The return of Heathkit?

[tony sayer]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus

Made one too, but I don?t know what happened to it now, it was a long while ago;!...

[tony sayer]

In article , Geoff Pearson scribeth thus

What was the semi line up with that now, I presume Silicon at that time BF180 or similar in the front end?..

Discrete IF and demod?.

Anyone got the circuit online anywhere at all?..

[polygonum]

One place I moved to, we had the only four-digit number in town! They had only just run out of three-digits. Everyone there thought we did not know our own number. And that was only in the 1990s.

[Davey]

Mine didn't need it, it was a different company's RAM pack, and it gripped tightly. Removing it was the hard part.

[The Other Mike]

Except you can make something that fits the specification from SWMBO exactly with something that is not available off the shelf.

If you want a bed the vast majority of the population buys them from IKEA. The only reason they are self assembly is to reduce transport costs. Few get pleasure from assembling them and assembly doesn't extend to welding or jointing the frame, winding the springs adding padding and stitching the mattress. I doubt you'd get even 0.001% of the population interested in making a bed frame from scratch.

If Heathkit aim at their previous price point then I see the market for their electronic kits in the order of maybe a few hundred worldwide, maybe even less.

[The Other Mike]

Yes, back then they were, but the world has moved on considerably in the past three or more decades. We get fun in different ways. Sniffing flux fumes isn't one of them.

[Tim Streater]

Springs? Does your bed have a clock in it?

The other advantage of the IKEA stuff is that you can get it up awkward staircases etc. SWMBO's single bed with drawers underneath that came as a single unit, we had to burn when she moved to my house. My two double beds no problem because they come to bits each time we move. And I kept the hex jobbies they were supplied with.

[Colin Stamp]

You don't need a clockwork dial for that. Any line-powered phone will work fine. Argos do loads. The cheapest is just over 4 quid.

My first DECT phone had a plastic box in line with the power cable, with

10 AAs in it. Analogue cordless phones used to either have backup batteries or a warning label saying they shouldn't be the only phone on the line. All that seems to have been dropped now.

I can't remember the last time we had a power cut which outlasted the battery of a mobile phone - not even when I turn on the "mobile hot-spot" app so the family can still get its internet fix whilst the power is off...

Cheers,

Colin.

[Frank Erskine]

I didn't. In fact I don't think IKEA existed when I bought my Slumberland.

Aren't IKEA beds non-standard sizes so that, for example, fitted sheets don't fit (unless you also buy them from said retailer)?

[Frank Erskine]

It may not be for you...

What ways give you fun? ;-)

[Davey]

But I already have this one, so it's free.

Yup, my Panasonic DECT 'phone has no such power backup. No power, no 'phone.

Never say 'never'.

[Chris J Dixon]

This is true, but since my own height is non-standard (at the

95th percentile), the larger size is very welcome. I haven't found it any problem to use IKEA bed linen.

Chris

[Peter Percival]

Is that why they are non-standard, to force people to buy IKEA sheet? Surely not :-).

[polygonum]

Mobile phone, at the time an old Nokia with 7+ day battery life and nearly fully charged, no connection. Local mobile base stations go off when there is a widespread power outage.

Local Virgin cabinet goes off when there is widespread power outage.

= stuffed

[polygonum]

About time for a new bed? Or at least mattress. 70 years is a long life for a bed. :-)

(OK - maybe 30-something in the UK.)

I think IKEA beds are now available in UK sizings - maybe some of them. And IKEA/European sizings of bed linen are now available elsewhere.

[tony sayer]

Well we've been on Virgin, 'nee Comcast, since 1996 and in that time Two outages of around an hour when Padrig was a bit careless with his JCB;!...

[polygonum]

To be fair, we have not had many. And it is quite possible that our position at the end of a long branch makes loss of power somewhere more likely than average. (We appear to be around twenty miles away when sites try to identify out location.) Also, the mobile phone loss might well vary by company. At least two have equipment installed in a location which appears to have some generation capability - but Orange used to die.

[John Rumm]

I did that to make a multi rom cartridge for my VIC-20... stuck images of 8 ROM cartridge games into a 27c512, and wired it up with a dip switch in the upper three address lines. I seem to recall the etching was a tad over done, and I had to hard wire some of the thinner tracks that got a little too thin!

[Jaffna Dog]

It's the exchange rate, prices of a lot of imported gear have gone up since the 'credit crunch' in 2008 made the pound about US$1.50, when it had been more like US$2 before. MFJ's products do seem to cost a lot more than the sum of their parts, probably due to the overheads of small-scale production .

Heathkit might be on to something if they stick to ham radio gear, their ol d products are well regarded, there was a piece in 'Practical Wireless' rec ently about them, many hams are in the 'grandad' demographic, having been i n employment all their life since the "never had it so good" era, unlike th e less fortunate later generations, and are willing and able to pay high pr ices for their equipment.

[alan]

I like the way they assume that every radio ham also participates in fox hunting.

It looks like they are going to produce a morse code generator kit at around $1000 or a battery/resistor/LED kit for $100.