My first shortwave radion. My brother built it for me when I was about 13-14 years old. I was just blown away with the hobby and lucky to have an older brother to help me. Ken
I woked at Heathkit in St. Joseph, Michigan for 25 years. My first job was in the service department. I repaired many a GR-64. A great radio for the time.
I built one of these as a kid. Loved the product of my labor! I added a planetary control drive to the Bandwidth control, making it very fine tuning (50 turns of knob to go from 1 to 10 on the indicator) Really opened up my world!
I really enjoyed your video Jeff. I built a GR-64 when I was 14 years old and used it to learn morse code. It was the first kit I ever built. I went to sleep many nights listening to hams operating AM on 75 meters. I'm pretty sure I paid $37.50 for my GR-64. It was just a few dollars less than the Knight-Kit Star Roamer. I still have mine and you've inspired me to get it cleaned up and operational. Thanks!
Ah, my first rig; I built it when I was around 14. I built and used a Heathkit Q-Multiplier to improve the signal for amateur radio, particularly those using SSB. I had a the antenna leads connected to a piece of coax that went up to the roof of our 15 story apartment building in Brooklyn. I had no problem receiving communications from around the world and had a nice collection of QSL cards from both Hams and commercial SW radio stations.
I love this video. My Dad built this very same radio for me I'm guessing sometime in the late 50's. Still have the radio in wrap, and I haven't used it in over 50 years. It is in pristine condition, and this vid just might inspire me to fire it up after all of these years. Thanks for sharing!
Great video! I, too, built this kit @ 12 yo. Had a lot of fun with it. I later purchased the "Q" Multiplier kit, but never fully understood how to use it! Living in Michigan, about 45 miles from Heathkit in Benton Harbor, I actually took the rig to the factory to have a tech look at it! He said it was all ok. You have a nice collection of Heathkit radios!
This is the first Heathkit I built way back in 1969. I was 15 then. One thing led to another, thanks to Heathkit and later having it motivate me to get in to amateur radio by listening to shortwave radio with this product. I recall trading it in at Henry Radio for a Hammerlund HQ110 and a Drake 2NT transmitter. My parents used to give visitors a "tour" of my bedroom "radio shack" which really provided encouragement. I built the Q Multiplier for the radio too. Not a great addition but entertaining to play with. In the end, I obtained an Electronics Engineering degree and worked for a large computer company for a 35 year career. What fun it was to build these kits! It is unfortunate that this era has passed in that it enabled so many people to experiment with electronics and pursue interests that could later become a lifetime career. Thank you for posting this video. It's a step in to the "wayback machine" that brings a great nostalgic feeling.
It's funny how, in childhood, one could convince one's self that receivers like this were amazing DX machines. I sometimes wish I could still be thrilled to have something so simple.
As a kid, I asked for one of these for Christmas a looong time ago, and my parents bought it and stuck it on a high shelf in their closet where of course I stared at it long and hard many times until Christmas finally arrived. Worked great the first time, and I was able to pick up the BBC North America broadcast from our home in Connecticut. In a recent wave of nostalgia, I've just bought one on eBay and hope to get it working! Wished I had saved my original as I took great care in building it. I even had the Q-multiplier!
My Dad and I built one of these in 1965. Well actually he built and I made the twisted wire pairs. I still have it and it still works but needs some better alignment.
Great, enjoyable, video! It's kind of amusing to think that this radio is now picking up shortwave stations for probably the first time since it was built! I do wish, though, that you had demoed the SSB ability (or lack thereof) with the BFO. You did say that it was frustrating to use, but it would have been kind of neat to have experienced it a little.
I had one of these. My first Shortwave radio. Had poor performance really, It used to pick up Top Band in the medium wave section better than where it should have but this takes me back.
My dad and I put one of these together back in the day. He didn't like the S meter reading backwards so he built a circuit that reversed it so that 10 was max strength.
I can’t get audio on any frequency. I do not know what the issue could be. I’ve looked through it and everything looks good. I don’t know what the issue could be. Any suggestions?
There are some partial copies of the Heathkit manual online. The manual has a "In Case of Difficulty" section thats lists symptoms and possible causes. The schematic diagram also lists expected voltages that can help diagnose problems, if you have a multimeter to make measurements. Use caution as there are high voltages present!
check your wiring on the s-meter. mine works properly. 0 at the bottom=no signal, and strong signals send the needle towards the 10. this one has a green and black twisted pair, with the black on top and green on bottom. W4ATF
Both Heathkit and Realistic (Radio Shack) made many models of shortwave receivers with a wide range of performance and price. It only really makes sense to compare particular models, not the manufacturers.
I'm sorry for so many questions. I am deciding on an Ebay purchase between a HEATHKIT GR-64 (valve) or a Realistic DX-160 (transistorized). Which one is the best?? THANKS
The DX-160 is a more modern receiver and should offer better performance and be more reliable. It looks like a service manual is available so you could repair or align it.
