Found My First Kit Radio: 42 years old

[cockpitbob]

I was digging through boxes in the basement and found a gem. It's a Graymark-510 AM radio I built in high school 42 years ago. It sat on a shelf in my parent's basement for 25 years and in a box in my basement since. I took a risk with the old capacitors inside and just plugged it into the wall. It still works!

It's a 5 tube hot chassis design so I kind of have to remember to not take the cover off with it plugged in. The 5-tube AM is a classic design my Dad referred to as "the All American 5 Tube". It takes about 30 seconds to warm up, and warm is right. The top of the box is almost uncomfortably warm over one area.

I have no memory of how much the kit cost or if the school provided it then, but the new-old stock kits seem to be going for $300 on eBay. I almost told my Dad to throw it away 20 years ago. I'm really glad I didn't. I wouldn't sell it for anything today.

Still nice and clean inside after 42 years.

It's all point-to-point wiring. No circuit board. I did pretty nice soldering in high school, but I guess I didn't care about neatly dressing the wires back then.

Note the hot chassis power supply in the lower right. The filaments for the 5 tubes are in series directly across the AC supply. And V1 is rectifying the AC input, so things run on 170Vdc!

I'd say that I have a great EMP-proof radio for SHTF, but since it needs 120Vac to run, I'll have no way of powering it after an EMP takes out the grid.

 

[n1bsbri]

That was a very popular design, many manufacturers took a crack at marketing what is basically the same radio.

The kit version is a neat find. That was a serious building project, so "good job" 42 years late.

I wish I still had some of the Heathkits I built in high school.

 

[ChevyGuy91]

I would love to have a few kits like this on the shelf for when my kids get old enough. Everything I did as a kid (~1990's) was plug and play type electronics kits, this is seriously cool.

 

[one-eyed Jack]

I built two Heathkit color TVs back in the late '60s. Long gone now, of course. Jack.

 

[cockpitbob]

I built two Heathkit color TVs back in the late '60s. Long gone now, of course. Jack.

I remember seeing a few when I was a kid, one with the covers off. I was in awe of the dads that had the skills and patience to build one of those massive kits.

 

[one-eyed Jack]

I remember seeing a few when I was a kid, one with the covers off. I was in awe of the dads that had the skills and patience to build one of those massive kits.

Took about 30 hours each. Jack.

 

[cockpitbob]

Took about 30 hours each. Jack.

That's all .

The one that really amazed me is the 3-lens projection TV a friend's dad built. I think it was a Heathkit. That thing looked like a month of full time work.

 

[CaseHardened]

I had an Advent 3-Tube Projection TV.

It was actually a prototype. Cost me $500 from an engineer that worked there.

It was similar to this, but probably twice the size, as it had a Table-Top that was hinged and lifted up to act as the screen. I'll bet it was a one-off.

I became quite skilled at aligning the focus of the Projection Tubes.

I was sure glad to toss it, though.

 

[NHCraigT]

I built two Heathkit color TVs back in the late '60s. Long gone now, of course. Jack.

My Dad use to do that. He built 2 of those large console TV's back in the early 70's.

 

[Skysoldier]

My favorite Heathkit was the Analog Computer (Model EC1?). I built it when I was stationed at Fort Carson back in 1970, and sent it home when I got orders back to Nam.

When I came home from Nam, I found out my Dad had sold it for booze money! He also emptied my bank account too....

The cool thing about the Heathkit Color TV's was they also added circuitry to generate internal test patters to align them.