The Twins

In my early ham radio days, I operated using my dad's rigs that he must've picked up in the early 1960s - a Heathkit Apache TX-1 transmitter and an Hammerlund HQ-170A receiver.

They were sweet machines. But they sure were big. Just like my old callsign, WA4ZJW.

When ham radio operators refer to boat anchors, I'm sure they had rigs like this in mind. I still have the Hammerlund.

In the late 1970s, Heathkit came out with a line of smaller, sleaker machines. And two of them, specifically, were marketed for young hams like me. Together, they were the Heaathkit HR 1680 receiver and the HX 1681 transmitter. Colloquially, they were known as "The Twins."

As an aside, my dad swore by Heath products. Our first color tv was a Heathkit. My first memory of a color tv was coming home one day and finding component parts, and a schematic, strewn across the living room floor: tubes, resistors, capacitors -- the whole smash. 

Dad also liked Heath's line of radio gear (like the aforementioned Apache). So, it wasn't a big surprise that dad purchased those rigs for the young, teenage ham under his roof.

And during my ham heyday, boy I had those twins humming. I've told you about my DX exploits (DXploits?) and my late night rag chews with Ed. All of those QSOs, and many others, were completed using The Twins.  

Then, as I also told you, I grew up. Went to college. Met a girl. Got married. Got a job. Got a different job. Bought a house. Bought a different house. Started a family.

As life got more complex, I drifted away from ham radio. And, at some point. my dad sold The Twins. Man, I wish he had given me first right of refusal. But he didn't. I've often thought he must've needed the money and would have felt bad about taking it from me instead of some stranger.

I would have paid, however, to preserve that piece of my adolescence. 

As I recall, the receiver rolled off the assembly line with ease but I seem to remember it took a little while for the transmitter to catch up. And thus, I think there were fewer HX-1681s than HR-1680s in the marketplace. 

That seems to meet the reality I experienced a few years ago when I went searching for the rigs. I decided I'd like to have them, even if I couldn't get my hands on the ones I operated, I'd be satisfied with replacements. I found–and bought at a reasonable price–an HR-1680. 

It sits in my ham shack on the small table to the side of my current rig. 

 

But, I'm still in search of its twin. So, I guess my "ask" today is if you happen to run across an HX-1681 for sale somewhere, let me know. I'd sure be happy to add it to my collection and reunite it with its partner.

The SKCC has a special event each year that features vintage rigs. Sure would be a lot of fun to power up and use The Twins in a modern K4KYN ham shack as I did in the old shack all those years ago.

Otherwise, it's a series of fun memories from the log.

JG