Heathkit Seneca....now what do I do with it?

[Kamakiri]

Through my buddy BigAudioAl, I scored this nice Heathkit Seneca with spare transmitting tubes.

It's 6 meter and 2 meter AM, VFO, plus crystals as well. It's a transmitter only. This is something that could inspire me to create a vintage ham shack, but from what I've read it might be better served to sit on a shelf and look pretty

I've got a ham ticket, but....hm. Seems to work, tubes test good, and it's near immaculate. Thoughts?

[N8NM]

That's a beaut!

There's not much AM activity on those bands, but maybe we can change that :-) I've always thought it would be a hoot!

-Steve

[bob91343]

The 2 meter band has become a desert. Six meters seems to be populated with refugees from 11 meters. Very little operation, if any, is AM. In fact, nearly all the AM I have heard in L.A. is on 75 and 160. There is a 10 meter AM segment but not a whole lot going on there.

My thought is to keep it for its quaint looks and no more. You'd need a decent receiver to go with it. A modern transceiver will copy six meters but you don't have too many options for 2m, short of homebrew.

[snelson903]

sure is a nice looking radio .

[Kamakiri]

Maybe it's time to search out a (somewhat) matching receiver, microphone, and antenna. I hate to have such a nice looking thing just go to waste without trying. And this is something that I could really enjoy using, as opposed to my 2 meter Clegg.....which I haven't used in a year or so other than to kerchunk a repeater to make sure it still works.

Or, it could be a gigantic waste of time and money. But then again, so what?

[N8NM]

Ah, but the entertainment value is priceless!

[N8NM]

One option would be to pair it with a boatanchor receiver with a VHF converter.

[Kamakiri]

VHF converter?

[jr_tech]

These items might be useful to complete a matching station:
Receiver: http://www.heathkit-museum.com/ham/hvmrx-1.shtml
Converters (2&6M): http://www.heathkit-museum.com/ham/hvmxc-2-6.shtml
jr

Add: might as well add this for HF operation: http://www.heathkit-museum.com/ham/hvmtx-1.shtml

Great looking equipment!

[N8NM]

Yep. I have an old RME VHF-152 which is a stand-alone unit (will work with any receiver) that converts 10, 6 and 2m to 40 m. Heathkit also made single-band converters as accessories for their SB-301 receivers.

I've never tried this, but it seems like it'd be possible to hack an old VHF TV tuner into a converter (6m & 2m in/10m out). I'm sure it would drift but probably be good enough for AM...

[Kamakiri]

One of these days I really have to take the General test. I was one of the last of the "technician plus" class, licensed in 1990.

[bob91343]

Why stop at General?

[Kamakiri]

Same reason I stopped at where I am. I don't like to do contests, and the QSOs that I've had over the years were mostly about what kind of radios you run, your antenna setup, and the weather.

[bob91343]

That's like saying you won't browse the Internet because there is spam. Ham radio is what you make it, not what it is. You can form groups, hunt DX, play with electronics, fool with antennas, work on modulation or propagation theory, and so on and on. Or just jabber nonsense - politics, religion, history, you name it. There are nets that specialize in AM, in Collins Radio, in maritime operations, message handling, CW practice, and the list seems never to end.

Don't throw out the baby with the bath water.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by bob91343

Why stop at General?

Yeah. The extra doesn't require morse code anymore, it's just more written tests. You'd get to operate on the "extra only" band segments on HF. I suppose the FCC decided that your carrier frequency was much easier to measure remotely than try to guess how much power you were transmitting.