Heathkit TVs.

[Rod Beauvex]

Anyone seen one? Anyone built one? They seemed like top nocth stuff.

I learned a little about the Gr-2000 today. OSDs in 1974. That's just awesome.

[N2IXK]

I built one for a family friend back when I was in high school. Not sure of the model number, but it was one of the later ones which was essentially a Zenith "System 3" set. Most of the boards were preassembled and aligned, making the assembly work mostly mechanical. There was one board that you had to solder together, which was a dot/crosshatch generator used for the convergence setup. The set I built was a bare chassis, which was then installed into a wall opening as a custom install. Really classy stuff back in the early 80s.

I would have loved to build a "real" Heathkit TV, where you actually had to do all the work yourself. But I could never talk my folks into it when they were shopping for a new set.

I built a lot of other Heathkits, including my first real set of test gear around the same time. I am hoping that the latest attempt to revive the company actually comes to something, as they are sorely missed. It appears that some former employees are putting out feelers to gauge interest:

http://heathkit.com/survey/index.php/278489/lang-en

[Username1]

funny link.... that page is not listed on the home page if you just type in heathkit.com. How did you find that? Why is it not on the home page with an invitation to it?

[N2IXK]

Originally Posted by Username1

funny link.... that page is not listed on the home page if you just type in heathkit.com. How did you find that? Why is it not on the home page with an invitation to it?

If you do a "view page source" on heathkit.com, it shows up in the raw HTML.

No idea why they aren't widely publicizing it. The link has been going around several of the ham radio email lists, and the Yahoo Heathkit list...

[zeno]

As I remember there were 3 major chassi maybe more. Our town
was full of EE's from the old Rt 128 firms in days of yore.
So Heathkits were very common, even had a Heathkit store on Rt9 in
Wellesley I think it was.
1) an all tube set. Saw lots.
2) early SS set I think was an RCA clone w/SCR sweep.
3)the Zenith System 3 referred to.
We would not work on them but I remember people trying to buy
transistors & you couldnt cross them. Mostly RCA, so were the CRT's.
As far as quality goes I never saw a good tube job. Nothing
special except the built in generator & early OSD.
Physically only as good as the builder. IIRC had a hinged swing out chassis,
a nice touch.......

73 Zeno

[N2IXK]

There were also a few kits that were made by Heath, and provided through places like NRI and DeVry for home study programs.

They need to concentrate their efforts into niche markets like tube audio or ham radio where there is some chance to compete. I doubt were going to see a Heathkit LCD TV kit any time soon. Or a heathkit digital storage scope kit. But an updated version of their AA-121 or even W-6 would be fun kits, and can still compete economically against $$$ "high end" stuff. I would love to build up a modern equivalent of an SB-104 HF rig. Their only competition in this market is the Elecraft stuff, AFAIK.

The big problem is that LSI and then SMT removed a LOT of assembly labor from the cost of consumer electronics. There was no longer a substantial savings between the mass market products and a kit. Kits take a lot of work to "do properly". You need to carefully package the parts in small lots (heath's old Pack #1, Pack #2, etc.). And most important of all, write a manual. Good technical writers are expensive. Heath's old manuals were great.

[KentTeffeteller]

I have built the tube kit as old NOS and the SS second kit. Never the Zenith chassis kit.

[Rod Beauvex]

According to Wikipedia, Heathkit went out of business again in 2012, which would explain the website, which is probably a holdover form the last revival attempt.

EDIT: Maybe not. Source says the last update happened ten days ago. Who knows.

Anyway, TV discussion.

[RobtWB]

... only as good a set as the builder was skilled ...
nothing really technologically advanced about the sets
the on screen display and i believe a clock feature were kinda neat
i kinda think the set i have has the OSD but it has been a while since i powered it on
i have the 19" SS set with the inline gun, slotted mask bonded yoke RCA tube
it was given to me in mid 2008. weak crt. but i did watch the '08 Bejing Olympics on that set
i believe it dates from '73/'74
have all the assembly manuals for it also
heavy as a blacksmiths anvil the set is - was built into the Heath tabletop cabinet, and Heath did offer a console cabinet for the set
sure wish i could stumble upon a replacement CRT for it - it is a kool looking set !

one used to see these kits, usually partially assembled and missing the CRT on ebay fairly regularly, but i havent seen one in quite a while

if i get a chance tomorrow i'll drag the set out and see if it is still watchable ... the CRT is really weak

[wkand]

Excellent link to the survey. Thanks for sharing!

[old_tv_nut]

I built the SS kit in 75. Not an full RCA clone except for SCR horizontal sweep, and it used an RCA CRT. The IF used a potted ladder type filter that was pre-aligned and could not be adjusted if you wanted to. All the small signal circuit cards needed to be built by the hobbyist, including the remote control receiver. Already in '75 it was not a bargain compared to a factory set, but it was worth it for the experience. It was interesting to see what the convergence looked like when you first fired it up. It was so far out, that you couldn't tell which dots to converge with which. I then tuned it to Bozo's circus on WGN and adjusted the static convergence for one Bozo.

[dtvmcdonald]

I and a friend built the large console set in 1962 for our college
dorm TV room. I built the 19 inch tabletop set in 1967. These were all-tube sets.

Despite what other people say here they really were as good as sets got at those
times. Color rendition was near-perfect ... the color matrix was not
intentionally screwed up like so many sets were. And they were reliable and
very easy to service when a tube died.

The Achilles heel of the 19 inch set was that it used a rare
CRT with extra-fine dot pitch. Mine developed a heater-cathode short
the morning of the first moon landing. I called every distributor
and repair place in Boston and nobody had one. So I tried Cambridge and
the first repair place I called had one ... they were four blocks from my house!
And, being Heathkit, there were complete instructions for
changing the tube. We were ready for a party to see the landing.

I miss Heathkit, though I have built far larger or more
ambitious projects "from scratch" including
such things as a computer tape drive controller and a
pipelined time-to-amplitude-to-digital convertor all in ECL
... runs at 2 gHz. Its good to expect something to work,
and you could do that with Heathkits.

Doug McDonald

[maxhifi]

Anyone have a photo of the all tube sets? I've always liked Heathkits, I'd be interested in buying a tube Heathkit TV if it ever showed up within reasonable shipping distance

[Rod Beauvex]

Here is the set I mentioned earlier.

[maxhifi]

Originally Posted by Rod Beauvex

Here is the set I metnioned earlier.

That is awesome, thanks for sharing, I enjoyed looking at the photos.