dbirchett
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A friend had a preamp built and then built a 70 watt Dynakit to power it. Good clean Bass amp from back in the 60s.
Sunn: Another brand that Fender bought and ran into the ground!
Anyone remember Heathkit?
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A friend had a preamp built and then built a 70 watt Dynakit to power it. Good clean Bass amp from back in the 60s.
Sunn: Another brand that Fender bought and ran into the ground!
davismanLV
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I am STILL laughing at this one.... Every Damn Time!! Thanks, Gary!! :encouragement:
jp
Senior Member
Sorry for going off ranch, adorshki. I know everyone was talking Heathkit stereo gear. I had just seen the ad for this amp, and I was just curious if anyone here had ever had experience building any of their guitar amp kits. Although I had heard of the company, their popularity was just a little before my time. This is the first kit guitar amp I have ever seen. Thanks for the info about them. I found this cool link to a catalog entry about it.
adorshki
Reverential Member
LOL !!!!
(But seriously, no problem!. Thought you might be interested in buying it.)
This thread's open to all things Heathkit.
Basically they offered graduating levels of difficulty and educational courses including one on soldering techniques.
I'd slot the guitar amp as maybe a 2 out of 5, the stereo tuner/amps were probably more difficult for component count/complexity, then you could build your own oscilloscope, and ham radio gear, I'd call those level 4 and top of the heap was probably a color TV.
Which you could test and trouble shoot with your Heathkit signal generator and Heathkit oscilloscope.
Heck they even had an ignition analyzer/smog tester in the early 80's!
You can still see some of the test equipment out there but the audio stuff and ham stuff is still pretty desirable to hard core audiophiles/ ham operators.
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Been almost a year since last post about Heathkit electronics and one of my, many, hobbies is "ham radio" call AD4WQ and my Ten Tec radio requires an external antenna tuner to match/trick forward reflected power between antenna wire and radio. HEATHKIT made the best models 2040, 2060, 2060A, and automatic 2500. I am 99% morse code (cw) and Heathkit, also, made great paddles.
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Welcome to another ham DE K2GAD! I have a Yaesu FT-2000 that I like a lot. I was more into 2M since I spent so much time in the car, but these days I spend more time in planes so I really haven't been active in quite a while. I also have a cool SDR that I was tinkering with, but I probably spent most of my "ham time" playing with APRS.
GAD:
Great hobby and met lots of nice folks via ham radio. TS 2000 super rig and seems I remember it has General Coverage Receive so it would be great for listening to the Grand Ole Opry. Quality wise your Kenwood right up there with your Guilds.
Great hobby and met lots of nice folks via ham radio. TS 2000 super rig and seems I remember it has General Coverage Receive so it would be great for listening to the Grand Ole Opry. Quality wise your Kenwood right up there with your Guilds.
Nuuska
Enlightened Member
Hello
I never had Heathkit although I heard of it way bak then. But in those days it was quite usual to build it your self if you wanted it - first - it was not available - second - if it was, you could not afford it. My two most remarkable DIY:s are:
- a 8-channel mixer I used to record a live album, that sold gold. I used Neumann U87, KM86 & KMS84 mics. Later I bought me Studer 169 desk.
- I converted silverface Fender Champ to a monster with two 6L6:s , Pro Reverb x-formers and JBL E110 - I also added MID control , master volume and one extra tube, that had Marshall overdrive section and was switchable with footswitch.
Today - almost anything is available at low cost so not so much DIY anymore - some little modifications now and then...
And while you guys mentioned model building and scale trains - I was rep of LGB in Finland for 13 years until Märklin "stole" the company and threw about everybody out. For those, who might not know, LGB is a 1:22.5-scale weatherproof narrow-gage train.
I never had Heathkit although I heard of it way bak then. But in those days it was quite usual to build it your self if you wanted it - first - it was not available - second - if it was, you could not afford it. My two most remarkable DIY:s are:
- a 8-channel mixer I used to record a live album, that sold gold. I used Neumann U87, KM86 & KMS84 mics. Later I bought me Studer 169 desk.
- I converted silverface Fender Champ to a monster with two 6L6:s , Pro Reverb x-formers and JBL E110 - I also added MID control , master volume and one extra tube, that had Marshall overdrive section and was switchable with footswitch.
Today - almost anything is available at low cost so not so much DIY anymore - some little modifications now and then...
And while you guys mentioned model building and scale trains - I was rep of LGB in Finland for 13 years until Märklin "stole" the company and threw about everybody out. For those, who might not know, LGB is a 1:22.5-scale weatherproof narrow-gage train.
b0rn2w0rsh1p
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When I moved, I had to leave my HO Track - both car and train, but I still have my cars and a custom local line locomotive. I had a U- shaped train table and the track layout from Sebring on the floor, I'll have to try to find a picture from 2005 or 6...
My Stuka dive bomber made one flight - and didn't come out of the dive... sigh
My Dad built the Heathkit Volt/Ohm/Amp meter, I got to watch... loved leafing through the Heathkit and Lafayette catalogs too. And the department stores that had guitars, finally got the red ES-335 copy from somewhere, don't remember what brand, or even what happened to it after i joined the Navy. Justified it because I could practice quietly, and then fanagled a Silvertone amp used too. Needed my own amp because the bass player and I had to share a Fender Bassman - and he distorted my clean sound, man! When Memory Lane goes back to a gravel road!
b0rn2w0rsh1p
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The reason I am here was the discovery of The Kingsmen playing Louie, Louie with a Guild SF-5 (Guildsby version of the IV), then found an example of Jack Ely or Turley Richards (a lot of turn-over in the band, especially bass players) playing an SF II Single Cut-away. Early publicity photos look like they were endorsing Fender, but later, during the Guild guitar era, it looks like a Gibson EB-3 and also an Epi semi-hollowbody (a-la Jack Casady) from the videos I watched. Oh, and they were all "playing" through Sunn Amps and Cabs. in this pic (https://passthepaisley.com/the-kingsmen-louie-louie/) Starfire, no amps lip synch video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EqzTiDc-1k
dbirchett
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One other Heathkit that I forgot about. I have a Heathkit programmable doorbell that I started and my brother-in-law finished and got up and running. I have it programmed to play the intro to ASU's fight song. It's been going for about 40 years and is still going strong.
adorshki
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Minnesota Flats
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My brother built a couple of W5M mono amps for the family's first "stereo" back when he was in high school. Massive transformers.
adorshki
Reverential Member
The brand is still so popular it even has its own eBay section now:
https://www.ebay.com/b/Heathkit-Vintage-Amplifiers-Tube-Amps/73368/bn_57333674
Stuff's even showing up on Reverb, speaking of massive transformers:
https://reverb.com/item/15906013-vi...h3NLQFNEAYYAyABEgLItvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&pla=1
adorshki
Reverential Member
Stumbled across this blog while searching for something else earlier, the real story of "the end" ferreted out by some folks (Adafruit) who contacted the folks attempting to revive the brand:
https://blog.adafruit.com/2014/12/20/heathkit-the-electronic-history-mystery/
The sad truth (from that link):
"I don’t know anything more than you’ve uncovered about the new owners of the brand, but I worked there for over 20 years, until the very end, and knew all the prior owners and GMs very well… Some of those dates are a little off, especially Wiki. Heathkit built and sold educational materials until the very end. The Hawthorne Ave address is correct, we had a corner of that building that was mostly office space. Moved there in October 2008, and the landlord locked us out in April 2012 after the rent was delinquent. Regarding Don Peterson, Don Desrochers (the owner who let Heathkit go bankrupt in 2012) sold him the physical files full of manuals and sole reproduction rights. Peterson did not acquire the copyrights, which might explain why he can’t make the manuals available for free. I remember seeing that agreement, and it explicitly stated that Heathkit retained the copyrights. Desrochers didn’t want to pay for moving all those manuals, nor lease space to store them. So he sold them for about $4k."
And a nice recap of one of the reasons there could still be room for kits even in today's "limited useful lifetime" environment:
"It seems to me that there were two aspects to HeathKit’s kits that cause people to remember them warmly: extremely clear assembly instructions, and professional quality enclosures. The former made for a high degree of success in assembly, and the latter gave a sense of having built a piece of equipment that was the equal of brand-name offerings in terms of appearance.
I’ve assembled a number of kit projects (XR2206 function generator, Arduino clone, Sparkfun’s Mr. Roboto, capacitance meter, plus others) and while I’ve enjoyed building most of them the quality of build instructions varied widely, and I’ve always wished I had more than just a populated PCB at the end.
HeathKit is gone. Who will take the best of what that company offered and make it their own? Why can’t there be AdaKits?
And a follow-up to the blog posts linked earlier, from Adafruit:
https://blog.adafruit.com/2014/12/2...-emailed-adafruit-adafruit-heathkit-heathkit/
https://blog.adafruit.com/2014/12/20/heathkit-the-electronic-history-mystery/
The sad truth (from that link):
"I don’t know anything more than you’ve uncovered about the new owners of the brand, but I worked there for over 20 years, until the very end, and knew all the prior owners and GMs very well… Some of those dates are a little off, especially Wiki. Heathkit built and sold educational materials until the very end. The Hawthorne Ave address is correct, we had a corner of that building that was mostly office space. Moved there in October 2008, and the landlord locked us out in April 2012 after the rent was delinquent. Regarding Don Peterson, Don Desrochers (the owner who let Heathkit go bankrupt in 2012) sold him the physical files full of manuals and sole reproduction rights. Peterson did not acquire the copyrights, which might explain why he can’t make the manuals available for free. I remember seeing that agreement, and it explicitly stated that Heathkit retained the copyrights. Desrochers didn’t want to pay for moving all those manuals, nor lease space to store them. So he sold them for about $4k."
And a nice recap of one of the reasons there could still be room for kits even in today's "limited useful lifetime" environment:
"It seems to me that there were two aspects to HeathKit’s kits that cause people to remember them warmly: extremely clear assembly instructions, and professional quality enclosures. The former made for a high degree of success in assembly, and the latter gave a sense of having built a piece of equipment that was the equal of brand-name offerings in terms of appearance.
I’ve assembled a number of kit projects (XR2206 function generator, Arduino clone, Sparkfun’s Mr. Roboto, capacitance meter, plus others) and while I’ve enjoyed building most of them the quality of build instructions varied widely, and I’ve always wished I had more than just a populated PCB at the end.
HeathKit is gone. Who will take the best of what that company offered and make it their own? Why can’t there be AdaKits?
And a follow-up to the blog posts linked earlier, from Adafruit:
https://blog.adafruit.com/2014/12/2...-emailed-adafruit-adafruit-heathkit-heathkit/
Dix_
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I have an old IT-28 Capacitor Tester (the one with the "suicide switch") I got off eBay. It works, but I need to refurbish it with new capacitors before I actually intend to use it. It still has the original paper caps in it.
For those who don't know, this thing will actually test capacitors at up to 600 volts. The Suicide Switch (bottom right) gets its name because in the leakage position you have whatever voltage you've dialed up across the test terminals... up to and including 600 volts.
You really don't want to forget to return it to the discharge position before you remove the cap you're testing for leakage.
For those who don't know, this thing will actually test capacitors at up to 600 volts. The Suicide Switch (bottom right) gets its name because in the leakage position you have whatever voltage you've dialed up across the test terminals... up to and including 600 volts.
You really don't want to forget to return it to the discharge position before you remove the cap you're testing for leakage.
I've been a ham radio op, first licensed in 1965 using a Heath DX-20 as my first transmitter. Crystal controlled tube rig, still have it somewhere, although the crystals are long gone. FWIW, current call is nw1k, mostly non-active.
