The inventions and products featured on these pages were chosen either for their
uniqueness in the RF engineering realm, or are simply awesome (or ridiculous) enough
to warrant an appearance.
This
vintage Heathkit HW-8 QRP Transceiver kit is one of the latest
unbuilt Heathkit kits which appeared today on
eBay. I have been saving the images in order to preserve the history. The constantly
growing list is at the lower right. The HW-8 covers the 80-, 40-, 20-, and 15-meter
bands for CW. As you can see from the video at the bottom of the page, there were
a lot of parts in the kit to assemble.
The first instance I could find for HW-8 being offered for sale was in the Spring
1976 Heathkit catalog (p79), at a cost of $129.95 ($623.56 in 2021 money per the
BLS).
This is a very nice resource of information on the Heathkit HW-8 by
William Eric McFadden.
From the Spring 1976 Heathkit catalog:
We've made the world's most popular low-power CW transceiver even better! To
the Heathkit HW-7 - we have added more bands, more features and a super new receiver
section that's the best in its class. The famous HW-7 QRP Transceiver helped thousands
of hams work the world on a couple of watts - and on a budget. Now, in the same
value conscious tradition, Heath announces the HW-8.
Pushbuttons Instantly select any of the four bands - 3.5-3.75; 7-7.25; 14-14.25
and 21-21.25 MHz. Crystal heterodyne circuitry allows easy frequency tuning with
a single dial scale for all four bands, excellent stability and fixed CW offset.
Other features include adjustable sidetone volume, relative power meter, diode band
switching and break-in keying with adjustable T/R delay, and RF gain control.
The direct-conversion receiver boasts dramatically improved resistance to overload
and reduced microphonics and hum thanks to a new RF amplifier stage and a two-position
active audio filter. Its improved selectivity give the HW-8 the finest receiver
section in its price class. You get solid copy from all over with readable signals
from as little as 0.2μV; 1 μV or less produces 10 dB S+ N/N!
The HW-8 can be operated from its optional AC power supply or 12 VDC - great
for vacationing or emergencies. Has built-in headphone jack, adjustable AF gain,
preselector and tune controls.
Now's the time to get into the fun and challenge of low-power CW operation. Order
your HW-8 today.
Kit HW-8, Shpg. wt. 7 lbs. .............129.95
Kit HWA-7-1, AC Power Supply, Shpg. wt. 3 lbs. .............. $14.95
Here is the HW-8 owner's Manual
with building and operating instructions.
Heathkit HW-8 QRP Transceiver Kit Parts (eBay photo)
Heathkit HW-8 QRP Transceiver Front & Rear Panels
(eBay photo)
I found two versions of the Heathkit HW-8
manual on the Web. Here is one and
here is the other. I downloaded the PDF versions because they often disappear
over time.
Heathkit HW-8 QRP transceiver video by Paul (VK3HN)
Heathkit products were well known for the completeness of
its instruction manuals, with clearly illustrated instructions. During the writing
and editing process, Heathkit employees were given pre-production kits to take home
and build, while annotating any difficulties or errors encountered. Doing so helped
minimize the situation where the writer inadvertently assumes his own familiarity
with the process is shared by the customer. Having built a few Heathkit products
myself in the 1970s when I did not have a lot of experience with electronics assembly,
I can attest to the user friendliness of the instructions.
Heathkit
still sells many of its vintage manuals for around $15, which is what you would
pay on eBay.
RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling
2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed
formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit
design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at
the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps
while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail"
when a new message arrived...
Copyright 1996 - 2026
All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images
and text used on the RF Cafe website are hereby acknowledged.
Vintage HW-8 QRP Transceiver in the
