Unbuilt Heathkits

[John Clifford]

I think the idea of dissassembling a Heathkit to sell it to someone else to
build is ridiculous.  There are plenty of good kits out there to build...
perhaps the best selection ever in terms of performance versus dollars.
Surely the time and effort required to successfully dissassemble something
like an HW-8 and prepare it for reassembly will not be compensated for by
the money.

I can understand the desire to take a Heathkit and to correctly re-assemble
it.  I have restored a non-working HW-7 to working and have replaced all
non-factory power jacks, to factory spec.  I believe that such work only
increases the value of my HW-7... but to be honest I could have purchased a
Wilderness Sierra for not much more money and would have gotten a far better
radio.

With the availability of the NorCal 40, the various Wilderness Radio kits,
Red Hot radios, the Elecraft K2 and K1, and others... why would anyone want
to pay bucks to re-assemble a Heathkit?  I am currently working on an
Elecraft K2 with all of the bells and whistles, and fully expect it to be as
much of a step above my HW-9 as my HW-9 is above my HW-7.

I think that, of all of the Heathkit ham radio kits, perhaps the only one
that would be commercially viable today would be the HW-9.  Perhaps if the
complete kit would sell for somewhere in the $300 to $350 rand it would sell
enough to make a run possible and profitable.  But, how many people would
look at the Elecraft K2 and pay the extra $200 to get all of its features?

Re the feeding frenzy on de-built/un-built Heathkits on eBay... who was it
that said, "You'll never go broke underestimating the stupidity of the
American public..."?

 - jgc

John Clifford KD7KGX

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