How many of you built Heathkits?

I built HK Tower two way speakers (each had two mids and two philips tweeters) with my father back in 1978 or 79. About 3 years ago - I built a VTA set of amps again with pop.
 
I built a Heathkit real time analyzer. It was a battery powered 20 band analyzer with microphone and rack mount box - battery charger built in to the rack mount box. Great unit. I EQ'd quite a few auditoriums with that baby back in the day. It always gave me a good sounding room - more than I can say for some of the "more expensive" units I have used recently!
 
HealthKit digital multimeter, frequency counter and oscilloscope calibrator. Still have all of them and they all work.
 
Never built a Heath but have built other small kits in the past. Now I use and modify a Heatkit HW-8.
Bob
 
I was a Heath store manager so built dozens for store demo's and also a number of my own. The first audio piece was the AP-1800 pre-amp.
 
I once built a Heathkit Radio Control Setup in '75. A V pricey and involved build Worked fine tho. But 2 years later I Upgraded to a Futaba setup which was 1/2 the price of the Heathkit item and has worked flawlessly since and still does actually.
Heathkit was a product of it's times. Simply couldn'd exist in any other time period though.
 
Lots and lots. I got my first Amateur Radio license when I was 13, so Heathkit was my friend. I not only built rigs, but test equipment. My first VOM was actually an ArcherKit from Radio Shack, but my 2nd (much nicer) was a Heathkit and my first VTVM was a Heathkit. Still have it.

The only kit I didn't build that I wanted to was an FM Receiver. I ended up buying a Realistic STA-76 (via Layaway - I was a young teen and money was scarce). In hindsight, I should have just saved up for a Heathkit Receiver.

I miss those days, I miss that company. I miss the Heathkit catalogs.
 
Didn't build any, but lucky enough to have several pieces in the collection, including restored W-5's and SA-2 amps, AA-141-A and SP-2 pre's. When done right, fantastic examples of golden era hi fi.
 
Where's the poll? I came here for balance. I never built any Heath kits or Knight kits or any kind of kit. I thought electronics was boring. When I saw plans for a metal detector in a magazine or book I thought buried treasure. So I went to the local self-serve e-waste site: a roadside ravine where people tossed their TV's. I got the parts in the plans and made it and found a lot of buried aluminum litter like pie tins and bottle caps.
 
I was just getting into electronics and in '74 I built a Graymark 509 mono tube amp with a 50C5 output in my high school electronics class and I still have it. Heathkits were just a dream then!
 
Drooled over the catalogs, saved my pennies working in the tobacco fields of NC, bought my first radio, a Heathkit GR-64. It worked the first time it was powered up although I'd be embarrassed by the low quality soldering job.

Worked on many abandoned kits, too, as a bench tech in a stereo shop, too. I always assumed that all solder joints were bad and, essentially, charged the customer for a complete build. That made me extra spending money for dates back then.

Now, I work at a ham radio company that still sells kits. Yep, the largest single root cause for kits not working is poor soldering. Some things don't change.

Cheers,

David
 
Yes, I built an AR-15 receiver (no errors, just a bad 40410 that burned up the phono board) and several pieces (7 or 10) of test gear, all of which I still have. I miss that company; why didn't we keep them in business? Another question: why didn't they QC their transistors or tell us we needed to do that first?

My first kit was an EICO HF-12 (in 1961) and then I built an EICO mono tuner (to go with his ST-40) for my Dad a summer between college years and convinced him to buy a built MX-99 multiplex, which I cannot find (yet, still looking in his cluttered basement).
 
I am from the older generation now and was just curious of how many AK menbers on this forum built Heathkits?
Kit building was one way of obtaining stereo gear or Ham radio gear, test equipment, and so on.

if anybody remembers the Nixie tube digital clock I built one of those
 
I am from the older generation now and was just curious of how many AK menbers on this forum built Heathkits?
Kit building was one way of obtaining stereo gear or Ham radio gear, test equipment, and so on.

I built them in the past..a 21 inch color TV as well in '73
 
I built a ton of Knight kits when I was a kid. A few 12 watt amps(the small black tube ones) way back. Some for friends and gave them away. Never charged more than the amp.
Also Knight tube tester. Folks don't remember that before SS there were a ton of tubes being used on everything you bought. And they burned out often. Our RCA TV(1956) had over 30 and it wasn't even color. Color sets had maybe 50(?) tubes.
Knight 32 watt/channel integrated tube.(1960?)
Knight stereo multiplex decoder tubed.
Arkay FM tuner tube
Knight VOM(?)
and other stuff.
 
My parents got me started with a Knight short wave radio (mid to late 60's I guess). My first big purchase after graduating from college and finding a job was a decent stereo with TT, Integrated Amp and speakers. Built a Heath-kit Tuner to go with it. Eventually gave it away to a brother in-law.
 
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