Yes, at this point it would not be wise to build it. So it's just an investment, ...
If I bought it, I'd definitely build it. It'd kill the investment value, but what kind of enjoyment could I ever get from a boxful of parts? I have a friend who makes violin bows. Some go to professional players, but others go to collectors who simply put them on display. How sad is a violin bow that never gets to make music? IMO, the same applies to these classic Heathkits. They need to be on the air, probing the ether, and playing Morse melodies!
It is just plain weird that a complete, unopened, unassembled Heathkit is worth so much more than a functioning item. In terms of economics, this is a somewhat perverse view of value.
It is even more odd that someone might buy it and set in on a dark shelf for 25 years in order to have it increase in value.
Old short wave transmitters and receivers are wonderful items, but they should be appreciated in their assembled and fully functioning form.
Still, I suspect that a complete unopened, unassembled Heathkit color TV would likely have a much higher price due to rarity. I had a friend whose father assembled one, but they are extremely complex and never as popular as other items.
People will pay a premium to recapture their youth... Heathkits remind us of a kinder, gentler era.
Than why doesn't someone bring back the original designs, and sell them? Would it really be that hard to find original components or similar-to-original components?
Than why doesn't someone bring back the original designs, and sell them? Would it really be that hard to find original components or similar-to-original components?
As with most anything these days, it comes down to money! If you have "retro" that is popular enough (rarely), the economic model will bend enough to make it affordable without ruining the original market dynamics (supply/demand). An alternative will be developed to tap the "retro feeling" - the new VW bug, kit cars, etc.
Some things, you truly can't make today within a reasonable/acceptable cost model to make it possible to recover costs and people can only trade so much retro-passion for food on the table!
I love old film cameras....I buy the old ones on e-bay. I would never expect any company to be able to produce some of the true classics anywhere near to an affordable or even almost affordable price. Some old things are pieces of magic that could probably never be reproduced to the same quality level.
But have no fear, some day all of us baby boomers() will die off and you won't have retro- and nostalgia to kick around any more!!
At one time they were very plentiful, and I'm sure the one my step father owned was military surplus after the war (this would be WWII, of course). He'd occasionally connect it to one of his amateur radio antennas, but mostly it was just a wire loop, and I'm not sure how effective it was. Being so close to military installations and early over-the-horizon radar I mostly caught signals that were officially not there.
My step father spent much of his time in the 6-meter band, where a lot of the old time hams stayed. In addition to a few Collins and Drake radios, his favorite rig in the later years was this one:
and spent years tuning it. It sat atop a 70 foot telescoping mast. One day, a friend and I were joking around and I said, "See this pin here? If I pull it, the whole mast will come down." I didn't actually believe it would, but in fact it did. In about four seconds several tons of metal and my step father's pride-and-joy quad came thundering down, nearly slicing my friend and me in half.
I spent the entire summer working to pay to have the mast reconstructed. The quad was a loss. So for me, far from nostalgia these are memories I'd just as soon forget!
It just never worked right. Bad design. Under perfect conditions the robot would occasionally dock after about 10 minutes of complex triangulation. Though usually the battery would run out first.
My older brother built about 20 of those radios for himself and friends. If it hadn't been for HeathKit I would have never learned to solder or use a VOM. I used to go in and hang out in his room while he was working and "help".
I did find it interesting that in the 'About us' tab, the words 'amateaur radio' or 'Ham radio' never appeared.
Too bad to, it's the real legacy of the company in my opinion. I also built one of their digital VOM's. It ran great for about 25 years but recently hit the scrap heap.
I'm still occasionally using the HeathKit DA-100 logic analyzer too.
Jim-
Brings back a lot of memories. My first Heathkit was a DX-20 Ham transmitter that I put together shortly after I got my novice license. Later on I built a stereo, a bunch of 6 meter and two meter "benton harbor lunch boxes" My last project was an H-8 which I built an X-ten control board and taught myself assembly language programming. That became my "electronic wife" made the coffee, turned the porch light on when I was expected home, etc. The H-8 ended up with 128K of bank switched ram and a Z-80 processor, hard and soft sector floppy drives, game card with sprites. When I finally got rid of it I had over $5K into it. Used it for a long time as a word processor running Word Star under Cp/M.
Jim
The best place to get old tube equipment is at the dump, or the recyclers that is associated with the dump. Another good place is at the early morning auctions at a larger urban Goodwill collection center.
All merchandise is prices to go and go quickly. You just have to get up at 5:30am to be there and get it. Much of what goes to Goodwill is quickly turned over in this way as they have too much to fill their stores and tube equipment is likely in need of repairs that they cannot do.
That unbuilt HW-9 kit is $535 with over 2 days left to go.
Maybe it will get up toward $1200?
OOPS. I was just bidding it up for fun, I expected the snipers to swoop in at the last minute. Turns out, I was "in it to win it". I won the auction at $777.
Cue the sound of PhiPi lusting...
And I already had the WARC kit for it. Now I just have to decide whether to build or save...
Congrats on winning the auction! (I am a little jealous, BTW!) Build vs. save is a no-brainer: build it! Get it on the air! Let it fulfill its destiny at last, instead of languishing in a moldy cardboard box.
I suggest you savor the moment of building this obsolete electronics kit. First, clear off your entire workspace of all modern projects. Get out a roll of leaded solder, and your oldest working soldering iron. Unwrap each component carefully, examining each one and marveling at how things once were (this is sounding more like an old geezer's trip to the antique store every line, isn't it?). Solder them in slowly, taking time to enjoy the experience. The total soldering job should take around 7 hours.
Once it is built, use it every day for a total of 10 years, and if you listened earlier and used leaded solder, it will still be working long after that. Pass it down through generations, even though they may have no idea just what it is or what it does.
erco, congratulations! I too vote for building it, but I also suggest that you document it with video in excruciating detail. Show us each step in the manual, then the parts being readied and the operation being carried out, then a tight closeup on the box as you check off the step. Considering how cheap cameras are compared to your bid you could have a stand set up for the manual and a couple of different cams preset on tripods for tight closeups and more medium shots, as well as the occasional establishing shot of the whole build area perhaps from behind you as you work. I know people who would watch the whole thing even if it was 10 hours.
Perhaps a live 24-hour "build cam" with banner ads would generate sufficient hits & dollars to pay for this thing. Or maybe a trip to "Antiques Roadshow" is in order, unless this kit turns out to be a fake...
@Phil: I better brush up on my CW speed to justify this purchase, huh?
I wonder what ever happened to my Heathkit VOM and my Heathkit Vacumn Tube Multimeter. Building them was fun, like doing a Sunday crossword puzzles. Be sure to let us see a copy of the instructions with all the check off boxes.
Morse Code is easy. All you have to know is CQ CQ and your call sign, right?
Comments
-Phil
It is even more odd that someone might buy it and set in on a dark shelf for 25 years in order to have it increase in value.
Old short wave transmitters and receivers are wonderful items, but they should be appreciated in their assembled and fully functioning form.
Still, I suspect that a complete unopened, unassembled Heathkit color TV would likely have a much higher price due to rarity. I had a friend whose father assembled one, but they are extremely complex and never as popular as other items.
Than why doesn't someone bring back the original designs, and sell them? Would it really be that hard to find original components or similar-to-original components?
As with most anything these days, it comes down to money! If you have "retro" that is popular enough (rarely), the economic model will bend enough to make it affordable without ruining the original market dynamics (supply/demand). An alternative will be developed to tap the "retro feeling" - the new VW bug, kit cars, etc.
Some things, you truly can't make today within a reasonable/acceptable cost model to make it possible to recover costs and people can only trade so much retro-passion for food on the table!
I love old film cameras....I buy the old ones on e-bay. I would never expect any company to be able to produce some of the true classics anywhere near to an affordable or even almost affordable price. Some old things are pieces of magic that could probably never be reproduced to the same quality level.
But have no fear, some day all of us baby boomers(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallicrafters_SX-28
At one time they were very plentiful, and I'm sure the one my step father owned was military surplus after the war (this would be WWII, of course). He'd occasionally connect it to one of his amateur radio antennas, but mostly it was just a wire loop, and I'm not sure how effective it was. Being so close to military installations and early over-the-horizon radar I mostly caught signals that were officially not there.
My step father spent much of his time in the 6-meter band, where a lot of the old time hams stayed. In addition to a few Collins and Drake radios, his favorite rig in the later years was this one:
http://www.pcs.mb.ca/~standard/250.htm
manufactured just a few miles from here. Other people had lamps on their bedside table, he had a Swan 250.
He hand built one of these:
http://www.astromag.co.uk/quad/
and spent years tuning it. It sat atop a 70 foot telescoping mast. One day, a friend and I were joking around and I said, "See this pin here? If I pull it, the whole mast will come down." I didn't actually believe it would, but in fact it did. In about four seconds several tons of metal and my step father's pride-and-joy quad came thundering down, nearly slicing my friend and me in half.
I spent the entire summer working to pay to have the mast reconstructed. The quad was a loss. So for me, far from nostalgia these are memories I'd just as soon forget!
-- Gordon
Well for better or worse, it's the one Heathkit item that is available as an unbuilt kit in abundant supply at clearance price: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Heathkit-HERO-2000-Robot-Auto-Dock-NEW-BOX-/360387164914?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53e8bfbaf2
I did find it interesting that in the 'About us' tab, the words 'amateaur radio' or 'Ham radio' never appeared.
Too bad to, it's the real legacy of the company in my opinion. I also built one of their digital VOM's. It ran great for about 25 years but recently hit the scrap heap.
I'm still occasionally using the HeathKit DA-100 logic analyzer too.
Jim-
Maybe it will get up toward $1200?
Jim
All merchandise is prices to go and go quickly. You just have to get up at 5:30am to be there and get it. Much of what goes to Goodwill is quickly turned over in this way as they have too much to fill their stores and tube equipment is likely in need of repairs that they cannot do.
OOPS. I was just bidding it up for fun, I expected the snipers to swoop in at the last minute. Turns out, I was "in it to win it". I won the auction at $777.
Cue the sound of PhiPi lusting...
And I already had the WARC kit for it. Now I just have to decide whether to build or save...
Congrats on winning the auction! (I am a little jealous, BTW!) Build vs. save is a no-brainer: build it! Get it on the air! Let it fulfill its destiny at last, instead of languishing in a moldy cardboard box.
-Phil
You boyz are all right!
-Phil
Once it is built, use it every day for a total of 10 years, and if you listened earlier and used leaded solder, it will still be working long after that. Pass it down through generations, even though they may have no idea just what it is or what it does.
Hey, you just got your money's worth.
-Phil
@Phil: I better brush up on my CW speed to justify this purchase, huh?
-Phil
From http://kr7w.org/hw9/index.htm
Mods: http://www.qsl.net/kk4kf/hw9-mods.html Smart or heresy?
DOH! Now I gotta find a matching unbuilt speaker & power supply... My quest continues.
-Phil
Morse Code is easy. All you have to know is CQ CQ and your call sign, right?
C.W.
-Phil