Shop | heathkit.com Looks like someone bought what was left of them in ~2015 and is trying to make a go of it again. I see a lot of old NIB parts and manuals. A few new kits with SMD and not cheap. Some shop services. They say education but I don't see any courses as they had with Heath-Zenith. Anyway, maybe worth a look. Apparently, they kept a low profile (couldn't afford to advertise?) because they've been around for ~7 years and this is the first time I've seen or heard of them. FWIW

 

That's Great news !!!
I wonder if somebody will resurrect Allied-Radio/Knight-Kits again.
.
.
.

 

Yup, I still have my Knight Kit "Space Spanner" regenerative shortwave radio I built as a kid. The Heathkit site is pretty bleak. He does have some horribly expensive (relatively) radio and clock kits but not much else other than some old manuals (new old stock and used) and parts. Unfortunately, nowhere near what the original was and probably will never be seen again... Hard to compete against mass-manufactured new (and usually better) equipment with DIY stuff which is why they went out of business.

 

I never got into kits as I thought it was cheating to build a kit, rather than making your own PCB and putting things together (I know I know). However, Heathkits kits were always ridiculous with their pricing and styling when they were around decades ago and it looks like they havent changed much.

 

Dumping here contents of my 'bookmarks' kits collected along years for whoever is interested. Prices, useability, particulars, waiting for your approval or not.
They better be listed in this deserving thread instead of sleeping in my compfuser guts. Some links may be obsolete now.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesal...e_id=SB_20170927131023&needQuery=n&isrefine=y

https://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/chaney-electronics/

https://www.bakatronics.com/shop/

https://www.electronickits.com/

https://www.adafruit.com/

https://www.sparkfun.com/

https://www.makershed.com/

https://vakits.com/

http://www.velleman.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d2_kits.html

https://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/chaney-electronics/

https://www.canakit.com/electronic-kits

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/browse/Electronic-Kits/0000001758

http://www.apogeekits.com/

http://www.kitsrus.com/

https://www.sciplus.com/Kits-h

https://anatekinstruments.com/a/search?type=product&q=kits

https://www.circuitspecialists.com/diy-electronic-kits

https://www.microcenter.com/category/4294939901/Electronic-Kits

https://sir-kit.webs.com/

https://www.hobbyengineering.com/collections/ek

https://store.qkits.com/

https://www.xkitz.com/

https://www.amazing1.com/

https://www.allelectronics.com/category/305/Kits/1.html

https://www.parts-express.com/electronic-parts/electronic-project-kits

http://www.ozitronics.com/

http://www.vellemanusa.com/

http://www.qrpkits.com/

https://youkits.com/

https://www.famosastudio.com/breakout-boards?limit=50

https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=kits

https://www.buildcircuit.com/

http://www.icstation.com/

http://wiki.sainsmart.com/index.php/37_in_1_Sensor_Module_Kit

http://www.kitsusa.net/phpstore/html/Radio-Kits-Transmitters-and-Receivers-2-1.html



Add your own to this list ! If a pinned reference is deserved, go ahead.

 

My first Ham Rig was/is a Heathkit HW-101 I bought used. As a fellow Ham said, "there's enough room in there to run around in tennis shoes". It had the alignment procedure in the manual and once aligned it was a pretty good rig. Not too noisy but a bit toasty, which is how it got the nickname Hot Water 101. Your coffee never went cold. But if you put good "accessory" notch filters in it wasn't that bad. Just a good basic tube ~100W xcvr. Definitely not Mil-Spec like Collins but way cheaper. At their end, they were bought (?) by Zenith and started getting into electronics training courses of which were some good semiconductor logic courses along with their ET-3000 series Electronic Trainers. The ETs have a power supply, signal generator, breadboard, and a few fixed components all in one and are still pretty popular. I've seen some stamped CIE so the Cleveland Institute of Electronics was putting them in their correspondence courses.

 

My first ham rig was a HealthKit DX40 following several ARC5 surplus command rigs. My neighbor had a DX60 at the time.

Ron

 

I built 3 of them when in high school.

1. A transistorized VTVM, using those new-fangled FETs.

2. A low end oscilloscope, also solid state, which was unusual at the tine.

3. AR-14 stereo receiver. 15W per channel. I was very proud of my choice when a HiFi mag reviewed a high-end receiver that cost 10 times as much. Just for kicks they compared the frequency response and distortion to my low end kit receiver, and mine was actually better.

 

@Externet Here is one to add to your list. HackerBoxes Monthly subscription or just buy the box or choose from still-in-stock old boxes. Interesting stuff once you get past the decals and crap for the kiddies. Never bought one but they are intriguing. More stuff in most boxes than I could work through in a month!

 

Got me excited for a moment. At first I read that as Heath Bar is back. Haven't had one of those in a very long time.

Sorry - a bit off topic.

 

Hello,

Many of the old heathkit manuals can be found here:
https://www.vintage-radio.info/heathkit/

Bertus

 

Heathkit is back...

https://shop.heathkit.com/

 

I hope they succeed. I really do.
But it will be an uphill struggle against the dirt-cheap Chinese kits.
Additionally, the World has changed. Nowadays “building an electronic project” usually means employing an Arduino clone, downloading some code, and connecting it to a prefabricated module.

 

I hope they succeed. I really do.
But it will be an uphill struggle against the dirt-cheap Chinese kits.
Additionally, the World has changed. Nowadays “building an electronic project” usually means employing an Arduino clone, downloading some code, and connecting it to a prefabricated module.

I, too, would love to see them succeed, but I think the key to the prior success of HeathKit and similar things was that they allowed people to build things that, in many cases, for less money that a comparable item would cost off the shelf. So people that didn't really care about electronics got into electronics because they wanted the end result, and then got hooked on electronics. A lot of ham radio folks got sucked into electronics because they couldn't afford to buy equipment that would let them talk to people far away very cheaply (at least on a marginal cost basis), but they could build it (and what they built was very possibly better than what they could buy off the shelf at anything close to a comparable price). All they originally wanted to do was talk to people far away. Today, if they want to use ham radio to do it, they can probably buy something off the shelf at a fraction of the cost of what they could build it for, and it would be much better. But if all they really want to do is talk to people far away really cheaply, they just need to pick up their cell phone.

Even people that might want to explore electronics because they are interested in electronics, often quickly sour on it once they realize that they aren't going to be able to do anything that comes close to rivalling what they can do with cheap, off-the-shelf stuff. So the potential market for kits has become so small that it is going to be a huge challenge for companies that make them. My guess is that, to have a chance, they are going to need to find an in with schools to get their kits incorporated into the curriculum. This is possible for very basic kits that are tightly aligned with something like a middle-school science class, but probably not for much beyond that.

 

Amen, Brother W!