Dick, I think from your description of the CG receiver and this receiver kit that they are the same design. While the box says transistor, there is in deed a small 1AG4 tube in the design. I think that just having a transistor in the circuit in 1956 was a novelty, and this receiver has two. Fortunately these tubes are still available. This receiver is what is called a "regenerative" or possibly a "super regenerative" receiver. As such, they are not particularly selective, and depends on positive feedback to amplify the RF signal. CG did not supply a schematic with the kit, just a wiring diagram and printed circuit card, so I will have to draw that out. These type of receiver might broadcast a stronger signal than they detect.
The FCC gave additional frequencies for hobby use in 1957 or 1958 in addition to 27.255 Mc then used. This required the development of the superhet receivers. Hetrodyne receivers employ a crystal controlled oscillator that mixes with the incoming RF signal that is filtered in an I.F. stage that employs tuned filters with gain stages before detection to the baseband signal of interest. All of this would have been very difficult with tubes (bulky, heavy, battery drain), but by then transistors were driving tubes out of the market. I mentioned this in passing in the first post, gain blocks or amplifiers were very limited in the early tube designs, but transistors changed every aspect of design. The advent of selective receivers and more frequencies plus rechargeable batteries along with battery replacement switching power supplies were hot trends in the late '50's. Tubes held on for a while because they were better at high frequencies than affordable transistors.
Perhaps some of you noticed I have been using the defunct Mc which stood for Mega-cycles. I think is was around 1960 or so that the SI term Hertz came into use. Many think the Metric system is better or easier, especially with regard to distance measurements of something related to the length three seed of barley laid end to end being an inch. But the meter is 1/1000 of a Kilometer, and it so happens that the original definition of the Kilometer was that the distance between the north axis of the Earth rotation and the equator was exactly 10,000 Kilometers. It seems easier to find three kernels of barley and work up from there....over a cold beer which is a byproduct of malted barley. Which is another term for germinated barley. Which meant it got wet and was going to rot through a fermentation process.