whisker one, but using a lump of coke (the fuel, OK :-)) instead of the
galena. Apparently if you get the right spot it'll work as a poor diode.
-tony