104/104A

[Guido E. Santacana]

Way back in 1976 I built the HW104. Except for one bad power transistor in the
final amplifier board, everything worked the first time. The only real problem
was the low sens on the bands higher than 15M. Otherwise I used the rig for
years coupled to an AVT 18 vertical. It worked like a charm and gave me many DX
contacts. Never had any trouble with it and sold it in the 80s to a ham that
also used it for years. I hope to find it someday in a hamfest.

Best 73s
Guido Santacana KP4FAR

mike bryce wrote:

> Oh my yes!
>
> Set your wayback machine to 1975 and just sit back. Can you imagine opening
> up the 1975 heathkit catalog and looking at the new digital sb104? Boy I
> sure can. Wanted one in the worst way. (I now have about 20 in the
> collection)
>
> One has to remember back then this was cutting edge stuff. Digital anything
> was right out of star trek.
>
> I asked several of the designers of the 104 why they did this or did that. A
> perfect example is the 5 volt regulator circuit. A LM309K would be just one
> part and would work great. It was available in 1975 too. So why did you guys
> use that unobtainum MCXXX part with twenty support parts?
>
> The answer?
>
> That's what they had a lot of and that is what the management wanted them to
> use. Why stock a new part when we got a train car load of MCXXX to use.
>
> Who knew 27 years ago that part would be gone. Wonder if you will be able to
> get NE602's in 30 years? Who knows?
>
> The 104 has gotten a bad rap. Sure it's full of critters that sing and
> chirp. Yes, it not as sensitive as the stuff we have today on the 15 and 10
> meter bands. But it was better than the stuff at the time.
>
> WHile I've never built one from a kit, I've sure fixed a lot of them. A lot
> of parts..yes, but I don't see it as that hard to assemble. If you want to
> talk about hard to assemble, my vote goes to the HW5400.
>
> Who knows? Maybe it's not so much that heathkit designed a kit that could
> not be assembled, but the guys that were building tube based kits could not
> make the transformation to the solid state circuits.
>
> --
> Mike Bryce WB8VGE
> SunLight Energy Systems
> "Electricity at the speed of light"
>
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