Who has constructed one or more Heath or Archer kits?

[tous]

The mention of Radio Shack in another thread reminded me of the Archer kits you could get there.

Who else has  built an Archer kit or especially a Heath kit?

Me, I finished dozens of them, the largest was a Heathkit color television my father and I built.

It was neato.  Had its own internal pattern generator to check the circuits.

Edited October 18, 2018 by tous

[Cubdriver]

I've lost count of the ArcherKits I put together - plenty of the old P-box kits they used to sell, various radios, a metal detector, my first analog meter...  As for Heathkits, I think my first was (believe it or not!) an oscilloscope I put together over the summer between 8th grade and freshman year of high school.  Also built a digital meter, clock, timing/advance light and several others long since lost in my foggy memory.  (I do still have that old single channel 5MHz scope squirreled away downstairs...)

-Pat

[blackjack]

I did one Heathkit - a Morse code oscillator for code practice. Never did learn the code, still on my list of things I'd like to do. 

[janice6]

I have built so many I have no count available.

I got to the point that when the printed the schematic of the item in the catalog along with the description, I would build it on my own, from that.

[RenoF250]

My dad built quite a few, he did our TV when I was a kid.  I think was involved a bit.  He said it was much more pre-assembled vs. the other kits he had done.  This was probably ~1984.

[Historian]

Built a couple radios with them: 

Among them the HW-10 Shawnee transceiver.

73s.

[Borg warner]

My dad built a Heathkit stereo in 1959 with a tuner, an amplifier, a turntable and two speakers. He also found a cabinet for everything that housed the tuner and amp, had a hinged lid on top for the turntable and cabinets with sliding doors for record storage. I don't remember where he got the cabinet but it was top quality and looked like it was cherry wood and was very plain and elegant and would be fashionable even today. The Speakers were Heathkit with 10 inch woofers, a 4 inch midrange and a tweeter and had Good sound quality. He mounted them on legs to match the height of the cabinet and stained the speakers to match the cabinet. My dad played trumpet with a big band orchestra in the 1950's and had a nice collection of records particularly those of Louis Armstrong. even some 45 RPM singles like "Blueberry Hill" and "Jeepers Creepers".

The amp was a tube type and had very good sound quality and I used it later with a 150 watts per channel  Pioneer receiver that had a "Center Channel" output and used one of  the Heathkit speakers for the center channel and used two gargantuan Pioneer 4 way speakers with 16 inch woofers along with it. At the time I had this set-up I lived in a converted garage in a commercial district behind son stores and at night after the stores were closed I could crank the stereo full volume, the pioneer receiver also had an interesting feature called "vibrasonic" which added an echo effect.,

I was able to buy the Pioneer equipment at about half price directly from Japan in the early seventies when I had an APO address.

Here's some of the music I used to like to listen to on that Heathkit stereo:

 

[dudel]

I built some of the Allied Radio kits known as "Knight-Kit".  Walkie Talkies and test equipment IIRC.

Allied Radio and Lafayette  had two of the best catalogs.  I would pour over them.  Allied Radio was in Chicago.  I had a Grandmother and an Aunt who lived in Chicago.  They would get me stuff there.

Edited October 18, 2018 by dudel

[dudel]

You can relive your past here!

http://nostalgickitscentral.com/

Edited October 18, 2018 by dudel

[gwalchmai]

I've eaten a lot of Heath bars. That count?

[tous]

Those were times, eh, lads?

You and your father building stuff, he checking and making sure you learned to do it right.

I remember when Dad let me use the Simpson 260 meter to trace the current.  I felt like a real grown-up.

 

Thanks, Dad, for all of the times you patiently taught me. 

[Cubdriver]

18 minutes ago, tous said:

Those were times, eh, lads?

You and your father building stuff, he checking and making sure you learned to do it right.

I remember when Dad let me use the Simpson 260 meter to trace the current.  I felt like a real grown-up.

 

Thanks, Dad, for all of the times you patiently taught me. 

My parents got me interested in pushing electrons when I was in fifth grade  - they made the mistake of giving me two electronic project books that Christmas.  I'm sure in the near term they lived to regret it, as pretty much from then on there were dismantled television sets scattered about the house, but it's kept me employed since HS.  My father was a machinist and forever tinkering with cars, so I got my mechanical inclinations from him. The electronics I picked up more or less on my own.  (And I've moved on from dismantled TV sets and my house now looks like a vintage HP/Tektronix instrument graveyard.)

Fun times.

The most recent kit I've put together was the VTA ST-70 amplifier clone I built about four years ago - that one included my first foray into powder coating.

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

Oh, and I just remembered another Heathkit - built a tube tester over the summer between Freshman and Sophomore year.  Still have and occasionally use that, too.

-Pat

Edited October 18, 2018 by Cubdriver
Typo

[janice6]

2 hours ago, dudel said:

I built some of the Allied Radio kits known as "Knight-Kit".  Walkie Talkies and test equipment IIRC.

Allied Radio and Lafayette  had two of the best catalogs.  I would pour over them.  Allied Radio was in Chicago.  I had a Grandmother and an Aunt who lived in Chicago.  They would get me stuff there.

On one visit to my father's family in Illinois, he took me to the Allied Radio main store.  They had theater seats for you to wait in for your over the counter orders.  It was pretty nice for an Electronics store.

I also mail ordered from Burnstein and Appleby's.  I remember on one order I received a check for 3 cents for an overpayment.  Yes.  I cashed it in the bank just to cost them money!

[janice6]

I also had a EICO VTVM from a kit.

[tous]

We discussed who had the Gilbert microscopes and chemistry sets before, but I remember my first Edmunds Scientific catalog and all of the marvelous things in it I had no idea existed.

It was almost better than the wimmin's underwear pages in the Sear's catalogue.

Got first telescope around 1962, I think.

My poor father had to become an astronomer to answer my bazillion questions, he finally just told me, Go to the library.

Oh, for a few more days, building stuff with Dad.

[janice6]

In my family, it was my mother that turned me to science.  One day she came home with a Philmore Crystal radio from God knows where.  But from then on I was hooked.  

One of the first things I learned was that since Ground and Antenna's were relative terms, my best Antenna was the hot water radiators in the house.  I got curious about the Galena Crystal and why it worked, so off to the college library near our house.

I got so many electrical shocks growing up, I don't respond to them anymore.  Which reminds me that Earl Bakken of Medtronics fame used to frequent our Prototype lab and to feel if the power was applied to something he had to wet his fingers first.  Those were good days.

As a young lad, it was comforting to sit late at night working DX on the ham radio, with the power transformers humming and the heat and light of the tube filaments, it was almost as though the Electronics were alive.

 

 

[Historian]

41 minutes ago, tous said:

 

My poor father had to become an astronomer to answer my bazillion questions, he finally just told me, Go to the library.

I had one of those moments last night when my 4th grader asked about how they first measured the speed of light. As a history of science junkie she got a 3 minute lecture that resulted in the wife asking for a translation into English.

Great times.

We need more electronics kits. Somewhere I saw a build your own enigma coding machine kit. You too can pretend to be a uboat commander!

Edited October 18, 2018 by Historian

[tous]

Thanks for sharing the memories, amigos.

We had some great childhoods, and fathers and mothers.

Edited October 18, 2018 by tous

[Cubdriver]

40 minutes ago, janice6 said:

In my family, it was my mother that turned me to science.  One day she came home with a Philmore Crystal radio from God knows where.  But from then on I was hooked.  

One of the first things I learned was that since Ground and Antenna's were relative terms, my best Antenna was the hot water radiators in the house.  I got curious about the Galena Crystal and why it worked, so off to the college library near our house.

I got so many electrical shocks growing up, I don't respond to them anymore.  Which reminds me that Earl Bakken of Medtronics fame used to frequent our Prototype lab and to feel if the power was applied to something he had to wet his fingers first.  Those were good days.

As a young lad, it was comforting to sit late at night working DX on the ham radio, with the power transformers humming and the heat and light of the tube filaments, it was almost as though the Electronics were alive.

 

 

I loves me some vacuum tubes. (on the remote chance my avatar didn't give that away...)

-Pat

[blackjack]

2 hours ago, janice6 said:

 

As a young lad, it was comforting to sit late at night working DX on the ham radio, with the power transformers humming and the heat and light of the tube filaments, it was almost as though the Electronics were alive.

 

 

Or, as another ham friend tells me: real radios glow in the dark. Never had that experience with a transmitter but I have with a receiver. 

[janice6]

10 minutes ago, blackjack said:

Or, as another ham friend tells me: real radios glow in the dark. Never had that experience with a transmitter but I have with a receiver. 

The only difference is with the transmitter you had more heat and more hum from the bigger power supply.  If you were very careful, you also had a place to rest your feet on the power supply.  Very careful!

Edited October 19, 2018 by janice6

[dudel]

12 hours ago, Cubdriver said:

I loves me some vacuum tubes. (on the remote chance my avatar didn't give that away...)

-Pat

Had a cat that used to love the old CRT monitors.  The larger the better.  She would settle down on them and enjoy the heat radiating from them (plus she could keep an eye on me). 

She was royally pissed when I changed over to LCD monitors!

[Hannie Caulder]

What's a heathkit?

[tous]

Heath kits and Archer kits were electronics kits and products that you could build at home, ma'am.

Archer kits were mainly simple things like radios and simple amplifiers that were geared more to teaching the young'uns.

Heath kits were consumer products  like televisions and stereo components, high quality, but cheaper than off the shelf because you had to finish them yourself.

I have also constructed several clocks, from mantle clocks to grandfather clocks, from kits.

I built my first computer from a kit.