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Reviews For: Lafayette HA-800 Amateur Band Receiver

Category: Receivers: Amateur Radio

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Review Summary For : Lafayette HA-800 Amateur Band Receiver
Reviews: 2MSRP: 130-$150
Description:
A solid state ham band only receiver from 1970-1971.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0024
W4HDL Rating: 2022-03-02
THE Radio I Could Not Afford as a NOVICE in the 1970's Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Hi, I am the proud owner of a 1971 LAFAYETTE HA800, NOT -B or 600 (SWL model), which I picked up from a consignment shop on ebay for only $90, in PRISTINE condition. The only sign of age was dust inside, and a front cover/corner drop jammed the toggle switches slightly. And some minor retuning rash on the IFT slugs.

Anyway, I was STRUGGLING to find the SCHEMATIC for this plain 800 model; everything out there seemed to be foe the others, but my good friend Chad found that Surplus Sales of NB had it from the 7000 Hi Manuals business acquisition, and a perfectly reproduced and bound copy came in 1 week for $15.

I used to WORK as a Radio and Stereo repair Tech since 5th Grade growing up in NJ, and my first real Electronics job was at Acrosound Electronics - part of the Lafayette Radio RTE 46 store. So I still have some original Orange 2SC458 transistors and DS-1M diodes to fix these exact replacement wise.

BUT this radio didn't work as arrived - NO power to the front end FETs, which has 3 very nice MPF-107's BTW! Someone had CUT the SEND-RECEIVE jumper wires free from some Ham's station - and they were with the Octal plug but OPEN.

I love the continuous, smooth slide rule dials, and wonderful smooth controls, and classic LRE aluminum knobs. I went in to NYC where my Dad did Commercial Art (inbetween Henri LaMothe World Record High Diving) with $100 and RS and LRE were OUT of the nice solid state radios, so I came home with a TERRIBLE Heathkit GR-64, which became my Novice receiver instead.
NOW for my BIG PLANS updating this beauty!
1) REMOVE and SWAP the Antenna Tuning and BFO Caps (after measuring their ranges at the PCB end of the shielded cables) to WIDEN the ANT and tighten the BFO frequency ranges - different #s of plates.
2) FIX the smooth but 5inch long wired CAL capacitor and remount it very close to the Main Tuning OSC cap - and make a flex or 90 degree Gear Shaft to the front panel - OR go VARICAP as the HA800B does it!
3) REPLACE the noisy RF and AF GAIN pots with smooth Japanese black ones now on the 'net, AND build in a better AGC and S-Meter driver with Op Amps from Doug DeMaw books
4) Scope out the Mechanical Filters tuning range, and ADD switchable multiple MURATA CFJ-455K 13, 14 and/or 15 IF Filters I just bought on EBAY. Change to CA3028A or MC1590's in the IF strip.
5) RECAP the whole radio, and add better 3 terminal regulators to the front end, oscillator and BFO sections - maybe a new 40673 or MC1590 Product Detector too, the injection level seems weak.
6) REPLACE the Audio section and DISCONNECT the 500 ohms output transformer; use some of the TDA 2030 or TDA 2050 Audio Boards that are WONDERFUL.
7) EXPERIMENT with all kinds of 40673, MFE131, BF998 ect RF Preamp stages in place of the Cascode MPF-107/BJT ckt.
Now all I have to do is retire from my Optical Networking EMC/Regulatory/Reliability compliance job but it is doing way too well to quit!!! 73's, Hilary W4HDL
N4UE Rating: 2008-07-18
Not too bad, don't sell the Icom 7800 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Hi. OK, I'll admit it, I LOVE Lafayette radios! I guess it's because back in 1962 that was all I could afford. I made MANY contacts on my ole' HE-80, and have several today....
Don't laugh, sometimes you can buy whole radios for what the cost of a couple of tubes would cost elseware. I have had dozens of tube-type Lafayettes and have YET to have a tube that won't pass my Weston transconductance tester! Most of the tubes are marked as Hitachi....

OK, so one day I spot this HA-800 on e-Pay, er, e-Bay for a decent price. It looked good (don't they all!!) and the seller stated it worked as it should. Taking that comment with a 'grain of salt', I bought the radio, Lafayette HE-48 speaker, and a nice set of Telex Headphones for a good price. Shipping was cheap, the radio was very well packed.

I get the radio on the test bench and it's as dead as a rock. Most of the controls were frozen. No, this radio has not been wet, rather stored in an attic!. But, it and the Lafayette speaker were truely in excellent condition.

Taking the cover off the radio revealed a spotless chassis and surprise, just 2 small pc boards. I felt the same way when I looked into my FRG-7 (an absolutely super radio!!, see my review of that baby).
Carefully, I start putting synthetic oil on the switch shafts, using de-oxit on the wafer switches, etc.

Anyway, after finding numerous bad connections, the radio came alive. That's the GOOD news.

The BAD news, has to do with doing a re-alignment!

Having rebuilt hundreds of vintage (tube type) radios of the Collins, Hallicrafters, Hammarlund quality, I was VERY surprised at the difficulty encountered trying to align the radio. Alhough it had few components on the 2 PC boards, it has a LOT of coils and trimmers underneath..... VERY well made, though.

The IFs (2) were very close and easy to do. But when it came to doing the Osc adjustment for each band...... OMG!!
I would be embarassed to admit how long it took to get it right... It was NOT fun. Just putting a PLASTIC wand near some of the IF coils and caps was enough to shift the freq. WAAAAY off. You had to learn 'where the signal would go', when you moved either an inductor or trimmer, a thousands of a turn!!!

Bottom line, I have the radio in my receiver collection rack and it plays well. SSB sounds good. The antenna trimmer doesn't do much, and the 'Calibration" control.... instead of shifting the frequency SLIGHTLY, (like I'm used to), a SMALL move will move the receive point several (!!!) kHz....

It is sensitive, but could use more audio output. This is easily fixed with an external audio amp, just like my R-390A/CV-591 combo....

Fred Osterman rates it as rare, but don't pay more than $80 and you'll have a fun old radio.....


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N4UE