Fw: 104/104A

[Kechkaylo Dave (ATLINKS)]

Dear Bill Coleman:

I had to grin after reading your interpretation of how things came to be
with the SB-104(A). I think you've just put on your glasses, and now with
20/20 vision of the past, you gotta remember that the Elecraft, like other
manufacturers' designs, are based on the hard work of those, like Heath, who
struggled with new, ground-breaking circuit design, that today are old hat.

I think the Elecraft K2, while it is a nice, good performer, is way, way too
expensive. Their little QRP job, the K1, using those NE-602 Gilbert-cell
mixers overload even if you look cross-eyed at 'em, and for the money,
really aren't worth it. But is it a good design? People years from now maybe
could say the same thing about them. But people buy them 'cause there really
aren't many other decent kits to choose from (if you really want to build a
kit).

I think Heathkit did a fine job with the SB-104, considering what they had
to work with....but don't forget, Heath was a hard place for a design
engineer to work because of the intense cost pressure. Could Heathkit had
built a better receiver in the SB-104 for the money? You bet, and mistakes
were made in this area. But having designed an affordable all solid state
transceiver, and produce it as a kit in 1974, was a tribute to its principal
designer (I think many of us know who he is).

Regards,

Dave Kechkaylo, W8DLK/9

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Coleman [mailto:aa4lr at ARRL.NET]
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 8:53 AM
To: HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV
Subject: Re: Fw: 104/104A


On 9/3/01 11:03 AM, Kees & Sandy at talen at INETPORT.COM wrote:

>Apparently the 104, which was Heathkit's FIRST major ALL Solid
>State HF SSB Transceiver, was rushed to production (probably
>over the loud objections of Engineering) to make the Christmas
>rush and they paid for it later since the 104A upgrade kit was
>offered free to 104 purchasers. Heathkit also started providing
>several of the cards/sub-assys "prebuilt" to avoid construction
>problems. It was quite a complex kit for the avarage builder
>and Heath received many of them back as "unable to get it to
>work".

This lies in stark contrast to today's situation with Elecraft, where
many kits have been successfully built, and the K2 in particular is a far
better radio than the 104/104A.

I think two factors limited Heath's success with these units:

1) Engineers didn't have a awful lot of experience creating a solid-state
design. They probably spent too much time worrying about the high-power
RF deck and not enough about basic design. Or they worked to hard to use
broadband circuits, instead of frequency-dependant ones like in their
tube transceivers.

2) The availability, quality and reliability of solid-state components in
those days was much worse than today. Some of the parts in the 104 series
are unobtainium today.

Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901

-----------------------------------------------------------
This list is a public service of the City of Tempe, Arizona
-----------------------------------------------------------

Subscription control - http://www.tempe.gov/lists/control.asp?list=HEATH
To post - HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV
Archives - http://interactive.tempe.gov/archives/HEATH.html

-----------------------------------------------------------
This list is a public service of the City of Tempe, Arizona
-----------------------------------------------------------

Subscription control - http://www.tempe.gov/lists/control.asp?list=HEATH
To post - HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV
Archives - http://interactive.tempe.gov/archives/HEATH.html