Heathkit was one of the best company's . When I was 11 I put together are first color tv. Heathkit was a mile from my house. Someone from California bought it just for 2 patents. Year later it closed. Was a sad day for kids.
if you are feeling generous to a 70 yr old Ham. I would love one of those HeathKit Receivers I had put one together when I was 15 back in the late 60s and it worked, I had a long wire on our roof that went the whole length of the roof (we had a flat roof). Our house was an end home of a 3-house unit. I put the long wire diagonal from our side of the house to the far corner of the other end house. I also put up a second wired dipole that had equal sides but it was not cut for any band and ran coax to my basement. I also built a tuner out of parts from an old tube TV. The long wire & dipole when tuned brought in stations all day and night. Also, there I've been a ham for 43 years. de N6KV
Well, I don't feel bad about the mess in my shack now. I'm somewhere between your shop and Mr. Carlson's Lab. LOL (And I've got some Heathkit. I built a lot of it when I was younger. It was ALWAYS more costly than to buy a commercial product. But you learned so much by building it yourself.)
I have a shop larger than that. I have probably 30 Eico and Heathkit test equipment I need to restore. I have about 80 old radios I need to restore. I couldn’t imagine having that much stuff. I’m 43 years old and I don’t think I could get to all that stuff in my lifetime. Especially with my other project builds.
I sure miss Heathkit. Built several kits in my teens. Wish they would come back, I would love to build test equipment to help with my vintage audio restorations.
Heathkit had their time in the sun, and that time has ran out. The number one reason whey Heathkit was so popular was the price point. Remember, way back when, labor was a huge part of any product. Heathkit removed the labor, sold a decent product, and you supplied the labor. Today, with robot controlled pick and place machines, SMD designs, there is little labor savings. Thus Heathkit lost its advantage.
Wow my friend wow. It takes much to impress me in my old age. Sir I must say I'm floored.. my best. RON. Z. WA3090SWL.. THE NORTH AMERICAN SHORTWAVE RADIO AND TOY ROBOT MUSEUM.
Oh my gosh. that view of the length of the shake at 11:15 says it all. Way to many projects hauled home from the hunt, and way too little time to get them finished. Pick a few and enjoy.
I like your shop a whole lot. I don't have a lot of stuff, but I do have some odd Heath gear you might not have. Do you have the Heath digital o'scope, or the Heathkit CB, the GW-22? (I built one new when I was a kid in 1964.) I have a few other old Heath things, too. My biz partner used to be a Heath engineer. He has a lot of great stories about it. The perfect job. Design kits all day, then party on the Lake MI beach. I envy him.
I wouldn't consider myself a hoarder. As for selling radios, I rarely do. (does that make me a hoarder??) I have found people tend to offer me way less than what I've paid for the equipment, and there is a huge amount of bench time some of these radios have received. It's hard to recoup that cost, so I simply keep the radios.
Man, when you kick off, your wife is going to have one hellvacious estate sale! I don't have as much stuff as you do, but I think that yours is much better organized. ( That's really embarrassing!)
As best I can tell, you have disappeared into another world. In some ways perhaps a pleasant one, but TTTT I'm not sure English is the operative language here. "Hamspeak"?
Don’t write words you speak. as in gonna, wanna. People using slang expressions never think they’re making it harder for someone who doesn’t have English as a first language to read. Gonna, gotta, wanna, outta, and kinda all represent words as they are pronounced in informal, spoken English. They should not be used in formal writing.
