In my book, comparing elecraft to heathkit is a bad idea. While I built a number of heathkit kits, including: HW7, HW101, Big antenna tuner, VTVM, Power supplies, I think Heathkit built stuff with price way to much in mind, and often used poor or very odd designs to save money and reduce kit price.
The DX100 was full of compromises to cost, with weird power supply setups, very small driver transformer, 1625 tubes instead of 807's, a rickety vfo, etc. The HW101 used a poor filter at 9 MHz? and some really odd rare tubes. Power supplies were always very marginal. I can understand the HW7 was a very low cost direct conversion rig, but even then, they could have made the design better for little or no additional cost. Elecraft on the other hand always seems to well exceed the sum of its parts, they take very basic circuits, computer control them, and get fantastic performance out of them. Looking at the diagrams, there is not THAT much difference between the sierra, the KX1, K1, and K2, at least in the analog part. Single conversion, xtal filter, the differences seem to be more in the computer control... The sierra was actually more complex with its IF amp chip... While heathkit stuff always worked, it was usually a poor performer and had loads of improvements that could be done to it. That was part of the fun I suppose.... Brett N2DTS > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Wheeler > Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 8:13 AM > To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net > Subject: [Elecraft] Re: Elecraft Digest, Vol 41, Issue 51 > > This is a fascinating thread. It's nice to know Eric and Wayne have no > intention or retiring in the foreseeable future and although > many of us > would like to think otherwise you guys can't go on forever! > > I am only 46, and as nearly everyone who owns an Elecraft > product, have > become very brand loyal to the Elecraft line. I am too young to > remember the Heathkit era but perhaps there are some > parallels of early > Heathkit and Elecraft. Many times I read from old-timers that Elecraft > was the vital spark that brought them back into Ham radio since > Heathkit. Nothing since the demise of Heathkit with regards to Ham > Radio came close. > > Perhaps someone more familiar with the history of Heathkit could draw > some similarities? I would be most interested to know what > many thought > was the reason for the end of Heathkit with regards to Ham Radio. > > Rick > K4LX > K2 #2006 > > _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
