Heathkit HW-101 - full restoration #1

** Yes, I do repairs on certain Heathkit rigs. Reach out to me directly: willeverett1 (at) gmail.com. Check out my website N5OLA.com for touch-up paint and other helpful stuff for the Heathkit restorer.

This is a quick and dirty run-through of a full restoration of this classic transceiver. I'll go through initial inspection through the various testing processes, final alignment and getting it on the air. This is geared toward hams with basic troubleshooting skills and a decent amount of patience, as these rigs can at times present a Gordian knot to unravel. This rig turned out to be well worth the effort, with fairly usual challenges and rock-solid output in the end.

I won't be using any complex testing equipment in this restoration, just a soldering iron, multimeter, old-school multimeter, an RF probe and a frequency counter. (The manual presents workarounds so that the latter three aren't absolutely necessary, but they make life easier.)

Errata: The meter is referred to in the video as a VTVM - actually it's a solid state multimeter. Old habits die hard. Also, as viewers have noted, the soldering iron is Japanese, not Chinese.

I don't often check the comment section on this video, but feel free to reach out via my email in QRZ. I do repair/restore HW-101s on spec, provided it's not a total basket case. Get in touch for more info.

Links:
HW-101 full manual (searchable): https://nebula.wsimg.com/c1334e119f0e...
HW-101 service bulletins (searchable): https://nebula.wsimg.com/7d152f47233c...
HW-101 Resistors - quick reference: https://nebula.wsimg.com/081d3dd4271a...

No endorsement is made nor implied to any commercial products referenced in this episode.