[Arran]

 I can't understand why they would take such measures as mechanically sabotaging the front end of a radio to render the short wave inoperable. All that would be required to disable the short wave would be to disconnect one end of one of the mica caps in the oscillator tank circuit, or even just to shunt part of the oscillator tank circuit to ground, come to think of it they could accomplish this by soldering a jumper across a trimmer.
 This whole campaign was all nonsense of course, real spies were not about to turn in whatever radios they had anymore then they would have handed over pistols or dynamite. Most of their communications were carried out by mail anyhow, through a code, maybe they could have sent them some secret messages by shortwave broadcasts but why bother when it was all one way? I think this is an ancestor of the "security theater" you see at airports today, just to make people think that something is being done or are contributing to the war effort in some way when it really accomplishes nothing. This was how daylight saving time was foisted on us, something that we go through the motions of dealing with twice a year but really serves no tangible purpose.
Regards
Arran