While most hams and hackers have at least heard of Heathkit, most people don’t know the strange origin story of the legendary company. [Ham Radio Gizmos] takes us all through the story.
In case you don’t remember, Heathkit produced everything from shortwave radios to color TVs to test equipment and even computers. But, for the most part, when you bought something from them, you didn’t get a finished product. You got a bag full of parts and truly amazing instructions about how to put them together. Why? Well, if you are reading Hackaday, you probably know why. But some people did it to learn more about electronics. Others were attracted by the lower prices you paid for some things if you built them yourself. Others just liked the challenge.
But Heathkit’s original kit wasn’t electronic at all. It was an airplane kit. Not a model airplane, it was an actual airplane. Edward Heath sold airplane kits at the affordable price around $1,000. In 1926, that was quite a bit of money, but apparently still less than a commercial airplane.
Sadly, Heath took off in a test plane in 1931, crashed, and died. The company struggled to survive until 1935, when Howard Anthony bought the company and moved it to the familiar Benton Harbor address. The company still made aircraft kits.
During World War II, the company mobilized to produce electronic parts for wartime aircraft. After the war, the government disposed of surplus, and Howard Anthony casually put in a low bid on some. He won the bid and was surprised to find out the lot took up five rail cars. Among the surplus were some five-inch CRTs used in radar equipment. This launched the first of Heathkit’s oscilloscopes — the O1. At $39.50, it was a scope people could afford, as long as they could build it. The O-series scopes would be staples in hobby workshops for many years.
There’s a lot more in the video. Well worth the twenty minutes. If you’ve never seen a Heathkit manual, definitely check out the one in the video. They were amazing. Or download a couple. No one creates instructions like this anymore.
If you watch the video, be warned, there will be a quiz, so pay attention. But here’s a hint: there’s no right answer for #3. We keep hearing that someone owns the Heathkit brand now, and there have been a few new products. But, at least so far, it hasn’t really been the same.
I learned to solder building a kit that my dad got me. probably https://people.ohio.edu/postr/bapix/HD-1416.htm
I had one of those keys, but the keyer kit was not one of the 20+ Heathkits I owned at one time. The HR-1680 receiver shown farther down the page was though. :)
The plastic case and such on my Heathkit DMM (IM-2215) became brittle and started falling apart. The electronics are still fine but the case is not. A replacement case not being a thing, I had to buy a new meter. A Fluke which should last as long…
I’ve run into a fair few old kit-built devices (Heathkit, EICO, Knight, etc.) that were separated from their original enclosures and put into new ones like a crab swapping out shells. At least one (a Heathkit audio preamp, IIRC) seems to work better in its new home than a similar original one. Heck, I still use a EICO 232 VTVM that was moved into a new (and very groovy) case sometime in the late 1970s. I’ve seen 3d scanning and printing used to make reproduction cases for old HP gear, but I’ve also seen those decay due to the myriad factors affecting printing. The best replacement enclosures I’ve seen have been made from sheet stock (metal and plastic), but tube stock can work well too for RF devices. That is a fair bit of work, so I don’t begrudge anyone swapping up to a new Fluke. I did the same after my beloved B&K meter from high school fell apart. That Fluke is doing well after 20+ years, so you should be fine.
Interesting… I think all the Heathkits I had had metal chassis and cases.
Multimeters usually need a plastic enclosure to protect the user from the voltage being measured.
Heath built a number of “starter kits” in plastic cases like the code practice oscillator a friend wanted to build but chickened out…. I built it for him…..
My best friend, and roommate have a Heath phonograph player also in a plastic case her neighbor built for her.
I just ran across a HERO (Heathkit Educational RObot) on ebay a few days ago. When I was a kid I wanted to build one so bad. Then I saw one at a regional science fair and got over that dream really quick.
A friend of my mothers bought a Topo and tried to impress us with it bringing drinks from the kitchen to the den. It was a clumsy thing and the clip on drink tray didnt impress me at all.
Here we are 40 years later and it really looks like the robot domestic might actually be just around the corner. I hope its not another 40 years before reality meets my boyhood expectations.
It is my dream to play around with a HERO 2000 some day. It has all the makings of a modern robot but in the form of retro analogs, and I’d love to see how far I could push it with 40 years of hindsight and improved algorithms.
The US Patent and Trademark Office shows 7 active wordmark registrations for “Heathkit”, 2 for “Heathkit Educational Systems”, and 1 for “HE-RObot” to the Heathkit Company, Inc. One was renewed in July 2023.
I sure miss Heathkit! I built/bought dozens over the years. Alas, none are left. My first was a IM-17 VOM I built in the late 1960s and used so often the case plastic hinges ripped through. Lent it out 1 time and it got run over by a box truck!
Wish I still had my SB-220 or SB-1000 HF power amps ( I preferred the 220).
My family’s first TV was a 25 inch color TV that I built as a teenager (my dad bought it and told me to put it together), and my first ham radio was an SB-101 that I built a couple of years later.
My first experience with electronics and soldering was building a HeathKit AM radio kit when I was nine. Thanks Mom!
When in 7th grade was into engine-powered model airplanes – started out with control line but wanted to get into radio controlled. Heathkit RC looked like a lower price entry point to where could even afford a highly capable system. But as started assembling it, I got a sinking feeling that I was in over my head (had only built relatively simple kits from Radio Shack prior to this attempt). Fortunately for me, my oldest brother (a nuclear engineer by profession and also had a EE degree – he’s also a fabulous wood furniture maker as his hobby) came to my rescue. He finished out building it for me and it all worked nicely. So I did end up with a system that was a rather high end unit (for the times) but was something that I was able to pay for with my modest paper route earnings.
And went on to build and fly many RC planes. But when going off to college, got rid of all my gear and never got back into it. Now I sail RC sail boats. And the RC radio gear is kind of ultra cheap these days. A modern day Heathkit wouldn’t stand a chance on economic merit – but at the time, the gear I bought was very high quality in respect to the properly assembled final result vis-a-vis the fully manufactured products of the day.
That was one of the attractions, that you got a lot for the money, as long as you didn’t count your time assembling it as worth money. But a benefit of having every bit of the information there was that you could be more sure that if it ever needed service, you could service it yourself.
I learned to solder on the heath kit “electronic cricket” kit (after many years of desoldering and hacking ugly circuits together from Forrest M. Mims engineer’s mini-notebooks), and this was before I was 10 years old. I completed Heathkit’s DC electronics course by age 9, and many more after. I still have all of the heathkit curriculum books, AC and DC electronics, and it seems some books related to op amps and digital circuits? I haven’t unboxed them and the electronic trainer boards in more than a decade… I wonder if they are even worth anything anymore. A different era, when learning useful skills was actually a “thing”… sigh
It’s been a while, but I think I once had read that the best customers here were the laymen.
Because they were the ones who actually bothered to read the manual carefully.
Still have and use my SB-220 in the shack.
Tubes are 30 years old. Hit it hard(I DON’T!!) and it will do almost
1300 watts. I run it at ~600w
On my second SB-220 the first one I built back in 1974. The second one was purchsed at HRO here in San Diego. Decent amp About six years ago a Ham I knew ended up with an HL-2200 in a basket.
I put it back together for him, made a couple of mods to make it be nicer to solid state radios. Ended up putting about $300.00 in parts in to the HL-2200. When I was done it looked better than new. Received a Henry amp, and 200′ of hardline for my trouble. Not bad for a day’s work.
For me, I bought and built their kits of audio test gear, because with care, you often ended up with gear that functioned reasonably close to HP and other brand-name bench instruments. I also built some audio equipment like a 100w audio power amp and a mic mixer. And about 15 years ago, I bought a few Heathkit radios and RF test gear from Ebay when they came up cheap. Most of this stuff is still working.
When I was young and learning, building Heathkits was such a rush. It was a golden age… But, now – banging things together with modules from AliExpress, and programming microcontrollers, is pretty cool too.