Vintage Receivers: Knight Kit Star Roamer

[mikethedruid]

This is my Knight Kit Star Roamer. It is not my first Star Roamer. My first I built from a kit my parents got me for Christmas when I was 14 years old in the mid 1960s. I foolishly lent it to an English friend of mine so he could listen to the BBC during the Falklands War and never got it back. This is the second one I built from a kit I bought from Radio Shack when they were closing them out, and saved un-built for many years.

The Star Roamer is a glorified "All American Five" employing 4 tubes and a solid state rectifier. It uses a power supply transformer, so the chassis is isolated from ground. As a kit radio, performance depends largely on the care and skill used in its construction; but, when well built, it is a decent performer, certainly on par with, or slightly better than, the National NC-60 Special. It is continuous coverage between 540 KC and 30 MC, as well as long wave from 200 to 400 KC in 5 bands: 200 - 400 KC, 540 - 1800 KC, 1.8 - 4.8 MC, 4.8 - 12 MC, and 12 - 30 MC. Bandspread is electrical with a separate condenser calibrated 0 - 100, and not to specific frequencies.It can receive CW and SSB using over driven feedback in the IF sensitivity circuit to act as a BFO. In its day, it was very popular being about the best performance you could get for the price. Many of today's older shortwave listeners got their start with this radio. The manual, including the schematic, can be found here: Knight Kit Star Roamer Manual .

 

[popnokick]

As a Novice licensee in 1968 I built one of these as my first receiver for my station. Transmitter was an Eico 720, but only after my father started asking, “Why are you getting official-looking mail from the FCC Monitoring Station in Canandaigua?” My homebuilt breadboard transmitter built from plans in Electronics Illustrated using a 50C5 tube and tank coil wound on a pill bottle was chirping like mad and had a strong harmonic output in the 41 Meter SW band. FCC wrote (in so many words) “Shut it off”. Father asked how he could help… and bought me the Eico 720.

 

[mbott]

Assembled my first one in 1967 when I was 14 and lost it sometime prior to 1976. Have three down on the bench: two that need just a little tlc and one to be used as a donor if needed.

 

[kk9h]

I built one of these when I was around 11 or so and I loved it. It introduced me to the world of shortwave listening and ultimately to ham radio. I still have it too. Back then I always wondered why I would hear WWV and strong 31 meter shortwave stations on two places in that band. I guess image rejection could be better, but I loved it just the same.

 

[mikethedruid]

Assembled my first one in 1967 when I was 14 and lost it sometime prior to 1976. Have three down on the bench: two that need just a little tlc and one to be used as a donor if needed.

Should be pretty straightforward restorations. Replace the electrolytics and paper type condensers. Check the ceramic disc caps, they can drift over time, and replace as needed. Check the resistors and replace if out of tolerance. Test the tubes and replace as needed. Then simple alignment. That should be about it, and you'll have them back to working like new. Good luck ! They're great, classic receivers.

 

[oldradioguy2010]

My most favorite, the knight kit star roamer.
That was to me super cool radio.
My friend had one, I don't know, it just looked good.


DW
So. Cal.

 

[mbott]

Should be pretty straightforward restorations. Replace the electrolytics and paper type condensers. Check the ceramic disc caps, they can drift over time, and replace as needed. Check the resistors and replace if out of tolerance. Test the tubes and replace as needed. Then simple alignment. That should be about it, and you'll have them back to working like new. Good luck ! They're great, classic receivers.

I agree. The only commodity slowing me down is time.

As a side note, when I assembled the Star Roamer in 1967 I picked up a VOM from Radio Shack. That I still have and it still works. Of course, the leads have been replaced several times over.

 

[mikethedruid]

I agree. The only commodity slowing me down is time.

As a side note, when I assembled the Star Roamer in 1967 I picked up a VOM from Radio Shack. That I still have and it still works. Of course, the leads have been replaced several times over.

View attachment 124185

Back in the day I used a 20,000 ohms / volt VOM I bought from Olson Electronics. Remember their catalogs? Got broken when I was working on a car.

 

[mbott]

Back in the day I used a 20,000 ohms / volt VOM I bought from Olson Electronics. Remember their catalogs? Got broken when I was working on a car.

Allied and Lafayette were my two catalogs of choice.

--
Mikw

 

[mikethedruid]

Allied and Lafayette were my two catalogs of choice.

--
Mikw

Yup, I got them both every year. I still have them in my library.. I don't know if you are familiar with the site World Radio History , but they are a wealth of resources. Among the references they offer are PDFs of many of the catalogs from the 1940s to the 1970s, including Allied, Lafayette, Olson, and others :Vintage radio catalogs