I bought one of this same model back around probably 1980-ish. I had no use for it, but had a hankering to build another Heathkit, and this one was not too expensive, so I went with it. At my electronics engineering job, the company was rapidly growing and kept moving my small group of engineers into different areas of different buildings, wherever we would fit. For a couple of years, we had offices at the end of a mezzanine overlooking a shop floor, with the rest of the level occupied by a bunch of people assembling printed circuit boards. They always had an AM radio turned on, and turned up loud, and tuned to a station that mostly played acid rock or something else equally aggressive sounding, and my little group found it distracting when we were trying to get OUR work done nearby. I noticed that on the wooden workbench where the radio was located there were a few cardboard boxes underneath that held contents that were almost never used or accessed. I brought my HD-1250 dip meter in from home, and placed it in an empty cardboard box under the wooden bench, and just a few feet from the radio. I tuned it until it matched the carrier frequency of the station it was tuned to. The next day, when the assemblers came in and turned the radio on, their favorite station seemed to be off the air. Since they could not agree on another station, they just left the radio turned off most of the time. The HD-1250 ran for a long time on its battery, but when it finally ran down, the assemblers had gotten out of the habit of listening to that one station, and had settled on another station that had programming that suited their needs for some distraction, while not being so aggressive that it kept my little group from getting their own work done. Everyone was happy, and I took the HD-1250 back home, where it remained for decades until I finally sold it on eBay. I listed it as "like new, only used once for a special project".
I bought the dip meter about the same time. It had two inherent flaws, a faulty RCA jack and a faulty transistor on the smaller board for the VHF range. Heathkit had a store in Los Angeles at the time and I was able to get the transistor but didn't realize the RCA jack was bad too. I bought another RCA jack and it finally worked!
Jeff, I am thoroughly enjoying your series on Heathkit products. Since the mid-60s I have build and/or bought over 3 dozens Heathkits, including their 19" vacuum tube color TV set; each one performed flawlessly.You are 100% correct on your assessment of the versatility of the dip meter. In addition to what you've mentioned, it can be used to cut/tune an antenna to resonance,. determine stub lengths, find capacitor and inductor values, etc. Use of a dip meter should be a yearly presentation at every ham radio club meeting.Now I use the MFJ-259B as a dipper. Thanks for the memories.
I'm still using mine too! It is so useful... It was my very first RF instrument and the second kit I built during the 70's (the first one was a IM-1212 digital VTVM)
I remember using one of those in vo-tech school on a 25 watt AM transmitter. You could take a six foot fluorescent tube and put near the final stage and about a 3rd of it would light up.
Sorry about not completing my previous comment. I'm using my iPhone and suddenly became all thumbs. :) My dip meter is the most versatile instrument I own. Thanks for sharing!
Yes. I've done that many times, over the past few decades. Tune your meter until it dips and that's the antenna's resonant frequency. It doesn't show impedance, but for new antennas it's much safer than using your transmitter and SWR meter. I also use it to tune my tuner before connecting it to the transmitter. A very very versatile test set.
The MFJ is identical to my Dick Smith one which I recently acquired. I’ve already had a play with some antennas and found a few dips from each. Good practice figuring out how to get coupling working. 73 de VK3YWB
If you are talking eBay, the prices vary a lot. You can go and look at the completed listings and see. I just looked now and saw units that sold for $16 to $150. Prices at hamfests, fleamarkets, and Kijiji tend to be lower than eBay, in my experience.
do you know what is the transistor that they use for the oscillator 2n???, my dipper poops out a bit over 100mhz so I was thinking I could put a transistor in their that has a higher Ft, but if the one in there is pretty high like >>800mhz then I probably can't make an improvement.
@@jefftranter tks for that info Jeff. Looks like it has an Ft of 600mhz. I have some at 900mhz. I probably won't change it as you really have to tear things up to get to it. btw, I also have the vaccuum tube version with the 6c4 tube. It actually works better because the tube runs more power so its less likely to quite oscillating when coupled into a circuit. I built that 6c4 version myself back in the 70's. The transistor one I got at a ham swap meet. next phase is to use a raspberri pi to sweep an rf signal, of course it won't be a pretty sine wave.
I would like to use my Heathkit HD-1250 dip meter to find my girlfriend's gold ring that is lost around the house. Can anyone let me know if this is possible, and if so give me some help where the resonant frequency is likely? If anyone else has any ideas to how to find her ring, it would be greatly appreciated, we have tried everything at this point.
I don't think this will work. What you really want s a metal detector, and even this would only be helpful if you were within a few inches to a foot from it.
@@jefftranter Thanks for the response! I tried the Garrett 300 metal detector, and it puts up a lot of false positives and is really hard to pinpoint to a exact gold ring, and doesn't do well over uneven surfaces.
Ahhh ... the old "Self-excited wave-absorption meter" ... valuable tool for finding the resonance of various physical 'structures' including antennas ... .
I bought one of this same model back around probably 1980-ish. I had no use for it, but had a hankering to build another Heathkit, and this one was not too expensive, so I went with it. At my electronics engineering job, the company was rapidly growing and kept moving my small group of engineers into different areas of different buildings, wherever we would fit. For a couple of years, we had offices at the end of a mezzanine overlooking a shop floor, with the rest of the level occupied by a bunch of people assembling printed circuit boards. They always had an AM radio turned on, and turned up loud, and tuned to a station that mostly played acid rock or something else equally aggressive sounding, and my little group found it distracting when we were trying to get OUR work done nearby. I noticed that on the wooden workbench where the radio was located there were a few cardboard boxes underneath that held contents that were almost never used or accessed. I brought my HD-1250 dip meter in from home, and placed it in an empty cardboard box under the wooden bench, and just a few feet from the radio. I tuned it until it matched the carrier frequency of the station it was tuned to. The next day, when the assemblers came in and turned the radio on, their favorite station seemed to be off the air. Since they could not agree on another station, they just left the radio turned off most of the time. The HD-1250 ran for a long time on its battery, but when it finally ran down, the assemblers had gotten out of the habit of listening to that one station, and had settled on another station that had programming that suited their needs for some distraction, while not being so aggressive that it kept my little group from getting their own work done. Everyone was happy, and I took the HD-1250 back home, where it remained for decades until I finally sold it on eBay. I listed it as "like new, only used once for a special project".
I bought the dip meter about the same time. It had two inherent flaws, a faulty RCA jack and a faulty transistor on the smaller board for the VHF range. Heathkit had a store in Los Angeles at the time and I was able to get the transistor but didn't realize the RCA jack was bad too. I bought another RCA jack and it finally worked!
These are the most needed when winding RF chokes to check the resonant frequency of the choke. I use one of these a lot.
Jeff, I am thoroughly enjoying your series on Heathkit products. Since the mid-60s I have build and/or bought over 3 dozens Heathkits, including their 19" vacuum tube color TV set; each one performed flawlessly.You are 100% correct on your assessment of the versatility of the dip meter. In addition to what you've mentioned, it can be used to cut/tune an antenna to resonance,. determine stub lengths, find capacitor and inductor values, etc. Use of a dip meter should be a yearly presentation at every ham radio club meeting.Now I use the MFJ-259B as a dipper. Thanks for the memories.
I picked up one at a hamfest today and am really glad I found your video. Well done, and thanks for the demonstrations.
I'm still using mine too! It is so useful...
It was my very first RF instrument and the second kit I built during the 70's (the first one was a IM-1212 digital VTVM)
Never saw one being used before. Thanks for sharing. I've learn a lot from your video.
Nice video. I've had my Heath Dip Meter since the mid '70s and found that it is indeed the most versitle
I remember using one of those in vo-tech school on a 25 watt AM transmitter. You could take a six foot fluorescent tube and put near the final stage and about a 3rd of it would light up.
I just got mine in the case all coils at the shelby nc hamest this passed weekend for 35.00 works great.
Sorry about not completing my previous comment. I'm using my iPhone and suddenly became all thumbs. :) My dip meter is the most versatile instrument I own. Thanks for sharing!
can you couple the dipper to the end of a coax in your shack and get information from the dipole antenna outside ??
Yes. I've done that many times, over the past few decades. Tune your meter until it dips and that's the antenna's resonant frequency. It doesn't show impedance, but for new antennas it's much safer than using your transmitter and SWR meter. I also use it to tune my tuner before connecting it to the transmitter. A very very versatile test set.
The MFJ is identical to my Dick Smith one which I recently acquired. I’ve already had a play with some antennas and found a few dips from each. Good practice figuring out how to get coupling working. 73 de VK3YWB
If you are talking eBay, the prices vary a lot. You can go and look at the completed listings and see. I just looked now and saw units that sold for $16 to $150. Prices at hamfests, fleamarkets, and Kijiji tend to be lower than eBay, in my experience.
do you know what is the transistor that they use for the oscillator 2n???, my dipper poops out a bit over 100mhz so I was thinking I could put a transistor in their that has a higher Ft, but if the one in there is pretty high like >>800mhz then I probably can't make an improvement.
It uses an NTE161 NPN bipolar transistor for the oscillator and a 40673 MOSFET as an amplifier. You can find datasheets for these on-line.
@@jefftranter tks for that info Jeff. Looks like it has an Ft of 600mhz. I have some at 900mhz. I probably won't change it as you really have to tear things up to get to it. btw, I also have the vaccuum tube version with the 6c4 tube. It actually works better because the tube runs more power so its less likely to quite oscillating when coupled into a circuit. I built that 6c4 version myself back in the 70's. The transistor one I got at a ham swap meet. next phase is to use a raspberri pi to sweep an rf signal, of course it won't be a pretty sine wave.
what would be a reasonable price to pay for a used heathkit hd-1250?
Sidebander I found this same model on eBay for 50 bucks.
I would like to use my Heathkit HD-1250 dip meter to find my girlfriend's gold ring that is lost around the house. Can anyone let me know if this is possible, and if so give me some help where the resonant frequency is likely? If anyone else has any ideas to how to find her ring, it would be greatly appreciated, we have tried everything at this point.
I don't think this will work. What you really want s a metal detector, and even this would only be helpful if you were within a few inches to a foot from it.
@@jefftranter Thanks for the response! I tried the Garrett 300 metal detector, and it puts up a lot of false positives and is really hard to pinpoint to a exact gold ring, and doesn't do well over uneven surfaces.
Thanks for the information . good video .
Ahhh ... the old "Self-excited wave-absorption meter" ... valuable tool for finding the resonance of various physical 'structures' including antennas ...
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Very informative video. Thanks for sharing with us.
As I have u
Poor demonstration...