Found some pictures of one: https://www.amazon.com/Vintage-1970s-Heathkit-Spotter-Model/dp/B06XY6HD7J
Looks like there are a bunch on eBay - the shipping is more than the ask, too. -D On Dec 23, 2022, at 6:17 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com<mailto:mercedes@okiebenz.com>> wrote: Heathkit fish finder.... It had a rotating disk with a Nixie tube on it or something like that Ah, we had one too. I'd forgotten about it. Very simple device. Just a spinning disk with a neon lamp mounted at the rim, coupled through two carbon brushes on the axle. The circuit would 'ping' the transducer at 12 o'clock, and then the amplifier listened to the transducer and would light the lamp again when it heard the reflection from the bottom. The angle the lamp had rotated corresponded to the depth of the water. In theory if there was a school of fish you'd get a little flicker somewhere between the ping and the bottom reflection point. I can't ever recall seeing 'fish' indication, though. Merely depth. The disk had two rotating speeds, the slower was for deeper water. It always worked perfectly for us. That is, it never didn't do what it was supposed to do. Such as it was. I might even have it still, somewhere in storage. I have the boat, anyway... Remembering the Schenkendorf, and its Perpetuum Ebner turntable, it was always a far better radio than anything else. Shortwave worked well, as did the AM/FM bands. The LW (longwave) band never had anything on it. The tweeter speakers were truly dreadful, piezoelectric things. I had procured a schematic for it, which I stored under the radio chassis. Gone too, now. The fire burned hot, the only recognizable remains were the piano-key switch matrix, which was of steel. The turntable, mostly pot metal, disappeared. As did all the glass, the tubes... When you slid the door over to expose the liquor cabinet, and turned on the light, it was tres elegant, ala Perry Mason. We never had a liquor collection to speak of, nor parties of that sort as I recall. My most strong memory of it was the truly god-awful scratching/screeching it made when you cycled the Mono/Stereo switch. That was a multi-gang mechanical switch that split the Class B audio amplifier in half, into two Class A amplifiers so that the turntable could play stereo. You had to remember to turn the volume all the way down before you touched that switch, or else! -- Jim _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
