New exhibition: the Heathkit self-build kits

Brand new exhibition open from Saturday 6 June 2009 onwards

Do you remember them: the blue cases of the Heathkit equipment? Various generations of people have grown up building the self-build kits of this American company that introduced the first kits shortly after WWI. For the first time, it offered radio amateurs the opportunity to build their own transmitters and receivers at an affordable price. The fact that the amateur had to build the equipment himself, often gave a lot of satisfaction. Apart from transmitters and receivers, Heathkit introduced a wide range of test-equipment that could be used to align the self-built kits. Al lot of this equipment can now be viewed in the museum and many items will be demonstrated.


Not many people know that Heathkit also supplied kits for domestic equipment, such as guitar amplifiers and digital clocks. Or that they were amongst the pioneers of the modern home computer. Back in 1977, long before the introduction of the modern PC, Heathkit introduced a building kit of a real computer. And believe it or not, the museum has a working sample of this computer.

The exhibition will open on Saturday 6 June 2009 and will be open every first and third Saturday of each month.

Welcome

Museum info Conversion DIY kits Price list Museum on TV

Welcome at the website of Museum Jan Corver in The Netherlands. Jan Corver is a museum dedicated to radio hams and amateur radio. We have a large collection of radio equipment and transmitters that have been used by radio amateurs over the years, giving a good view of the past, present and future of radio amateurism.
Read all about the museum

As this website is mainly aimed at Dutch radio hams, most of the content of this website is in Dutch, but we are planning to translate certain areas of interest into English in due course. As the maintenance of the website is done by volunteers it may take some time before the translations are completed, so please don't hold your breath. In the meantime it might be a good idea to search the Dutch version of this site first. If an English translation is available, you'll find an English flag in the top right corner of the page. Click this flag to swap to the English version of the website. In case of doubt, please contact our webmaster.

Latest news

These web pages contain the latest news about surplus radio equipment, rig conversions, manuals and links to other interesting sites.
New exhibition: Heathkit
EPPO: low-cost DIY PIC-programmer
70-cm Repeaters for amateur use

The Museum

Museum Jan Corver was first opened in 1999 as the result of a long standing wish of Cor Moerman, PA0VYL. Over the years, Cor had developed plans for a museum especially for radio amateurs, and finally saw his plans become reality. Today, the museum owns a large and unique collection of ham equipment, that shows the evolution of the fascination hobby over the years.

The museum is fully self-supporting and doesn't receive any public funding. In order to generate income, the museum regularly introduces now DIY kits for radio amateurs. Over the past few years, the museum has been donated large amounts of surplus equipment by KNP Telecom (the main Dutch telco operator). A great deal of this equipment can be converted for amateur use and is sold by the museum to radio amateurs exclusively for symbolic prices. In some cases, the volunteers of the museum, have created a complete DIY conversion kit for such rigs.
General information about the museum
Information about surplus equipment
Information about DIY kits