portable shortwave receiver. Table I is a
timeline of the 17 Heathkit GC receivers.
By the late sixties the Japanese radio inva-
sion was making competition difficult for
Heathkit. After 1969 Heathkit released only
two new GC receivers, the SW-717 in 1971
and the SW-7800 in 1984, both solid-state.
The Heathkit SW-717 General Coverage
Communications Receiver:
Figure 1 is a photo of the SW-717 receiver. It
first appeared in the second half of-1971, too
late to make the main 1971 catalog. In the
1972 catalog
2
that came out late in 1971 the
SW-717 sold for $59.95. An accessory long-
wire antenna kit (GRA-72)
3
sold for $2.95.
By 1976 the price had started to rise: 1976 -
$69.95, 1977 - $74.95, 1978 - $77.95, 1980 -
$99.95. The last price found is $119.95 in the
Christmas 1981 catalog. Meanwhile the ac-
cessory long-wire antenna went up to $4.50,
and in 1981 to $7.95. When the SW-717
stopped production Heathkit would not put
out another GC receiver until 1983 when it
introduced the multi-hundred dollar synthe-
sized SW-7800 shortwave receiver.
The SW-717 is a tabletop sized radio measur-
ing 14-1/2” W x 5-3/4”H 10” D. It is a basic
radio with few frills. It covers the broadcast
band and up to 30 MHz in four bands clearly
marked on a slide-rule dial. The I-F uses
three 455 kHz ceramic filters instead of I-F
transformers, which alleviates the need to
align the I-F stages. It has an S-meter that
gives relative signal strength. The SW-717
specifications are shown in Table II.
The SW-717 Front and Rear Panels:
The front panel has six controls, two slide-
rule dials, a 1/4” phone jack for earphones
and a small S-meter marked SIGNAL with a
graduated scale marked 0–5. A large black
plastic slide-rule dial plate with green and
white markings covers about 70% of the
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