Heathkit TVs.
 

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.

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

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...

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

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.

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

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.

... 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

Heathkit Survey
 

Excellent link to the survey. Thanks for sharing!:music:

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.

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

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

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

When I took electronics class in high school (early 90's) there was a GR-2000 (in a console cabinet) in the back of the classroom. It had all of the assembly/service manuals and remote. I managed to get it working, that was fun... I don't imagine it is still there.

OMG I hgave to find me one of those one day:yes:!

I built a Heathkit GR-104C (?) 12-inch B&W TV kit around 1979. It had a nice copper-plated chassis.

I'd still LOVE to build a little Heathkit B/W set. I'm afraid it'll never happen though....I don't wanna build an LCD set. Would be so cool if the reborn Heathkit would be able to source some 5"-9" B/W CRTs from somewhere or other....and put together a nice solid state kit even, with GREAT block diagrams and explanation of how TV "used" to run.

Maybe they could even come up with a little inhouse transmitter kit to go along with this thing. I tried to build those Ramsey transmitters....and they SUCK as far as performance. Just too basic and you could only get one to barely transmit sound OR picture (hard to get both at once)...for like three feet.

I built a GR-2050, a 21 " color TV. It took me a week to put it together. I kept it for years and finally got rid of it because of the size and hoe cheap flat screen TV were.

I would like to build a TV but Heathkit were very expensive then.I had to stick with Radio Shack in the 1970's and 80's and later Ramsey.

I always thought they were over priced but its a educational experience.

I doubt much if the new incarnation HK if still alive will release any CRT TV's since the DTV switch over.Probably nobody on here that is interested in building a flat screen set.

What would be interesting for me to build is one of those big jumbo LED screens with the multiple color LEDs use to produce the pix.It probably cost $$$$$$$ bucks for it.

I've probably read on here or ARF that Ramsey is phasing out their kits this year.

My late sisters boyfriend built a HK color set in the late 1960's or early 1970's .I dont recall which model it was. Over the years he replaced the pix tube.He had it up to the early 2000's before he dumped it.I wish I known that.I would take it of his hands.

He said he absolutely enjoyed building it and it was a heck of a learning experience doing it.

I have a Heathkit 21" color console set from the 70's with on screen display, been up at my cabin for years, might haul back this spring if I can find someone interested in it, Tube is good, sound was not working when last used- i had used a stereo for sound from VHS movies. I do have the manuals for it. A friends uncle built it, and later gave it to me. its an interesting set, you have to program the on screen display with jumper wires. i think it has a video input, I dont recall using a modulator with it.

I built one of those last year. It was fun to build something older than me. The previous owner built half of it (pc boards), I finished it and fixed all the cracked boards and build errors. It came on (eventually) and worked well, but i should've changed out all those 40 year old electro caps, they don't age well unused. It popped it's circuit breakers several times upon power-up. It's a cute little tv that's heavier than it looks, even runs off 12V. This was the most fun kit I ever built.


All the parts
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9388fd74.jpg

http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7f997015.jpg

Almost done
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...psf2399b2b.jpg

All done
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8f3df50f.jpg

http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...ps030ef4c7.jpg

After 30 seconds on for first time. It got alot better after 20 minutes on.
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...ps830a84e7.jpg

A guy near here had a bunch of unbuilt Heathkits on craigslist, I went to see them. One was a TV like this, with a spare CRT - very similar to a SS Zenith.

I've got a 2000 and a 2001. The difference is the 2001 has keypad entry and the 2000 only has up and down channel selection.
They convert easily to video input with only a handful of components.

I'm still looking for a GR-180, built or unbuilt, with the correct type CRT.