I think when I heard it (from a radio ham in the 80s) he was using bales of fence wire in his loft as his coil. Still that detail about powering the lights (not the whole house) though.
Hams used to put light bulbs on the end of their antennas to light up when they keyed down due to the standing wave on the antenna having high voltage at the end. I suspect that was part of the illusion and the story. It is however pointless and frowned upon as it’s actually detuning the antenna.
