I just picked up a bit of a museum piece in the week end.
On the local ham radio site someone sold a Heathkit HW-9. Yes an oldie.
This one had a WARC band expansion, so yes, 8 bands available.
Running abpout 3W on 10m up to 4-5W on 80m it is a capable QRP radio.
The set does need a bit of maintenance. Switches are a bit unstable, although the volume potmeter sounds OK. A fresh alignment will also be a good idea, as the (analog, of course) frequency dial is a bit off.
For now I set up the HW-9 as a receiver (without connecting a key), with the audio output connected to a computer speaker. Using the radio for transmitting will come later, after the fresh alignment.
The only real drawback for me is that the tuning is a bit fiddly, I have got used to modern rigs with a nice slow tuning, but this one will do nicely.
Sensitivity is sufficient on all bands, as the noise clearly increases when the antenna is connected, even on 10m. Selectivity is sufficient for my use. Wide is about 1kHz at 6dB and narrow is about 250Hz. The narrow filter is audio based.
No comments:
Post a Comment