A new Jones: The Heathkit HW Series of QRP Rigs

Part I - Revitalization
Well, WB6JDH did it to me again! He infected me with another jones. I fell prey to the siren call of those who have fallen in love with the old Heathkit QRP radios, the HW-7, HW-8, and HW-9. And, true to the W6DQ maxim, "why buy one thing when you can buy two at twice the price", I stocked up big time by taking advantage of deals and opportunities that cropped up over the last three months (while I was wrestling with the &*^%$#*@! Cheap Chinese Crystal Checkers & [not] Counters -- dubbed "CCCCC" for short.

Siderbar: Dick is working on a small preamp circuit -- hopefully low-profile and cloned from a quad NAND gate 74HC00 or something. So maybe something will come of it anyway. If these can be made to actually count then maybe they can be used as cheap and reliable (well, cheap anyway) digital displays for older analog radios. But I digress..

Anyway, as I was saying, in short order I scored the following:

• An HW-8 in good, clean working condition.
• Two HW-7s, both working, one in sorry cosmetic condition.
• A complete HW-9 station, rig, PS, power meter, antenna tuner.

More on the HW-8 and HW-9 later, but to titillate, I immediately broke the HW-8's tuning cap by over-rotating it and was able to replace same with a brand new VFO cap (they still sell them) and upgraded the T/R switch and audio board with absolutely marvelous products from KC9ON. Then, one early morning, I got up to take a whiz and was perusing eBay when I saw the HW-9 station pop. So I jumped on that like a dog on a bone and..well..more about those two later.

Staring with the HW-7s, I got them both from WB6JDH -- as I did the HW-8. One of them was good cosmetically but Dick said it may "have some issues". I have not fired it up as yet (see above re CCCCC and the HW-8 work) but I will do so soon. And, after reading all of the bag jobs on these HW-7s (great out of band short-wave station and AM band receivers because of their DC receiver and 40673 mixer, etc.), I am prepared to be under-whelmed. Still in all, there is something quaint about these radios and, indeed, all three of the HW series. It is something that reached out to the kid in me when I was first a Novice in 1961 and built my DX-40. Scoring a legit manual and all of the diagrams and drawing foldouts tends to make one fearless. Subsequent books, articles and notes like WB8VGE's HW-8 handbook series ((out of print, second edition alleged to be here) only emboldens one.

Anyway, now to the nut: the "other" HW-7 is kind of like the little puppy with a limp who follows you home and you affectionately adopt. While Dick says it "plays really well" you will see that it has definite cosmetic issues. I frankly dunno about some people. As Bob, WB3T (a great restorer of these radios) said of the former owner of an HW-8 he scored off of eBay:

I enjoyed HW-8 II so much, I decided to do another one (HW-8 III). This one was a real clunker when I got it. The mixer amplifier FET was in backwards, as were the internal trimmers in the receive circuit, which "ungrounded" the ground end. Most components were standing a half-inch off the PC board, the panel meter was shot, and the soldering needed to be completely re-done. (Some people by law shouldn't be permitted within 100 yards of a soldering iron!) It looked as though several people had tried and failed to get this one going over the years.

By the way, I recommend visiting Bob's web site and perusing his restoration work on the HW-7 and HW-8s he did. If anything, his video of the HW-7 during a contest -- together with the simplicity of the HW-7 -- make me eager to see if these can truly be turned from a sow's ear to a silk purse. (Also, his "King's New Clothes" take on Elecraft is interesting and refreshing. I love my K-2 but believe my romance with Elecraft stopped when the stratospheric prices came in and "bolt-together" radios came out. We're now "just good friends".)

So, here's pictures of the little puppy that followed me home. As you can see, someone went nuts with a power drill and rendered the simple-yet-elegant front panel a shambles. (I'd like to take a drill to that anal pore's nether regions, believe me.) As it stands, I am toying with cutting a new panel out of aluminum and doing OHR WM2-like stick'em labels. Or something..

..am open to ideas. Enjoy; kind of like looking at a traffic accident, innit?

-72-