page_title: Heathkit
section_title: Early DX-series transmitters
hierarchical_section_title: Heathkit / Amateur radio / Early DX-series transmitters
context_page_description: Heathkit is the brand name of kits and other electronic products produced and marketed by the Heath Company. The products over the decades have included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, robots, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and the influential Heath H-8, H-89, and H-11 hobbyist computers, which were sold in kit form for assembly by the purchaser.
  Heathkit manufactured electronic kits from 1947 until 1992. After closing that business, the Heath Company continued with its products for education, and motion-sensor lighting controls. The lighting control business was sold around 2000. The company announced in 2011 that they were reentering the kit business after a 20-year hiatus but then filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and under new ownership began restructuring in 2013. As of 2019, the company has a live website with newly-designed products, services, vintage kits, and replacement parts for sale.
context_section_description: The company's first full featured transmitter, the DX-100, appeared in 1956.  It filled two facing catalog pages, indicating Heathkit's seriousness in building kits for amateurs.  The description noted that it was “amateur designed” – meant to convey expertise in designing specifically for the amateur radio operator - not the usual sense of the term amateur.  And it stated that “amateurs in the field are enthusiastic about praising its performance under actual operating conditions”, indicating that it had been through what we would call beta testing today.
  Heathkit had been including schematic diagrams of nearly every major kit in its catalog since 1954.  In addition, the DX-100's listing contained two interior pictures and a block diagram.  The 15-tube design could transmit either CW or AM (voice) with 100 to 140 watts output on all seven short wave amateur bands.  It had a built-in power supply and VFO, and weighed 100 pounds.  Priced at $189.50, it was expensive for the time (equivalent to $1,800 in 2019), yet undercut other amateur transmitters having similar features.  It became quite popular.
  The following year they introduced two scaled-down transmitters: the CW-only DX-20 model, meant for beginners, and the DX-35, capable of both CW and AM phone.  Both models covered six bands, only lacking the DX-100's coverage of the 160m (1.8 MHz) band.  Although they resembled the DX-100 in appearance, they lacked many of its features.  But at $35.95 and $56.95, they were much more affordable.  The DX-35 was superseded a year later by the improved DX-40.
  The DX-100 was upgraded in 1959 to the DX-100B (there apparently was no DX-100A) and sold for the same price.  By 1960, the catalog advertised it as the “best watts per dollar value” and called the 5-year-old design “classic”.
caption: Heathkit DX-100 Amateur Transmitter built in 1958 by W3BOA/W4AHY
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