a new boatanchor(heathkit mohawk receiver)

[sanford12]

sweeeeeet

[Jeffhs]

The Mohawk receiver (model RX-1) is half of a system, with the matching Heathkit "Apache" ham radio transmitter, model TX-1, being the other half. These units may have had provisions for transceive operation as well; I'm not sure about that, although since they were independently tunable I wouldn't be surprised if they could be used in transceive mode. I've been a ham 37 years and never owned this pair (they were well out of my league, in more ways than one, when I had my Novice ham license--even used these rigs cost more than I could possibly have afforded in those days), but I have seen them advertised in old Heathkit catalogs of the '50s-'60s.

When I first saw the title of this thread I immediately thought of another popular Heathkit receiver of the same era, the "Mohican" model GC-1. This would not technically qualify as a "boat anchor" since it was solid-state and could operate on batteries as well as AC power, but as I said, the title of the thread rang a loud bell in my head, as I also saw the Mohican advertised in Heathkit's catalogs of the '50s-'60s.

The TX-1/RX-1 transmitter and receiver were nice pieces of gear (so I gathered from reading about them in Heath catalogs and in QST, the monthly journal of the American Radio Relay League) if you could afford them, but not all amateurs could. (The Mohican was by no means cheap either.) IIRC, these units sold (in kit form) for well over $170; the factory-wired version of each would have probably set the average 1950s amateur back at least $200. These prices are 1950s dollars; I shudder to think what that translates to in today's money.