[exray]

I get a couple stations loud and clear if I connect a long wire to terminal one and hold the other end.

Sounds like a VERY short antenna!

Relying on memory here so anyone else feel free to jump in if I'm wrong.

The normal setup for a single wire antenna would be with the jumper on terminals 2 and 3 and the wire antenna on Terminal 1... 4 is left vacant.

If you're using a twinlead feed the jumper goes from 3 to 4 and then 1 and 2 are your terminals for the feedline.

If your wire antenna is on the order of 75-100 feet it should work fine. Having to leave fingers in place often indicates it needs some alignment tweaking and might also be an indication if you're using a short antenna. A ground is nice to have but doesn't always make that big a difference, you may see the effects at one frequency but not at another.

Philco got a lot of mileage out of this same basic circuit in many models. Its a good performer.