How many here built kits in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's? :?: :mrgreen:

[Smithdoor]

How many here built kits in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's? :?: :mrgreen:

Today most will know about how good kits where in the the 1950's and 1960's. This hay day of kits.
Today they are PC board and hand full of parts.

In 1950's and 1960's you build your hold shop from kits and have great learning too.

Dave

[stevehertz]

I built a Philips Wireless Engineer kit transistor radio in the late 60s. Still looking for one now.

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Smithdoor

Today most will know about how good kits where in the the 1950's and 1960's.

Some of them

At about age 10 I aided and abetted my dad - Electricity Board linesman without experience of electronics - in building a Radio Exchange Roamer Seven. Not sure about "most", but many here will know they weren't much cop - six wavebands but only two on the meaningless dial (slo-mo tuning capacitor but no pointer), tag strips and dowelling, the "Floating Wire" and all. Couldn't easily have made a worse choice, I'm nearly sure there were still some MW/LW superhet kits around that when assembled would perform pretty much like standard trade radios. It picked up a few stations, which I expect is as much as could be said for most Roamer Sevens, and discouraged us from any further ventures into the field, given that the price of something like £10 would be equivalent to £200+ today.

Paul

[Vintage Engr]

I built several valve & early transistor radio kits mainly from Henry's Radio, but also from companies such as RCS.
Some I built for friends, or in one case, for the owner of a local grocery store.

One of the kits from Henry's, built during my last year at school, I concealed within an old book, having glued the inner pages together, then cut out a rectangle in which to place the paxolin 'chassis'. This radio had an earpiece, so I managed to conceal the radio for some time, until it was discovered...

David.

[DrStrangelove]

Sinclair Micromatic. It worked, sort of. It's around here "somewhere".

An amplifier kit (OC71, OC81D, 2 x OC81) that I still have somewhere and it works (or did 10 years ago when last pressed into use).

[Dave Moll]

Heathkit stereo tuner and amplifier as well as an oscilloscope - all seem to have failed to move to Cumbria with me.

Manor Supplies TV pattern generator, which I still have and was working last time I used it.

[barrymagrec]

I never built stuff from actual kits, just made things from the fairly large range of components my Dad had lying around, sometimes I had to buy a particular part, usually from Henry`s Radio or a shop in Croydon.

Mullard 3-3 and 2 valve preamp, copy of an early Bush transistor radio and later the Linsley Hood Class A were among my builds, all of which worked to a greater or lesser extent.

[Sideband]

Very few kits. I much preferred building from published designs. Lots of suppliers here at the time. Of the few kits I did build, they were all Sinclair....Micro 6, Micro FM, Calculator, and ZX81 computer...oh and the Sinclair LED watch. Too easy building from kits with everything marked and even colour codes given. OK if you are an absolute beginner and need a starting point then they are a good way to get to know components etc.

[mickm3for]

Hi built a 1 valve trf from plans included with ddr2 coil still build things now latest a copy HAC trf not a kit, Mick

[wd40addict]

By the time I got into this game in the 80s there were fewer kits left, but I did build a TV sound tuner from RTVC. One of the supplied PSU caps was a dead short - the mains transformer started getting rather hot - luckily I had a substitute. It was working by the evening I bought it and I heard that evening's general election results through it (must've been 1983).

The other Kit was an Italian Amtron RIAA preamp, seemed ok at the time, but used to pick up radio Moscow a bit. I recently dug it out, most of the electrolytics had failed and the RIAA EQ was inaccurate by design despite the accuracy claimed in the manual! Luckily in the intervening 40 years I've learnt how to correct such things.

[Paul_RK]

I was never very practically inclined, and shied away from trying to do anything much with bits of metal: so perhaps my most ambitious construction project to date, again around age 10 - at least I hope I wasn't much older - was an amplifier from a design that I think must have appeared in Practical Television, using salvaged TV parts with a PL81 as output valve. Everything (in my version) was mounted on a perspex implosion screen, drilled as required and itself mounted on the upturned lid of an add-on 78 deck for use with a table radio: controls at the front, valves and other larger bits toward the rear. It worked after a fashion and there were no known fatalities.

And, yes, the Sinclair Micromatic: I'd forgotten that but I'm pretty sure I built one of those too. Again it sort of worked, though I wasn't at all favourably impressed by the compression trimmer as tuning capacitor.

Paul

[G6Tanuki]

Having spent much of the last year of the 1950s as a foetus I didn't get to do much kit building in that decade...

I never subsequently got into building commercial kits like Heathkit stuff, preferring to roll my own or modify surplus stuff. I did do a Sinclair Micromatic, and to my surprise it actually worked!!

Subsequently I built some of the designs from the likes of ETI for which commercially produced PCBs were available, Practical Wireless also had a PCB service which relieved me of the need to get involved with photographic reversal images, resist and clothing - dissolving etchants.

Most complex thing I built from a commercially produced PCB was the Elektor Junior Computer, but I still sourced the parts myself (University electronic lab technicians are your friends - I fixed their cars, they paid me in CMOS and TTL!!)

Later on I did build some stuff using Wood & Douglas modules for things like little transistor PA add ons to make a Pye Pocketfone go a bit further on 2M.

Since then I occasionally build up something from one of the Velleman kits, things like voltage regulators where it would cost me more than the price of the kit to spend an hour sourcing the parts myself.

[Smithdoor]

You missed the good days of kit building.
To this day I do not know why some is making a good line of kits.

I see a few not so good kits on Ebay but nothing like the 1950's and 1960's.

Today with equipment you buy it would be easy. A simple plung router , screen printing and a few good schematics. You bring back the good kits.

I built most equipment need for TV repair from kits. You can buy from Ebay used but you do not get the learning and most of equipment has played with and unfit there mistakes

Dave

Originally Posted by wd40addict

By the time I got into this game in the 80s there were fewer kits left, but I did build a TV sound tuner from RTVC. One of the supplied PSU caps was a dead short - the mains transformer started getting rather hot - luckily I had a substitute. It was working by the evening I bought it and I heard that evening's general election results through it (must've been 1983).

The other Kit was an Italian Amtron RIAA preamp, seemed ok at the time, but used to pick up radio Moscow a bit. I recently dug it out, most of the electrolytics had failed and the RIAA EQ was inaccurate by design despite the accuracy claimed in the manual! Luckily in the intervening 40 years I've learnt how to correct such things.

[G6Tanuki]

My biggest problem when building stuff myself was the mechanical side, chassis bashing using only hand tools is not fun if you have to cut eight Octal valve socket holes, and a dozen of the traditional 9 small holes for IFTs and RF tuned circuits. Equally, hand tooling the cutouts in front panels to take meters and things like an Eddystone 898 dial usually results in a mess.

Having someone to do the metal bashing would be essential if I were to take on significant projects like I did 25 years ago as part of my business.

[lesmw0sec]

Yep. Jason FM tuner, Heathkit scope and LCR bridge, RCS amplifier.

[G6Tanuki]

As far as kit radios go, Elecraft still offer the likes of the KX3 as a sort of equivalent to the Heathkit and Hallikit ham transceivers from the 50s and 60s.

They are rather well respected in the manpack-DXpedition field.

[Smithdoor]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

As far as kit radios go, Elecraft still offer the likes of the KX3 as a sort of equivalent to the Heathkit and Hallikit ham transceivers from the 50s and 60s.

They are rather well respected in the manpack-DXpedition field.

There is a big difference from kits in the 1960's and the KX3. It mainly a print curicit board.
Back 1960's you hand wire the kit. It takes some learning out the kit.
I do agree today it would hard to build like did kits in 1950's and 1960's. It would have pc boards the best modules for radio It help new to hobby on how the manufacturer would place difference modules to make radio ( tuner, amp, tone controls add fm too.)
Next would a good looking case maybe out wood not plastic or metal. Other kits could be plastic or metal depending what your building.

Dave

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Smithdoor

There is a big difference from kits in the 1960's and the KX3. It mainly a print curicit board.
Back 1960's you hand wire the kit. It takes some learning out the kit...
Dave

It sounds as though the mixture of available kits in the USA was different from those we saw here. We had plenty of kits with point to point wiring in the valve days, but from the start of the 60s I'd say most kits sold in the UK used printed circuit construction and weren't very different from the typical commercial sets of the day. Some, like the Contessa kit from Henry's Radio,

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/henrys_contessa.html ,

were clones of popular commercial models -

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/co_op_defiant_a5a.html

There were oddities too, like the Radio Exchange sets I mentioned above: and some basic and not so basic SW kit sets, most of those were hand wired; but I'm pretty sure that by the '60s they were heavily outsold by kits for building conventional printed circuit transistor portables.

Paul

[Jez1234]

No kits, but if published designs, prototypes for employers and building up my own designs count then literally hundreds!

Chassis bashing/metal work is indeed the perennial gotcha... it's what's stopping me from world domination of the high end hi fi scene

As said above, if doing it entirely yourself at home it's VERY hard work and the results are rarely better than "OK... ish", and if engaging professional metalworking companies then unless you want 500 the prices are "HOW MUCH!!??" (yes I'm very much aware of all the companies and their prices etc...to save anyone suggesting stuff)

[Sergeauckland]

No kits for me either, but lots of DIY. From schooldays, to only some 10 years ago, all the amplifiers I had were DIY. From Mullard 5-10s, through various magazine designs, to one or two of my own designs. Loudspeakers likewise, started with DIY, buying the drivers and building the enclosures, but I moved on to bought products fairly soon.
Still have the DIY bug, last winter built a pair of GEC 9-12s and am currently looking for this coming winter's project. Haven't decided what yet, but a valve phono stage and control unit may be next, to go with the 9-12s.

DIY isn't economic any more, but it keeps my mind and hands active.

S