[Mishmash] Whatever Happened To Heathkit?

[Fred Atkinson]

>   I'm with you, Fred.  My first ham rig, way back when, was a
> Heathkit DX-20, a little two-tube box
> running a 6CL6 oscillator/multiplier driving a 6DQ6A sweep tube final
> to about 50 watts in. When I got
> my general and was no longer rock-bound, I added a Heath VF-1 VFO
> and, built from scratch out of an
> article in Popular Electronics, a one-tube Heising amplitude
> modulator that I could run with the
> -20 at about 30 watts in.   This was the golden era of sunspots,
> circa 57-60, when 30 watts of AM
> would get you 30 over nine reports out of the West Coast and 50 watts
> of CW would literally
> work the world with now (given the sad state of sunspots) incredible
> way-over-S9 reports.

    My first novice rig was a Globe Scout (that we never got to work very
well, me and my 'Elmer').

    I went to another hamfest, sold it and got a Heathkit DX-60A.

    When I became a novice, the 'rock bound' rule had been lifted.  But I
didn't have a VFO so I was rock bound anyway.

    It took me quite a bit until I got it right.  But I finally got it
working.

    A good friend of mine loaned me an old Hammarlund HQ-129X, which was a
hot (though somewhat out of date) receiver.  I later bought a Hammarlund
HQ-110A receiver, which did well for me until I got my General and I craved
working SSB on HF and FM on VHF.

> Ah, those were the days.

    That they were.

> And I remember well the assembly manuals they furnished: Connect R9
> to terminal 1 (NS).  :-)

     Heathkit manuals were thorough.  There was no doubt about that.  And
they were easy to understand.

> And for all those to whom all this might as well be Greek, sorry.  My
> inner geek is showing.

    And mine.

> Fred, Bill and maybe a few others understand.

    There's no doubt there.

    I miss the old days where you really had to hussle to get your license.
It was more accomplishment than it is now.

    The standards have been run down by the money hungry manufacturers and
their lobbying efforts.  No you don't have to learn Morse code.  No, you
don't have to take a difficult test.  No this.  No that, etc..

> Dick

    Regards,





Fred


> Richard Barth *** W3HWN(at)ARRL.NET *** Silver Spring, MD
>
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