Flights Of Fancy AM receiver wiring
Am going out on a limb here (cannot find a schematic), and you should too, to attach one end of the antenna wire. In the photos for "Flights of Fancy", I see a tapped inductor, an earpiece audio transducer. The diode is small and not easily visible. I do not see a capacitor. Nevertheless, an inductor, diode and headphone are minimum components (in addition to antenna and ground). Some possible schematics:







simulate this circuit &ndash; Schematic created using CircuitLab

The antenna is a long wire whose far end is not connected, but is ideally up high. Ever seen AM antenna site with multiple towers extending 70 M up? That's an ideal length (but less will still give results). The diode is attached to the coil somewhere along its length to give best volume. Diode direction does not matter. The speaker must be a coil-of-wire type that reacts with a permanent magnet. Modern headphones are of the correct type, but have too-low impedance to give much volume. Old high-impedance headphones are ideal.
Note that a ground connection is very necessary. A connection to metallic plumbing distribution is fine but any plastic parts along the path to outside ground will reduce effectiveness. Metal fencing usually has long runs that make it attractive for ground. On my wall outlets, a single screw attaches the plastic cover plate - that's a decent ground as well, because all my boxes hidden in the wall are grounded metal. However, a curious child might try plugging into the outlet resulting in disaster.