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| Reviews Summary for Heathkit HW-101 |
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Reviews: 35
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Average rating: 4.2/5
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MSRP: $399.00
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Description: The HW-101 is an HF (80 to 10 meter) amateur band SSB transceiv
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N2WJW
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Rating: 4/5
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Nov 19, 2005 20:53
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Nice toy
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Got my first HW-101 about a year ago from a ham that re-built it and left it in very nice condition. The rig has a very nice and sensitive receiver but wide without a filter and kicks about 100 watts of power, got to like it so much I got myself a second '101 as a parts rig, wound up fixing it and now it works great.
These are great radios for the ham that is not scared of going under the hood, because at one point or another you will have to go inside and do some tweaking, and the tubes are not hard to get.
This rig cant be compared to newer rigs but at around $100 for the radio without the PS and good performance for its age makes it in my opinion a good toy to play with.
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N2DM
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Rating: 4/5
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Nov 16, 2005 11:12
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Good, solid performer.
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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In 1976, purchased and built the HW-101 kit. Didn't work at first, passed all the resistance measurements in the manual. Took it to Heathkit store in Buffalo and they found I had received defective 6au6 tubes. They gave me replacements and we were off and running. Was main rig until 1981 when I got a Kenwood. Still have the HW-101 today, works as good as it did in 76 and it can be fixed by an old guy with failing vision (me). This will be the last item to go before they plant me. Just used it in the 2005 November SS, CW contest. Good solid, user friendly rig. 73, Dale.
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KC8MWG
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Rating: 4/5
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Sep 9, 2004 17:47
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Decent transceiver, though quirky...
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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My HW101 was given to me by my elmer as an incentive to upgrade from Tech to General (worked, too...). He, in turn, was the third owner of the rig, but never had it on the air himself (too many more modern ones to use). The original owner built it in 1975, and it has the crystal filter option. We took it to RTO Electronics in Benton Harbor to have it gone over and fixed. Guys, this is a great place to get your Heathkit equipment fixed. Ron Oxley was one of the techs at Heathkit who would finish assembling kits for guys who got stymied in either building their stuff or getting it to work right. E-mail him at hamtech@rtoham.com.
The radio is a little drifty, and as the 6146 tubes were never replaced (too pricey at the time the radio was given to me), I think they're getting a bit flakey. When I first put the rig on the air it put out 100 watts plus. It seems to be down to about 80 watts now. Thankfully, my elmer (KB8KNM) said he has a set of unused 6146 tubes around doing nothing. Got a great deal on the mic, too (an Astatic D104/TUG8, vintage, pristine condition, for about $40). My only gripe is that some time before KB8KNM got it, someone replaced the original speaker in the 120V power supply with an 8-ohm car speaker that has such a high input wattage requirement that I need to turn up the audio gain full blast to listen to it most of the time (I mostly use headphones), and the grille cloth was replaced with a garish red flannel stuff (which I will replace, eventually...). Eventually, I'm sure I'll have more modern HF rigs, but the HW101 will always be special to me.
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KC0NPF
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Rating: 4/5
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Sep 8, 2004 21:29
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Nice rig for it's time
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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Obviously the VFO drifts alot, the dial doesn't ever stay calibrated (tune one way, then the other way and you have to recalibrate, it slips on my rig). The Tx audio was fine but required far more drive than the TenTec Omni-D which I now run. Transmitter section was just about bullet proof, as my first rig, it was subject to longer than 'normal' tune times, high swr and probably a bad dipole too. Reciever was ok, but since it was my first rig, i haven't had much to compare it to. Tuning the finals wasn't a problem, never had trouble with output power, the amazing part was it's still ALL original tubes (except for the mic preamp, which we thought was the cause of the abnormally high drive level, it wasn't.) If that were replaced, it would then be all original. The CW filter was used for PSK31, but I don't work much CW. I do enjoy a few more filter options in my tentec (1.8khz ssb for example). For it's time, it's a fine rig, sure it has it's faults but almost every rig does.
There's my long delayed reveiw,
KC0NPF
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KZ1X
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Rating: 5/5
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May 23, 2004 14:00
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25 years and still going strong
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I built mine in 1979 when I got my Novice, as an incentive to upgrade to General. Bought it with a loan from my late grandfather, who later forgave the balance. I have other rigs today which I use more often, but, the '101 still works FB. I think that, when I get the time, I will do a little updating and preventive maintenance, change the antenna connector, add an external VFO input, swap out some old caps, look seriously at the maybe take the cabinet to NC Total Electronics for a new paint job. The old gal is worth it.
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WB8RKQ
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Rating: 5/5
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May 23, 2004 13:26
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not bad
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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this is a work horse radio they are still out there working after 35 yrs easy to fix if they brake they have good out put power have great rec audio they drift a little but if you let them warm up there stable i get mine out now in then and people dont even know that im talking on a 35 yr old radio you can buy them for around 80 bucks on ebay without power sullpy that is hihi you can get a power sulppy for around 50 bucks with speaker if your lucky they are a great old radio and are a blast to orperate plus you cant hurt the finals like a solid state rig you can tune any thing up hihi they are a great deal for a new ham to learn to tune radios and have fun 73
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W3GMN
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 23, 2003 12:34
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Fantastic rig
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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One of the best rigs I've ever and still own.I also run a Drake C line station.I use the HW-101 as a back-up.I have only had one problem with the rig and that was the Jackson drives which never worked right, I replaced both of them at NO expense thanks to Heath. The rig outputs over 200 watts into a Bird and the rcvr works fine. I wish it had a RIT on recieve and anyone who may have a circut please let me know.
Reading the whinners about problems just shows me how Ham radio has lost over the years (just look at the calls), nobody has enough skill to fix a rig any more and it doesn't get any easier than a Heath (I fix all my Drake equip and that's a lot harder). The Heath audio is better than the Drake.I was licenced in 1957 when you had to know how fix your gear and I also have a FCC first class licence.
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WA2CLP
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Rating: 4/5
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Jul 4, 2003 01:30
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Great Rig: Can't part with it!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I built my HW-101 in High School (1971.) I spent so many hours operating that rig. I took it to Camp Sequoia in 1975 as the Ham Radio Counselor and worked the world from Rock Hill, NY. Then later it went to Va Beach and I operated portable/4.
My only real complaint about was the carrier null pot. I had to jiggle that thing every time I fired up the rig to completely null out the carrier. I finally replaced the pot and then soldered a jumper wire to one of the lugs that couldn't be completely soldered to the foil on the circuit board where it was mounted. That almost fixed the problem. The carrier still comes back every now and then, to this day.
Another easy fix was to re-solder the metal partition to the chassis near the heterodyne coils. When that thing unkowingly came loose I had all kinds of trouble on the upper bands with wild oscillations. Once the partition was secured the problem vanished like magic!
The 101 did manage to make it back to Benton Harbor once before they went out of business for a complete overhaul and it came back in "tip top" shape. Then later, with the help of a friend I fixed it myself, a couple of times; once when the audio went south by replacing a resistor that had burnt out.
Another fix was to add additional resistance to the cw sidetone so it wasn't so darn loud. It really hurt when you wore headphones. Ouch!!!
Right now I will need to replace the finals and driver tubes and hopefully it should be back on the air.
Even though I have a newer Kenwood I just can't seem to part with that good old Heathkit because it brings back so many good memories of my time on the air.
Very 73--Dan WA2CLP
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W1JCJ
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 23, 2003 08:42
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Remember the
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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...one additional comment. As with all Heathkits, the users experience has alot to do with how well the kit was assembled. These kits were a great way to learn about electronics and radio. Buying one used is a risk and one has to assume there will be problems if the thing was poorly glued together.
I still love using the HW101 because its amazing to me that something I purchased 25 years ago with money from my paper route is still ticking.
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K8KHW
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 21, 2003 22:08
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The Heathkit is a great old Rig
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have owned and own now several Heathkit Rigs, As with all things I have had some good and bad rigs, But over all they have proformed great for me, I use a HW-101 everyday on CW and it has done a great job. I also have a HW-101 I use on the digital modes like psk-ect and have no problems doing so. I guess it,s just like cars It,s what ever you like, But one should not give a bad review on a one time deal, I have owned about all the differnt rigs made and have had bad ones in them all. 73 Randy K8KHW
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