My dad had one of these
He always talked about listening to Hitler on shortwave in the late 30s - he couldn't understand a word, but it was very chilling.
We used to listen to this radio as kids
http://ia700500.us.archive.org/6/items/ctvc/ctvc_ZENITH.ogv
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I listened to English language broadcasts. A lot of it was radio magazine stuff, rather like NPR, but also world news.
My old man considered short wave to be a commie propaganda tool, and some of it probably was (radio Havana which rebroadcast Radio Hanoi "the voice of Vietnam"
.
But the news about the war in Vietnam even from BBC and Canada didn't square with the story on television. I was dumb enough to repeat the things I heard at the dinner table.
After a couple of months my SW listening came to an end with him stomping on it and throwing it in the trash.
Not the same.... but my dad was a ham radio operator! 
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