[Hammarlund] FS: Hammarlund HQ-215 receiver

[Comarow, Avery]

A long description follows, so I'll put the price at the top and you can stop if you're not interested. I want $550, which is what I paid with no manual. (I bought a nice repro manual, which of course will be included.) Shipping is extra. If you want to use PayPal that's fine, but $16.25 will be added to cover PP fees.
 
Pickup is available in the Washington, D.C., area.
 
I have many .jpg photos that I will send on request.
 
The HQ-215 was Hammarlund's swan song, the last of the HQ designs and the company's only fully solid-state receiver (26 transistors, 13 diodes, two Zeners). It sold for $530 during its brief production run from 1968-70. Fred Osterman calls it "very scarce" in "Shortwave Receivers Past and Present." Mine is serial no. 34848486. As far as I can tell it is unmodified.

 

Coverage is from 3.4 to 30 MHz in 24 200-kHz seqments. The receiver came from the factory with 11 crystals covering the 80-, 40-, 20-, and 15-meter ham bands and the bottom 200 kHz of the 10-meter ham band. Thirteen 200 kHz segments can be added, all switch-selected from the front panel, by plugging additional crystals into an internal board. No crystals were added to this radio.

 

This is a fine-looking receiver. Enough of the classic Hammarlund look is retained--thick aluminum one-piece trim around the front edges and a certain front-panel control layout--for a logical transition. All the controls fall logically to hand. The drum dial, a departure from the previous circular dials, spreads each 200 kHz band segment over 21 inches of scale. With more than an inch per 10 kHz of bandwidth, frequency can be read out to 200 Hz and setting the dial to a known frequency is a piece of cake. A dial light dimmer is a nice touch.

 

It is dual-conversion, with IFs of 3055 and 455 kHz. Those were the same conversion frequencies used in the Collins S-Line, deliberately chosen so the receiver could buddy up with a Collins 32-S(x) transmitter. A 100 kHz crystal calibrator is standard equipment. Power requirements: either standard AC or batteries (12 volts at a little less than half an amp) if the Cinch-Jones power connector is rewired or a second power cable is fabricated.

 

The specs are similar to those of other communications receivers in its price class at the time, with a couple of exceptions--

Selectivity: It was the only Hammarlund with Collins mechanical filters, meaning that the passband is nicely squared off to reject interfering stations nearby. It comes with one 2.1 kHz filter. There is space for two more, which are selectable from the front panel. Heterodynes and carriers can also be notched out by using a tunable rejection tuning control, which adds 40dB of rejection.

Image rejection: I don't know whether its predecessors were unusually bad or the HQ-215 unusually good, but image rejection was only >25dB for the marvelous HQ-180 and the very respectable HQ-145, and >40dB for this receiver.

 

Physical condition (exterior): There are a few pinpoint nicks and small scrapes in the cabinet, nothing significant. I would call the front panel and trim ring very good to excellent. The Hammarlund logo is perfect. All knobs and lettering are fine. The knobs could stand a soak in warm water with a few drops of dish detergent followed by a few minutes of scrubbing with an old toothbrush. Removing the knobs also would make it easy to gently wipe down the front panel. I'm not positive that the power cord is original-the attachment to the power connector looks as if it is, but the cord itself looks like a replacement.

 

Physical condition (interior): The photos tell the story. It's as clean as if it had just been unpacked.

 

Operation: I checked out the receiver on all bands to the extent possible with a short hank of wire. All modes (SSB, AM, CW) functioned properly. There were lots of signals on 80, 40, and 20 meters, and no band seemed dead. Volume was more than ample. All controls and switches were free of noise, scratchiness, pops, etc. (The day before, the bandswitch, filter selector switch, and controls got a dose of DeOxit. After it dried, I lubed the controls with a drop of CaiLube for smooth operation.)

 

Bottom line: I'll guarantee that this receiver will leave here working as described, but that's as far as I will go for a radio that is almost 40 years old.

 

For other views concerning the HQ-215, check the eHam web page or Google HQ-215 and you'll see the specific URL.

 

73,

 

Avery W3AVE

Potomac, Md.