What is a Heathkit - from a Newbee

[Richard Post]

What is a Heathkit?  It's that first experience of turning parts into
something you built yourself.
Lots of folks vividly remember their first Heathkit.

Mine was a Heathkit AR-3, a five tube communications receiver.  As an
eighth grader in 1959,  I had gotten a Heath catalog through a coupon in
Popular Electronics.  I had accumulated savings from odd jobs and a
newspaper route.  A hard-earned $29.95 plus postage.  My parents saw all
the little parts and pieces that came in the box the rural mailman
delivered.  They told themselves that their kid, the only one in the family
with an interest in electronics, would never be able to put it together.
I'm glad they never told me until years later.  I followed the very clear
step-by-step instructions to the letter.  Heath even taught me how to
solder.  A couple of weeks later, the little radio was complete.  It didn't
work well because it needed alignment.  I asked around and found a couple
of hams who aligned the set and it has worked well ever since.  That
Christmas, my parents gave me $5 with which to buy the optional cabinet.  I
later bought the QF-1 Q-multiplier, at $9.95, to go with it.

A Heathkit is the thrill and pride of having built it yourself, having a
manual that explains how it works, having a level of confidence that you
could probably fix-it-yourself if necessary, and knowing that you learned a
great deal from the experience.

As a ham, I'm a newbee.   I used the AR-3 for short-wave listening.   Then
cars, girls, college, grad school, and a career interfered.  A few years
ago, I got the bug again and got my NO-CODE TECH license.  It was easy
enough, as I had earlier gotten a first-class FCC commercial license (now
detuned to a GROL).  I put up with the No-Clue Tech wise cracks for a
couple of years from those who had forgotten that they too were newbees at
one time.  The code?  Try it. It won't hurt.  I passed the 5 wpm test a
couple of months back so am now a Tech Plus.  Lots of hams grow in their
knowledge, even us lowly No-Code Techs.  Bad form and lack of courtesy is
not related to level of knowledge.  The Old Man was fighting this back in
the days of Spark.

So hang in there Shelley KC8KRN and WELCOME to amateur radio.

73,

Rich KB8TAD







================================================
      Boatanchor Pix website - KB8TAD
 http://ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu/~post/PIX/BA.html

visit the Museum of Radio and Technology website
   http://ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu/~post/MRT/
           mailto:rpost1 at ohiou.edu
================================================

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --
To subscribe: listserv at listserv.tempe.gov
and in body: subscribe HEATH yourfirstname yourlastname
To unsubscribe:  listserv at listserv.tempe.gov
and in body: signoff HEATH
Archives for HEATH: http://www.tempe.gov/archives
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --