[Heathkit] SB 102 vs HW 101

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 3 Aug 2006 at 10:11, Richard Franzson wrote:

> I am looking to purchase either a SB 102 or a HW 101. Which of the two
> is the better? I know the HW rig came out after the SB.

The HW-101 is a stripped down version of the SB-101. In point of fact, 
ALL of the circuit boards in either rig are essentially identical.

The HW-101 uses a "normal" VFO with dual Jackson ball-drives to 
drive it. The Jackson ball-drives are still available from several sources, 
including direct from England. 

Carl N1MH has them for sale for a fair price. In fact, as soon as I can, I 
intend to buy a pair from him for my own HW-101 whose Jackson ball-
drives have dried out and are "jerky".

The SB-101 uses a tube-type LMO, manufactured by someone OTHER 
THAN Heathkit. TRW was one manufacturer. The early SB-102 used a 
tube-type LMO, but Heathkit very quickly changed to an all solid-state 
LMO very early on.

The solid-state LMO is not as good as the tube-type one, although I 
have heard that one can substitute a tube-type for the SS one easily 
enough.

The SB-102 has all the mods that Heathkit ever published for the SB-
101, and in that case, is possibly the "nicest" of those transceivers...if it 
wasn't for the SS LMO.

For instance, the SB-102 has a low-level output directly from the driver 
stage to an RCA jack on the back. It is also already set up to use the 
external LMO, whereas the SB-101, and HW-101 both have to be 
modified to use that or the SB-500 transverter.

Generally, the SB-102 will cost you more than the HW-101, but will drift 
less until warmed up.

Also, it looks "cooler" than the HW-101.

What it all boils down to is you pays your money and you takes your 
choice.

I have had both an HW-101 (which I use now) and an SB-101 and 
really like them both.

The only things I would change in either rig are 1) the CW sidetone and 
thus the transmitter offset are 1Khz which is much too high for me, and 
2) I wish there were an easy way to change heterodyne oscillator 
crystals for MARS use.  Although #2 can be done using an external 
heterodyne oscillator, as I did for AFMARS phone patching, it could 
have been a LOT easier if Heathkit had made some provision for it like 
the KWM-2A did.

Ken Gordon W7EKB