Radio Shack P-Box kits

heathkit tv

Brillyint jeanyus
Who remembers these things? The kit was packed in the actual housing itself with a hinged plastic affair. One half of which was clear and the other being red.

The red side was perforated with holes and had numbers along one edge and letters along the other so that you could locate a specific hole to install a component.

These were available with all sorts of neat projects, one of which was a one tube radio. Sure would like to get some for my collection of useless crap. At the very least I'd like to see some sales literature should anyone have some. Thanks

Anthony
 
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Yep! I remember them.
They were a plastic box split into
two halves. One side red the other
was clear plastic. All components were
placed between the two halves. Then it
was wraped with a layer of plastic to hold
it all together then tagged at the top so that
they could hang it on a rack. All of the ones
I did were solid state. They used Geranium transistors.
I had the AM crystal radio and a FM transistor radio
plus a couple others.
 
Of all the crap that's on the web, I can't believe that someone doesn't have a shrine dedicated to these kits! Whoever thought of that packaging deserves a Nobel prize or something.....so damn clever!

Anthony
 
Yeah, I remember them!

I built a few of them, but the one I really remember is the shortwave kit...ever try tuning thru the SW bands without a vernier drive on a tuning capacitor? The thing used one of those little pocket transisitor radio type variable caps...the kind that had the thin sheets of mica between the plates...and some kind of what could loosely be termed a knob was held on with a tiny screw.....

I finally rigged something up with slot car wheels, gears, axles, etc., to be able to tune that sucker...

Anyone remember the modules that they used to sell that were black epoxy encapsulated all-in-one units? I had one of the wireless AM transmitters, that had to be about 1964 or 1965....those things looked like a big black ice cube with wires sticking out the bottom...I never did try any DX tests with it, though...
 
Yeah, I recall those black epoxy deals....never got around to fooling with them though. But that reminds me of "liberating" one of those flashing lights from a construction site to see what made them flash only to find a similar sealed epoxy device inside.

Anthony
 
Originally posted by RickB
Yeah, I remember them!

I built a few of them, but the one I really remember is the shortwave kit...ever try tuning thru the SW bands without a vernier drive on a tuning capacitor? The thing used one of those little pocket transisitor radio type variable caps...the kind that had the thin sheets of mica between the plates...and some kind of what could loosely be termed a knob was held on with a tiny screw.....

I finally rigged something up with slot car wheels, gears, axles, etc., to be able to tune that sucker...

Anyone remember the modules that they used to sell that were black epoxy encapsulated all-in-one units? I had one of the wireless AM transmitters, that had to be about 1964 or 1965....those things looked like a big black ice cube with wires sticking out the bottom...I never did try any DX tests with it, though...

Shortwave kit.
 
Yep, that's the thing I remember!

I guess it had to be in the 1968-1969 time frame.....

It did teach you to be careful while soldering...since the PC board/box was polystyrene!

The Science Fair SW radio is not one of the ones that I look back on fondly, though! It was an ergonomic nightmare to try and tune, adjust regenration, and volume...it almost spoiled SWL'ing for me! Which, by the time I had this little jewel in my hands, I had been doing for about 4 years....
 
I could see how that could be frustrating if you
had already been involved with SW. When I had finished
one of these kits I was just thrilled that the damn thing
would work at all upon completion. In fact I remember
that the AM kits that I had would actually pick up some
SW stations. I think the two stations I heard the most
was the local station and Radio Canada International.
 
THANK YOU GLEN! Good golly I've been looking for a site like that! For some reason it just never shows up when I Googled it. Forgot about the one tube radio kit (which I had) having 2 batteries, only remembered the 22v job which I electrocuted myself with by tasting it LOL!

Anthony
 
:eek:
Tasting a 22v battery? Hey dude you get enough of
a jolt with good 9v. Couldn't imagine 22v.
:p: Better keep the jumper cables away from your
face when the car dies otherwise youll kill yourself.
All the schematics and instructions are on the site.
I thought it would be kind of cool to replicate one
of the kits.
 
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