L1 and the hand-made capacitor are arranged in a tank circuit. One side is connected to an antenna. The other, to ground. A short-wave radio can be used to help find the resonant frequency. A multi-meter can be used to measure the voltage between the coil and the antenna. I’m seeing 5.028Mhz (or thereabouts) which corresponds to my crude cap and coil measurements. The Q appears to be quite high, which makes sense since the L1 coil is only 10 turns of #20 copper wire and hence its resistance is very small. The basket weave also probably is a huge benefit for high Q values for this tank circuit. I realize that the coilpacitor is more than that. It is also an antenna too. So its a coilpacitortenna? LOL. Radio engineers of his day were very clever this way.
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