My recent challenges restoring Heath gear..[via LSMTP - see www.lsoft.com]

[Keith Harvey]

Following on the comments re interesting things found in Heath stuff undergoing refurb..    

AR3 Receiver recently picked up at a hamfest.. scruffy but cleaned up nicely. Intermittent audio and RF turned out to be shorting between the inner wire that was placed in the old heath "spring" shielding and the stiff unwound spring part that was soldered to ground. I guess the reason the AR3 had everything working was because it was placed on a shelf due the intermittents. The wiring was first class, just tight at the spring/ wire junctions. From the dust accumulated it had rested a long time.

HW101 worked, sort of, but had problems on some bands. reasonably good wiring job, but ferrite cores busted due to using a screwdriver to do alignment, and  one was almost right out of the coil form. A couple of connections that were never soldered at all, so this must have been a lulu to track down the wobblies! Works great now.

HR10B, coated in nicotine and some sort of varnish splashes that took a lot of scrubbing to remove. Elecronically had many connections placed in proper holes, crimped but unsoldered. This one was easy, solder the connections, align it and performs like a champ! 

HD15 Phone Patch looked great but had been subject to high humidity I guess, many connections that had been lightly "kissed" with a soldering iron and covered in corrosion. Cleaned up fine and works great.

HM2102.. missing a  couple of steps in the final assembly! Once I had  manual was able to "complete" the unit and works great as a wattmeter, but still chasing the bug in the SWR side, the "deep null" Heath says should happen.. doesn't!

HM102.. looked great, assembled by a pro, works great!

HW8 with some mods, had the wobblies when you touched anything on the cabinet sort of firmly. Band selector switch had two connections never soldered to the pins. Fixed that.. works like a champ.

HM15 Reflected Power Meter.. what can go wrong with something so simple?  A "never soldered" joint, now works fine.

HD1418 Active Audio Filter.. picked up from a ham who is Mr. Meticulous.. assembled professionally and works great.

HD10 Keyers.. took three to make two.. one was soldered with a propane torch I think 'cos the board was toast. Cabinet was factory fresh, I guess because the unit was never working so it never got scratched.  One unit had a diode pushed through the holes but never soldered. Got dashes back when that simple fix was done. Morse in stereo!

V7A and IM11 VTVM's.. soldering around the range switches was dreadfull so units couldn't measure anything properly. Some fussy work and they now work fine.

I guess a lot of Heath stuff "sort of worked", and when it didn't it was mostly the assembly job, probably from rushing to get it done. I know from my early days of putting Heath together that if I had a problem I had looked at the thing so many times I didn't see the obvious. Usually my friend could find the bug quickly enough, looking with fresh eyes. Worked the other way round too!

73

Keith Harvey
VA3KRV

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