Heathkit HW-8 Update

Heathkit HW-8 with Headphones and Code Key

The Heathkit HW-8 QRP Transceiver I bought on eBay arrived safe and sound. It was well packed with the original box inside. The radio is very clean and has had no modifications done to it. It seemed to be basically working out of the box. It included the original manual with fold out schematic and pictorial pages. It even came with one of the two original plastic alignment tools!

Original Box, Manual, and Alignment Tool

According to a hand written note in the manual some the front end toroid coils were assembled incorrectly (in the wrong locations). Looking at the manual and the radio confirmed it. It also appeared to be not as sensitive on the 3.5 and 7.0 MHz bands as it should be. I removed the toroids (which was quite a job as the PCB needed to be partially removed to get at them) and reinstalled the coils correctly. Someone had installed an extra capacitor on the bottom of the PCB across 40M trimmer cap to compensate for the inductance of the wrong coil; I removed that too.

Top Cover Removed Showing PCB

The mystery is, who figured out that the toroids were wrong - the original builder or someone later? Kudos to whoever figured it out, but why didn't they fix it? Anyway, after 30 plus years the radio is now working as it should.

Rear Panel

After the fixes and doing a full alignment it seems quite sensitive on all bands. It is quite selective when set to Narrow selectivity, good for situations when there are several nearby CW stations being received. It is simple to operate and while it isn't full break-in, it is pretty close.

Front Panel

As I speak, it is on the bench and receiving a very strong signal from W1AW's evening code practice on 40 meters. I'm looking forward to trying it out on the air and seeing if I can make some contacts. I'm also planning to do an in-depth YouTube video about the radio.

Scored a Heathkit HW-8

I have been looking for a transceiver in Heathkit HW QRP series to round out my collection of Heathkit amateur radio equipment. I settled on looking for an HW-8.

The Heathkit HW-8

The HW-7, first in the series, had a number of issues and limitations. The HW-8 was a much improved design.

The Heathkit HW-7

The HW-9, which came later, is much rarer, and had the brown color scheme of the last generation of Heathkits with I don't find attractive. There is an HW-99 which is even rarer, is in the brown scheme, and is said to suffer from some serious drift problems. It is also not a QRP transceiver.

The Heathkit HW-9

I scored an HW-8 on eBay which was in great condition. It came with the original manual and even the original box! Interestingly, while it came from Phoenix, Arizona, the box indicated it was from the Heath Company store in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. That is where I grew up and got my ham radio license - I made many visits to that Heathkit store admiring the ham radio, computer, and other kits.

Heathkit HW-8 with original box and manual

I also ordered a CD version of The HW-8 Handbook from QRPARCI, which has a collection of articles on HW-7, HW-8, and HW-9 that were published over the years.

The major features of this rig include:

• 4 band operation (80, 40, 20, 15) on the low end (CW portion) of each band
• about 3 watts of output power
• VFO controlled
• solid state
• direct conversion
• CW only
• requires an external 12V power supply

I'm looking forward to the unit arriving, doing any needed restoration, and getting it on the air. Because it is solid state, it will make a good candidate for trying out some portable operation using battery power. I hope to give that a try at some point this summer.