Uploaded July 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Designed in the 1970's the HW-104 tranceiver was Heathkits lower cost brother to the SB-104. The difference is that the HW-104 has an analog dial for this reason the receiver is in my opinion better than the receiver in the SB-104 because there are no digital circuits or power inverter circuits to drive the Beckman displays thus no possibility of digital noise. It has the removable slide in circuit boards and the same chassis as the SB-104 or SB-104A . This one had bad VFO drift and the cure sure surprised me I was all set to take the VfO assembly out and take it all apart but was very surprised the problem was VFO grounding and so decided to make this video to pass this on to others who may be having the same problem . Please note this is not a cure all for a drifting HW or
SB -104 VFO but was an interesting and surprising issue of a particular problem . Some models of the HW-101 also used this type VFO poor chassis grounds were a problem we tackled every day in the Heathkit service department on many rigs installing a separate wired redundant ground system is a good idea in many pieces of electronic equipment not just Heathkits . 73 Bob
Designed in the 1970's the HW-104 tranceiver was Heathkits lower cost brother to the SB-104. The difference is that the HW-104 has an analog dial for this reason the receiver is in my opinion better than the receiver in the SB-104 because there are no digital circuits or power inverter circuits to drive the Beckman displays thus no possibility of digital noise. It has the removable slide in circuit boards and the same chassis as the SB-104 or SB-104A . This one had bad VFO drift and the cure sure surprised me I was all set to take the VfO assembly out and take it all apart but was very surprised the problem was VFO grounding and so decided to make this video to pass this on to others who may be having the same problem . Please note this is not a cure all for a drifting HW or
SB -104 VFO but was an interesting and surprising issue of a particular problem . Some models of the HW-101 also used this type VFO poor chassis grounds were a problem we tackled every day in the Heathkit service department on many rigs installing a separate wired redundant ground system is a good idea in many pieces of electronic equipment not just Heathkits . 73 Bob
