heathkit is doing a survey
http://www.heathkit.com/survey
i put in a request that they make a part 15 am transmitter.
hope everyone takes the survey
also see
Why would you suggest that Heatkit make a Part 15 transmitter?
There are plenty of excellent Part 15 transmitters already available.
If too many of them come on the market, the existing manufacturers will lose business.
I am going to advise Heathkit AGAINST making a Part 15 transmitter.
competition forces innovation also helps keeps pricing low.
After thinking about it some more here is what I wish you would do.
Ask Heathkit to make a Carrier Current AM transmitter kit, including a coupler.
THAT is the break that is needed in the Part 15 world.
Another thing, I just found out that Radio Shack's Baby Monitor is now a Wi-Fi device, and they apparently no longer have long wave carrier current baby monitors.
So, the next Part 15 devices Heathkit should develop would be a long wave carrier current device AND a long wave 1-Watt AM transmitter!
Give us products that are missing from the market.
The regular Part 15 AM transmitters are already numerous enough to provide the "competition" that only serves to dillute the market.
How about a field strength meter which will operate at micro power levels?
I tried to get into the survey but had a problem...probably because of the defenses I use with my browser.
I still have and use some HeathKits I have built (Cantenna, code practice oscillator, dip meter) which were quality kits. Also have KnightKits including the AM broadcaster (VTVM, portable radio, signal tracer, electric eye). Gave the KnightKit scope to my High School when I got a better one (scope, that is) and they used it for many years.
It would be nice to see a major kit provider become strong again.
Neil
I attempted to take the Heathkit Survey, but it is based entirely around an assumption of amateur radio and there was no place to enter new kit ideas or make a simple comment explaining what Part 15 radio is all about.
It would be simpler to write them a letter.
I just skipped the ham radio section.
Although I imagine someone with 20/400 vision could be hazardous with a soldering iron.
I wouldn't get too excited about that survey. Heathkit is bankrupt. I wouldn't count on the bankers reading the survey.
Although the survey web page is alive, the main site is a dead end: http://www.heathkit.com
See this ARRL post: http://www.arrl.org/news/heathkit-declares-bankruptcy-closes-for-good-again
I have an HR-10B receiver sitting here and
2 transmitters - a DX-60A and a DX-60B -
all ham radio units - and all at least
40 years old.
Bruce, The DOGRADIO Group
No better time for nostalgia than Memorial Day.
My three Heathkits included a 35-Watt push-pull audio amplifier, a TV set, and a garage door opener.
Of those, I only completed the amplifier.
My main kit supplier was the Eico Company, having built a 50-Watt amplifier, a hi-fi preamplifier, an AM tuner and an FM tuner.
Probably the first kits of all were the three Knight Kits or Allied Radio kits, all phonograph oscillators.
I still have an Allied Radio audio tone generator, but I don't remember if it was a kit or came ready made. I added a 600-ohm balanced output transformer.
Oh.... and here in the afterlife there are the three sstran kits, 2x AMT3000s and 1x AMT5000.
One more memory...
I got a Robert's reel-to-reel tape recorder and completely dismantled and rebuilt the electronics, thinking that my neater build would improve the recordings.
Very cool. I love my Akai R/R tape deck.
So Carl, you built a lot of great stuff.
Kudos to you. Oh - that reminds me of
KUDO 1490 kHz, 50,000 watts days, 1 watt night.
No no, only kidding - another bad joke.
My dad built a Heathkit color TV. It worked
very well the very first time he powered it
up. Although he had to get a whole bunch
of different things into calibration at first.
However - we could not afford the cabinet
for the TV. That was then the neighborhood
joke. It sat in the living room with no case.
Until a neighbor tripped and fell into it.
(Can you imagine how bad that could have been?)
By the time we got the case for the TV, it
didn't work nearly as well. That was years
later.
Bruce, The DOGRADIO Group
Bruce, I have also had neighbors that stumbled around. Despite that, their drink never spilled.
By the 70's and 80's, wired chassis' disappeared from commercial electronics and were replaced by highly automated, surface mount PC boards containing high pin count complex IC's. The labor cost of wired chassis' vaporized. That's what brought us $29 DVD players. A home kit builder could not hope to construct a complex kit with so many components. Just the cost of packaging individual components by a kit seller is way higher then the cost of pick-and-place automatic assembly.
The reality is that the concept of electronic kits is superseded and obsolete, and has been for at least 4 decades.
There are still some kit sellers operating, but they are serving niche markets. I don't think a new reincarnation of the once glorious Heathkit Corp. would stand a snowball's chance of being a viable corporate business like they once were. The best they could hope for is to offer a whole bunch of little niche market kits. They would be competing with a number of existing companies that are now doing that. Selling LED flashers, etc. won't get them the big corporation status like they once had.
Old timers get misty eyed when they think back to the great old Heathkits under their belts, but don't let your misty eyes cloud reality.