[ARC5] "Heath" AircraftTransmitter, and now Receiver.

[Robert Nickels]

On 11/26/2011 11:51 AM, David Stinson wrote:
> This is very cool
Very cool indeed, Dave!   A clever example of what Design for Six Sigma 
engineering mavens 60 years later would call "design re-use" ;-)   I'd 
sure think someone would have a flyer from the early Heath company that 
showed these neat little radios - maybe something will yet turn up, 
especially if "several hundred" were sold.

Now I'm motivated to get the "Big HT-4" (something ironic about that 
choice of model number...) going.     I have another little 
battery-powered transmitter that uses the 3A4 as a final tube and at 150 
volts B+  it'll put out over a watt of AM and my first contact was 100 
miles away, so it might surprise you what that 0.6 watts will do with a 
good antenna.   Low power AM is just a hoot!

The Heath-Meissner receiver is very cool too, but I'm sure that dial 
calibration is in 10's of KC for the beacon band, i.e. 190 to 420 KC.    
The IF must be pretty low, but maybe a little converter ahead of it 
would be a good way to make it receive the ham bands, and provide better 
image rejection than trying to mod the LO.   A  converter using a 3.58 
Mhz TV color crystal would bring 3.880 in at 300 on the dial, which 
would be just about ideal I'd say.   And hey, it even has dual phone 
jacks so you you can listen with a buddy ;-)  Based on the description 
that was posted, you may have the "A" model, since it has the switch for 
fixed 278 kc.

Look forward to hearing your progress.

73, Bob W9RAN