color>by Rich Post KB8TAD
The on-line auction of bank-seized assets of the Heathkit Educational Services Company brought a note of sadness to me in August 2012. With waning sales of its educational materials, Heathkit had tried to restart just a bit of the kit business that the company was known for but failed when funds ran out.
My first Heathkitcolor>Like so many experimenters and builders of Heathkits over the years, I fondly remember my first Heathkit. For me, it was an AR-3 Communications Receiver. It was 1959. I was in eighth grade. I was saving my hard-earned paper-route money to buy an electric train but after seeing an AR-3 in a Heathkit ad in Popular Electronics, I changed my mind. I wanted to build a shortwave radio. I looked at the offerings of Allied Radio with their somewhat cheaper regenerative kits but that AR-3 was a superhet that covered broadcast and three shortwave bands. It sported bandspread and a real BFO (beat frequency oscillator).