The Ideal Heath Transceiver

[Kechkaylo, David]

To All:

In repsonse to Steve Harrison's comments. Although I kinda agree with
him, Heath actually designed a kit that already met many of Steve's
classic TS-120S hits. This kit came out in the form of what we know as
the HW-5400. This radio had its beginnings around the TS-120S, and was
fashioned after this popular Japanese rig at the time. There were
differences between the two, however, and I'm not just talking about the
fact that the HW-5400 was made in the later Heath "Brown" series,
either.

But all in all, it had many good features without the higher noise floor
and discrete spurious like those of the DDS-based sysnthesizers of
todays Japanese radios. Its too bad, too, because the HW-5400 was a real
nice radio, but it was the most complicated kit, in my opinion, that
Heath ever released in the amateur products group.....much, much more
complicated than the SB-104 series.

It would be nice to see a smaller and simplified rig like that of the
HW-5400 today in kit form (but in the classic Heath Green) with output
up to say 20 to 30 watts....a souped-up QRP radio, but at a size
slightly larger than the HW-9.

The HR-1680 was designed in 1976 (started in late 1975), but the HX-1681
(or its equivalent companion) was also going thru its design phase then.
But in the transmitter, the chassis was "hot", RF-wise, and had other
problems. This transmitter was again re-designed in 1978 and later
released (pre-WARC), so that's the why it never had those WARC bands.
Same with the SS-8000........it was skuttled before it hit the market
because it would have been released to the general public AFTER the WARC
bands came into being. So it was withdrawn, and the new WARC bands added
(the RF power amplifier had to be re-designed as well due to other
problems), and re-named the SS-9000. There were many circuit design
changes that had to be added as well as the microprocessor code and new
die-cast front panel in order for these new bands could be completed on
the SS-8000/9000 project. Initially it was going to be a kit, but was,
as everyone now knows, would have been too difficult to build by the
average Ham, especially the RF power amplifier board! But the PA design
in the SS-9000 is a very good, solid design.....excellent stability,
thermal, and VSWR protection, in my opinion.

Regards,

Dave Kechkaylo

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