Time to build a radio - HeathKit - Explorer AM: TRF AM radio receiver

When Heath started designing & selling do-it-yourself airplane kits shortly after the Great War, the state-of-the-art in radio was the Tuned Radio Frequency (TRF) design.

A TRF radio was a great deal. If you had a great deal of money. A TRF receiver became a fixture in the homes of families around the world, receiving the news and music AM broadcasts of the day. A family AM radio was a big investment — $100 to $625 in 1929 dollars. (With inflation, that’s $1,400 to $8,700 in today’s dollars.) Of course, at that price radios also were beautiful. They were made of fine wood, and designed to last. Radios were a visible and attractive furnishing you could be proud to have in your living room or parlor.

Heathkit‘s TRF radio is a great deal. And a great deal of radio. This Explorer Jr^TM radio is modeled on the original TRF designs, but better. You get to build it yourself. It’s safe and simple enough for beginners to assemble and understand. But it receives AM broadcast stations with performance superior to the vintage radios of 1930.

It’s time for you to fall in love with radio. For the first time, or all over again.

This radio has a real air variable tuning capacitor. We have them custom-manufactured for us to our specifications, including its ball-bearing planetary reduction drive for smooth tuning. You can watch its plates move, read the manual, and understand how the radio works. Not to mention, because it’s a Heathkit, we explain the electronics & physics. It’s easy to understand, and soon you—or your eight-year-old—will be an expert.
All hardware is stainless. Nothing to oxidize or rust here.
Transparent rear panel & custom sled let you show off your radio art. You haven’t seen this design before, because we invented it just for you. The sled and front panel design already have several patents pending. Great for for inspection, maintenance, modifying/hacking your radio, or just to show it off to your family & friends.
The front panel floats. The backlit floating front panel seems to achieve the impossible: It doesn’t contact the cabinet on any of its four sides, and seems to float in the case.

You get to tune this radio. You have to tune this radio. Sometime in the past 30 years, electronics got so complex and automated that product manufacturers took control away from us, and radio stations became a number. But a radio station is not a number. It is a place, and it has “width.” How wide it is depends on how far away you are from the station, how powerful it is, and how your radio was designed. You’ll learn all this and more about radio every time you use your Explorer. You’ll tune in stations, and tune through them, and learn to do it better and better, and hear more and more of them. The manual teaches you how. Tuning a radio is an achievement, and you will master it and enjoy it.