Heathkit returns!

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
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3Green
Wow!

http://www.eetimes.com/discussion/b...t-returns-?cid=NL_Embedded&Ecosystem=embedded

I used to pore over their catalog as a kid and imagine building my own TV or stereo!

What was their "aviation roots"?

Reader George Farmer alerted me that Heathkit will resume selling electronics kits. Heathkit was once famous as a – or perhaps the - purveyor of electronics kits of all sorts. Though the company got its start in the aviation business, the tsunami of cheap surplus electronic components after World War II pushed the company into the kit business.
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www.heathkit.com says:

YOU THE KIT BUILDERS HAVE SPOKEN!

Thank you for your overwhelming response to our announcement that Heathkit is back into the Do-it-Yourself kits business. We received many great suggestions for kits you would like to build.

We will be releasing Garage Parking Assistant kit (GPA-100) in late September and soon after the Wireless Swimming Pool Monitor kit will be available.

Based on your input, we are looking at developing amateur radio kits. Our goal is to have kits available by the end of year.

Please keep your suggestions coming so that we can continue to bring you interesting, unique Heathkit products.
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TangoWhiskey said:
Wow!

http://www.eetimes.com/discussion/b...t-returns-?cid=NL_Embedded&Ecosystem=embedded

I used to pore over their catalog as a kid and imagine building my own TV or stereo!

What was their "aviation roots"?
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Extensive, actually.
http://www.heathkit.nu/heathkit_nu_HeathStory.html
Heath built his first airplane in 1909, and it wasn't until the 1930s that the company he started (after several name changes and restructurings) started in the electronics business, making avionics.
 
OK! Got it! I've heard of the Heath Parasol, but never connected it with the electronics company with "Heath" in the name... cool!
 
We had an actual Heathkit retail store across the street from the post office where my uncle worked. He always planned to buy a TV kit for me to build for him.

I built a FM tuner, a "portable" AM/FM radio and several electronics geeks projects, including a DVVM. Wonder why I don't still have that stuff. My mom must have tossed it.... Oh, yeah! I still have the heath soldering iron which they tell you how bootstrap-build by using the soldering iron to build the soldering iron.

My claim to geek fame: I broke a coil on the FM tuner and brought it to the store for the replacement part, which, amazingly they had. The manager says I could just work on it on their bench. So I open it up as I note that I did a pretty good and neat soldering job he walks by and says, "That's a good looking job you did." Grins.

Can you imagine any aspect of that today?

The problem with Heathkits way back then, when Zenith TVs were built by hand, was the mass-produced stuff could be much cheaper than all the design work and putting all the parts and instructions into it a kit. Now that even Sony builds stuff for $35 in China there's no way a kit can be in the same arena.

Imagine the Heathkit HeathPod MP3 player that's 1/2 a pound, paperback sized with 1GB of storage, no, a 90GB hard drive, for only $599.
 
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At one point I had eighteen Heathkits!

Maybe they should sell airplane kits. :)
 
Within 2 minutes I can put my hands on my Heath VTVM & a Heath frequent. Counter.
 
My audiophile dad got me started on Heathkits in the very early 1960s. Around that time, though, he became more fond of the rival Dynakit products.

In 1963 I was one of five students in my junior high school working on a team project to build a ... computer!!!

:eek:

It was a Heathkit EC-1. One of the others among the five of us went on to be a bigwig at Texas Instruments with an armload of patents to his credit. I can truthfully say I helped him build his first computer.
 
The description of the EC-1 is incorrect. Analog computers continued in vogue for a number of problems well into the 80's. I remember decommissioning the analog-digital hybrid we had at Martin for some of the aerodynamics work.

I was part of the team that ported UNIX to the Denelcor HEP supercomputer, which originally was going to be a hybrid but it was determined that fast numerical calculation could do the fluid dynamics problems that they were building it for.

Still I remember my Heathkit 19-in-1 or whatever it was experimenters kits (with the springs) and my code oscillator and then a whole slew of ham gear: HW-16, HG-10, HR-10, DX-60, etc...

No Heath VTVM for me. My grandfather gave me an RCA Senior Volt-Ohmist (Monster of a thing) early on.

I worked at a lab that had a H-11 (Heath's repackaging of the DEC LSI-11) and perhaps one of the two worst computer termianls I've ever had the misfortune of using...the H-9. The thing didn't have premade keycaps, you stuck labels to blank keys. The thing couldn't do lower case and if you happened to send it lower case unlike other similar units, it didn't j ust print them in upper case, it showed gibberish on the screen.

I do remember they had an aircraft strobe kit that you built and sent back to them for certification.

Of course if you wanted to play kits with avionics, there was always Jim Wier (the 'd' is silent) and RSTTechnologies.
 
I looked at a 58 Comanche that the owner had kit built a vor receiver for. There was an analog needle that showed signal strength, and some lights that were supposed to show which side of the course you were on. Weirdest thing I've ever seen in a panel.
Don't think is was Heathkit though.
 
Pilawt said:
My audiophile dad got me started on Heathkits in the very early 1960s. Around that time, though, he became more fond of the rival Dynakit products.

In 1963 I was one of five students in my junior high school working on a team project to build a ... computer!!!

:eek:

It was a Heathkit EC-1. One of the others among the five of us went on to be a bigwig at Texas Instruments with an armload of patents to his credit. I can truthfully say I helped him build his first computer.
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Not many computers that you can say sell for more now ($660 winning bid) than their original cost ($400), especially 51 years later.
 
denverpilot said:
Heathkit HW-101 was my first HF rig.
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HW-8 for me. But I think the first kit I built was the code side-tone generator and practice oscillator.

I still have a Heath Kit clock and power supply that I use. I also have a couple of unbuilt Heath Kit test equipment pieces in my basement.
 
Pilawt said:
My audiophile dad got me started on Heathkits in the very early 1960s. Around that time, though, he became more fond of the rival Dynakit products.

In 1963 I was one of five students in my junior high school working on a team project to build a ... computer!!!

:eek:

It was a Heathkit EC-1. One of the others among the five of us went on to be a bigwig at Texas Instruments with an armload of patents to his credit. I can truthfully say I helped him build his first computer.
Click to expand...

The hot audiophile amp kits were David Haffler. A friend built 2 DH 500 's bridged mono to drive each side through some giant Klipsch speakers.
Great sound.
 
Pilawt said:
My audiophile dad got me started on Heathkits in the very early 1960s. Around that time, though, he became more fond of the rival Dynakit products...
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I remember that name. ... Oh, yeah! I still have the Dynakit PAT-4 pre-amp!

Chip Sylverne said:
The hot audiophile amp kits were David Haffler. A friend built 2 DH 500 's bridged mono to drive each side through some giant Klipsch speakers.
Great sound.
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I still have my 100 WATT* Haffler solid state stereo power amp that I built from a kit, although it came with factory assembled boards and you just wired them together.

I had one dead channel so I sent it in for repair writing "What did I do wrong?" They just sent it back fully working. :dunno: I say they sold me one with a bad board. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Now that you mention it I think I recall that mine can be bridged to be mono and I had planned to get a second one someday. I'd need 4 for Quad. :D Now 15 for 7+1.

*I've read that what we called 100 watts back in the day would smoke today's alleged 150 or 200 watt home theater systems. Along the way they lost interest in features like raw power over having more HDMI inputs and measure it differently or something.
 
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mikea said:
I remember that name.



I still have my 100 WATT* Haffler solid state stereo power amp that I built from a kit, although it came with factory assembled boards and you just wired them together.
.
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The 100's were easy. The 500's came with lots of little bags of caps, transistors and resistors.

Both sounded great though. You could use an NAD preamp and get very clean signal for dirt cheap. Of course, you had to forego all the shiny chrome and bouncy led's.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
The 100's were easy. The 500's came with lots of little bags of caps, transistors and resistors.

Both sounded great though. You could use an NAD preamp and get very clean signal for dirt cheap. Of course, you had to forego all the shiny chrome and bouncy led's.
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I built a DH-200 and a DH-500 and used the 200 for my home systems and a monitor amp for the stage setup. The DH-500 we used for the mains-Klipch LaScalla copies.

Man those were great amps.

John
 
A tube audio amplifier would be nice. I suspect that will not happen due to the lethal voltages in that type of electronics.
 
There is an online museum. I was never good at putting things together. No patients. I made many a plastic or metal car, boat, or plane model and usually finished them in hours rather than days. If you moved them, parts shed like leaves in the fall. Mom stopped dusting them and got me a feather duster \, ordering me to do it every week.
My interest in models soon waned.
 
flyingron said:
The description of the EC-1 is incorrect. Analog computers continued in vogue for a number of problems well into the 80's. I remember decommissioning the analog-digital hybrid we had at Martin for some of the aerodynamics work.
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You had one, too? We had one in the EE department at WSU in the early 1970s. I didn't know of anybody who used it as a hybrid. I took a semester long class on how to program the analog half, and was one of a handful who ever touched the digital half. You had to be desperate to use that part.

I built a few Heathkits over the years. My GR-64 SW receiver is out in the garage and still works fine, after 40 years. I've got a solid state AM receiver that is still in daily use as the radio in the bathroom. Built a 21 inch TV in 1975 (it was expensive even in 1975) and dumped it when when the picture tube gave up 15 years or so later. Still have a few other Heathkits around, as well. And my first HF rig was an SB-100 that I bought well used. It needs new 6146s.

I think surface mount technology helped kill Heathkit. A man has got to know his limitations and I'm not about to play with that stuff on my workbench. Good to see them make a comeback. I enjoyed building their kits "back in the day". :D
 
tlglenn said:
I remember building a Heathkit PC at school back in third grade. I got to use a solder gun. That was cool.
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Gun? Gawd, I hope not. Soldering guns are have too high heat for PC boards.
 
tlglenn said:
I remember building a Heathkit PC at school back in third grade. I got to use a solder gun. That was cool.
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One like this, perchance?
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They DID know how to make great keyboards back then. Beats the **** out of trying to type on an iPad.
 

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