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fresh boatanchors, anyone?
It's all right. I just needed a final refutation of details.
Thanks, The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
It's all right. I just needed a final refutation of details.
Thanks, The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
It seems to me that assuming the availability of the components ( R,C &
especially L and big iron) the next biggest headache associated with "building" a boatanchor is mechanical! Chassis, cabinets, front panels aren't ceap. How about offering "rebuild kits" for popular BA's. Something like a rebuild kit for a Johnson Viking with all new replacable components might be very attractive. Plus you could work the economy of scale by buying in quantity at a cost much lower than an individual could buy onesy twosy... Just a thought... probably worth as much as most free advice! K3PID Ron H. wrote in message oups.com... It's all right. I just needed a final refutation of details. Thanks, The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
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fresh boatanchors, anyone?
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fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Lazy Senior wrote:
Uncle Peter wrote: Unfortunately cheap computers usually use properietary motherboards. Being lazy carries a price beyond the tag. You know as much about computers as you do BA or hamradio. My HP, the one I am typing on right now has an off the shelf non- prop Asus motherboard. A ATI Radeon graphic card etc.Built by HP and bought at Best Buy. "Non- prop"? I guess that you can't see the big HP image that flashes on the screen from the "Prop" HP BIOS when you turn the computer on. I have a HP LX876 server with an ASUS motherboard. NONE of the drivers are available and the hard drive is missing so that ASUS motherboard will probably end up in the trash. Drivers for others in that ASUS family don't work which is too bad because I really need a working server for a local Veteran's information website project. Since I maintained computers for a living for over 30 years, I suspect I know more than the average person about them and since you are stupider than average I know a WHOLE lot more than you when it comes to computers. I still repair a lot of computers, and some down to the chip level. I replace defective caps on motherboards and clean up bad solder work on some cards as well. I've been at it for 23 years and it has ranged from mini-computers to embedded systems, and everything in between. The last job I had before I was declared disabled was on telemetry equipment, and some of those systems are in orbit. Anyway there isnt anything wrong with propreitary motherboards. Laptops are outselling desktops right now and they are all properietary and they work just fine. Laptops are in a separate class altogether, although you already know that. Lazy Senior -- ? Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
I thought it was Harry Potter's broomstick that got more miles to the
galleon :) |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Good point about the power supply. But here's a wild idea: what about
using a space-charge tube lineup. Now that could operate off 12V (altho 5 AMP)! I suppose I could also get a fair amount of output operating a mini power pentode in space charge mode in class E. Nobody told me that class E was only for semiconductors! The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Come to think of it, those are good points. I guess nostalgia can
supply its own technical justifications. The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
|
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Lazy Senior wrote:
Steve wrote: How about offering these as kits? Maybe even offering them with or without tubes? If you're able to keep the cost low I think you have a shot. Steve I dunno, a company called Heathkit tried that and went belly up. Lazy senior No. They were very succussful until another company who's name starts with a "Z" bought them out so that they could get a foothold in the home computer business. They ("Z") left Heathkit to flounder without proper finances until Heath closed. With proper finance and control a company could succeed with out much trouble. There are several "kit" companies out there that seem to be doing very well. Dave WD9BDZ |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 02:34:40 GMT, Lazy Senior
wrote: Steve wrote: How about offering these as kits? Maybe even offering them with or without tubes? If you're able to keep the cost low I think you have a shot. Steve I dunno, a company called Heathkit tried that and went belly up. While that's true (and several other companies have ceased selling kits), it seems they never charged anywhere near what an "unassembled Heathkit" sells for now (factoring in inflation), as they're more properly called collector's items, rather than kits. I've had the thought of having faceplates and chassis made, assembling the parts and offering 'kits' of some of the more desirable Heathkit models. Much of the work, the actual design and the writing and debugging of the assembly manual, is already done for you. I'm unlikely to actually do this myself, maybe some others can run with it. There may be some copyright problems with the manuals, as well as possible legal problems with copying the design. Circa 1996 I called a phone number for "the real Heathkit - the only place for legal Heath manual copies, still covered by copyright" that I saw in some magazine, asked about a couple manuals (transmission tube testor, $25 at hamfest, metal dector $5 at yard sale), and they were $30 each. I went ahead and got the tube tester manual. But I wonder if there would be some interest in having boatanchor 'kits' available of some specific models that might be popular. Such a kit would likely cost more than a completed original can be bought for, but I can imagine that some people would pay extra to be able to build just one more "Heathkit." At the prices they go for, true unassembled Heathkits are real collector's items and are unlikely to be built, as that would destroy their (dollar) value, at keast much more so than building a 'copy' kit. This way, one could buy a 'kit' for its original purpose, to build into a working product. While selling such a kit may have legal hurdles with copyright and copying the design, you can build your own for personal use with no such problems. The OP wrote: based on schematics and design principles that have gone into the public domain. Hmm, would this include the older (1950's) Heathkits, or has what remains of Heath Company renewed the copyrights? Lazy senior |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
wrote in message
oups.com... 3) What I can think I can offer in gear As a market test, or "proof of concept," how about building a prototype and posting some photos, along with schematic & specs, for folks on this forum to look at? Building a prototype would be a necessary first step in any case. And you might even get some useful suggestions from this crew, as cranky as they might seem :-) Regards, Phil Nelson |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Ben Bradley wrote:
While that's true (and several other companies have ceased selling kits), it seems they never charged anywhere near what an "unassembled Heathkit" sells for now (factoring in inflation), as they're more properly called collector's items, rather than kits. I've had the thought of having faceplates and chassis made, assembling the parts and offering 'kits' of some of the more desirable Heathkit models. Much of the work, the actual design and the writing and debugging of the assembly manual, is already done for you. I'm unlikely to actually do this myself, maybe some others can run with it. There may be some copyright problems with the manuals, as well as possible legal problems with copying the design. Circa 1996 I called a phone number for "the real Heathkit - the only place for legal Heath manual copies, still covered by copyright" that I saw in some magazine, asked about a couple manuals (transmission tube testor, $25 at hamfest, metal dector $5 at yard sale), and they were $30 each. I went ahead and got the tube tester manual. But I wonder if there would be some interest in having boatanchor 'kits' available of some specific models that might be popular. Such a kit would likely cost more than a completed original can be bought for, but I can imagine that some people would pay extra to be able to build just one more "Heathkit." At the prices they go for, true unassembled Heathkits are real collector's items and are unlikely to be built, as that would destroy their (dollar) value, at keast much more so than building a 'copy' kit. This way, one could buy a 'kit' for its original purpose, to build into a working product. While selling such a kit may have legal hurdles with copyright and copying the design, you can build your own for personal use with no such problems. The OP wrote: based on schematics and design principles that have gone into the public domain. Hmm, would this include the older (1950's) Heathkits, or has what remains of Heath Company renewed the copyrights? Lazy senior Why don't you ask them? They still sell educational materials, and at least recently were still supping kits of parts to vocational electronics schools. http://www.heathkit.com/ -- ? Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
"David G. Nagel" wrote:
No. They were very succussful until another company who's name starts with a "Z" bought them out so that they could get a foothold in the home computer business. They ("Z") left Heathkit to flounder without proper finances until Heath closed. With proper finance and control a company could succeed with out much trouble. There are several "kit" companies out there that seem to be doing very well. Dave WD9BDZ According to trade journals at the time Zenith wanted to bid on a large computer contract with the US government, but they were not building computers yet. So, they bought Heathkit to get their existing government business, and to get the contract. I've scrapped some of the "XT clones" from that contract and they were a joke. Both the regular and the "Tempest" hardware. I still have some of their "Z DOS" manuals and the printed source code for the BIOS used in the computers. Zenith put the non Tempest version in the Heathkit stores, and a board was sold by a third party to let you run MSDOS software on the system. The I/O ports were in different locations from the standard "XT" design and some of the BIOS calls were different so that the software written for regular "XT" computers wouldn't run on their design. -- ? Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
"Michael A. Terrell" ) writes:
"David G. Nagel" wrote: No. They were very succussful until another company who's name starts with a "Z" bought them out so that they could get a foothold in the home computer business. They ("Z") left Heathkit to flounder without proper finances until Heath closed. With proper finance and control a company could succeed with out much trouble. There are several "kit" companies out there that seem to be doing very well. Dave WD9BDZ According to trade journals at the time Zenith wanted to bid on a large computer contract with the US government, but they were not building computers yet. So, they bought Heathkit to get their existing government business, and to get the contract. Whatever Zenith wanted to do with the company, I don't think it's that simple. Circa 1976, Heathkit had to recall a 2M transceiver (I think it was a handheld) because it was generating spurs, I think in the aero band. If I recall, it wasn't that it couldn't be a clean output, but that it couldn't be clean with the equipment the average ham had. So they called them in, and eventually came up with a new design. As times went by the equipment became more complicated. And then it became harder and harder to make them something that anyone could build. If in the fifties they'd sell a shortwave receiver kit with the coil slugs "pre-adjusted", a couple of decades later they'd be selling a kit that had some crucial circuitry in a preassembled module. Over that same period, they'd be selling tube gear that was well oriented towards hand wiring (so it made little difference whether it was wired in a factory or by the end user) to solid state devices on circuit boards. The latter was more conducive to automated manufacturing, and the moreso the more years that passed. So the cost of manufacturing went down (I got my DVD player two years ago for fifty dollars, and that is far more complicated a device than any Heathkit till at least the mid-seventies if not later), while the overhead of making something a kit stayed the same or more. Remember, Heathkit did not cater to the hobbyist, even if they were among the customers. Heathkits were intended to be built by anyone. And they were seen as a way of getting something a bit cheaper if you were willing to put some time into the project. As time went on, the automated manufacturing and one assumes overseas manufacturing lowered the cost of manufactured equipment. A color tv set was still a relatively major purchase forty years ago, while today if someone needs a tv set they just go out and buy it that day. There became less interest in building the kit except by a relative handful of the population. I would think the mass consumer items, the tv sets and the Boonie Bikes and such, helped to subsidize the amateur radio equipment. If Heath had to live off the profits from just the ham equipment, they wouldn't have lasted so many decades. But towards the end, they had really complicated equipment for sale to hams, and likely the "kit building" of those required less time by the builder than the old gear, and it was expensive. Heath had become less of a common name, and it seemed like the later catalogs were slimmer and less interesting than a couple of decades before. Combine all these, and the kit business as done by Heath couldn't survive. The kit companies that have come along since, they cater to a much more limited market. They cater to a hobbyist crowd, and while they may need handholding, one would hope not as much as someone walking in off the street who's never soldered and wants to save some money by building that color tv set. Heath spelled out everything in their manuals, while I suspect many of the more recent kit companies say things like "stuff the board, solder the components, and then turn it on" (not so brief, but not nearly as specific as Heath). That saves money. And if you sell products where the kit building is as important as the end project, ie a regen receiver kit where someone can have fun building it and can have fun playing with something new, but who doesn't expect to use it as a main receiver, then you are dealing with a different market than Heath, where they were selling the end items and they had to have a transceiver that was competitive with what everyone else was selling, be it the HW-100 in the late sixties or the Yaesu or Kenwood lookalike that was sold towards the end of the company's life. Michael VE2BVW |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
"David G. Nagel" wrote: No. They were very succussful until another company who's name starts with a "Z" bought them out so that they could get a foothold in the home computer business. They ("Z") left Heathkit to flounder without proper finances until Heath closed. With proper finance and control a company could succeed with out much trouble. There are several "kit" companies out there that seem to be doing very well. Dave WD9BDZ According to trade journals at the time Zenith wanted to bid on a large computer contract with the US government, but they were not building computers yet. So, they bought Heathkit to get their existing government business, and to get the contract. I've scrapped some of the "XT clones" from that contract and they were a joke. Both the regular and the "Tempest" hardware. I still have some of their "Z DOS" manuals and the printed source code for the BIOS used in the computers. Zenith put the non Tempest version in the Heathkit stores, and a board was sold by a third party to let you run MSDOS software on the system. The I/O ports were in different locations from the standard "XT" design and some of the BIOS calls were different so that the software written for regular "XT" computers wouldn't run on their design. But it wasn't Zenith that killed Heathkit. Zenith liked the computer business, and also liked selling TV's, both kit and non kit through the Heath distribution system. For them, the kit division was like a stock that pays dividends... money for no effort. The death knell for Heath was sounded when Group Bull, a french conglomerate, proffered a takeover bid for Zenith. Bull was interested in the highly regarded Zenith laptop computers. Bull had absolutely no interest in the kit company, so they stripped it of everything that wasn't bolted to the floor, and sold it to itself, and mere shell without any solid assets... Lots of IP, but no money, or stock, or supplies, or fixtures to use in manufacturing. Given that Heath was essentially gutted, fileted, and hung from a hook in the meat locker, it is pretty amazing what they have done with themselves. They still sell manuals for all of the gear that was sold before, and they are making kits and educational trainers. Plus they have a fairly highly regarded business in the home security and lighting industry. You can even buy their products at Home Depot.... it takes more than a little bit of "juice" to get shelf space in Home Depot. -Chuck |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Phil Nelson wrote:
wrote in message roups.com... 3) What I can think I can offer in gear As a market test, or "proof of concept," how about building a prototype and posting some photos, along with schematic & specs, for folks on this forum to look at? I want a small standalone QRP SSB transmitter based around one of the newer PLL chips. I want a row of five thumbwheel switches that I can set from say 500 KHz to 30 MHz, a switch to select USB, LSB, or CW, and maybe a watt or two out. THEN, I'd like just the PLL section out of it, to use as a VFO on older rigs. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
I think a fully loaded multiband fresh
boatanchor should sell quite nicely for $199.95 it if offers compareable features. Wow, pie-in-the-sky pricing! My guess is that if you wanted to replicate a mid-60's vintage Swan 350 from scratch (but using actually obtainable final tubes rather than sweep tubes) you'd be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars in up-front tooling and it'd cost about $2000 or $2500 for each one you produce. They listed for $420 (just for the rig, add on more than a hundred more for VOX, speaker, power supply) in 1965. They had a good run, and a decade later were being offered (with some updates) about a decade later when they stopped selling them because at that price hardly anyone was buying them. What makes you think that the sheet metal, transformers, parts, etc. are going to be cheaper today? Producing it in China might let you sell it at a less-than-$2000 price point. If you're looking to do a Collins-class rig, you'll never get the extra $ for the effort because it's still "not a Collins", and even at overinflated E-bay prices the Collins rigs will still be cheaper. Tim. |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
|
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Well, I was thinking of general design principles cleanly rendered into
glass, not necessarily of creating true replica equipment. There are actually a few modern day princples that could be rendered into glass. One of them is the class-E RF amplifier. It would be very nice to get 50 watts out of a triode mode RF pentode by wiring it the same as a MOSFET. The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Good idea. Which is the better frequency standard: WWV or GPS?
The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
That's a darn good suggestion. I think a space-charge SSB lineup with
a class-E tube final would be a good compact rig. What do you think? The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
My guess is that if you wanted to replicate a mid-60's vintage Swan 350
from scratch (but using actually obtainable final tubes rather than sweep tubes) you'd be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars in up-front tooling and it'd cost about $2000 or $2500 for each one you produce. That's really not what I want to do anyway. I don't want to build a true replica transciever. I was only intending to make a clean, rugged, glass transceiver that has a 60's to 70's interface. Big difference, I think. What makes you think that the sheet metal, transformers, parts, etc. are going to be cheaper today? Because they were made from America with union labor. If you're looking to do a Collins-class rig, you'll never get the extra $ for the effort because it's still "not a Collins", and even at overinflated E-bay prices the Collins rigs will still be cheaper. Yup, I agree. Scratch that idea. The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
Fairly exciting stuff for a warm blooded American mammal. But
otherwise, it is all audio. The Eternal Squire |
fresh boatanchors, anyone?
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