🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jun29.152343.1@cc.uvcc.edu>, adamstr@cc.uvcc.edu writes:
 >I'm fairly new (well, ok - BRAND new..) to the world of Ham radio. I am
 >looking for a source for electronic kits, more specifically, kits for
 >a mobile or base station. Back in my high school electronics classes,
 >we worked quite a bit with 'Heath-kit' type kits. I thought there was a
 >retail outlet in my area (Orem Utah), but I have had no luck finding them.
 >Could someone please provide me with an address or phone number for them, or
 >any other company that would carry this type of kit? Thanks!
 >
 >Please e-mail, since I don't get a chance to look at the news-net on a
regular
 >basis.
 >
 >adamstr@cc.uvcc.edu
 >

It may, in fact, be that there are no more Heath-kit outlets in
your area.  For more info, please read an article I saved from
last year and have included below.  I also enjoyed these kits when
I was younger.  Does anyone know if Heath-kits have survived?

-Marc

,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,
|  Marc Curry                  |  North Carolina Supercomputing Center   |
|  Scientific Support Analyst  |  P.O. Box 12889                         |
|  marc@ncsc.org               |  3021 Cornwallis Road                   |
|  (919)248-1156               |  Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2889  |
|                              |                                         |
'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'




Article 18715 of rec.radio.amateur.misc:
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!SanDiego.NCR.COM!batman.SanDiego.NCR.COM!steves
From: steves@batman.SanDiego.NCR.COM
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc
Subject: Heathkit History
Message-ID: <1992Jun4.141413.25840@donner.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 4 Jun 1992 14:14:13 GMT
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The following is an article my mother sent me about Heathkit from
the Chicago Tribune (Sunday, May 3, 1992).  I hope some of you
find it enjoyable.  Has anyone ever seen (or flown) a Parasol?

                        Pulling the Plug

By Ron Grossman

     ST. JOSEPH, Mich. - A factory here is shortly to become  the
Wailing Wall of a now-graying generation of nerds.
     In reveries of adolescence, our thoughts will return to this
resort  town on Lake Michigan's shores, about 75 miles  northeast
of Chicago.  For decades that nondescript industrial building was
home  of Heathkit, which made it a fairy castle to every man  and
boy  who  ever  dreamed  of  becoming  a  new  Thomas  Edison  or
Guiglielmo Marconi.
     Women  remember  the  Heathkit  phase  of  American  history
differently,  given  that  90 percent of the  customers  for  the
company's line of electronic gadgets in kit form have been males.
     Many  a  wife  and  girlfriend  spent  the  1950s  and  '60s
wondering  why the man in her life preferred cuddling up  with  a
soldering iron and a bunch of vacuum tubes to taking her out  for
an  evening  of dining and dancing.  Other women  spent  the  era
hectoring husbands to finish the FM radio or television set whose
half-assembled components cluttered basements and closet shelves.
Their daughters will suffer none of that.
     Alas, Heathkit is no more.
     William  E. Johnson, president of Heath Co.,  has  announced
that  it will no longer produce its do-it-yourself product  line.
Once  the  factory's remaining stock of Heathkits  is  exhausted,
electronic putterers and garage and workshop inventors will  have
to find alternative outlets for their creative juices.
     Actuarial  tables, Johnson explained, dictated the  decision
to  abandon  the  kits in favor of  concentrating  the  company's
energies  on  its highly successful line of  consumer  electronic
products.  With each passing year, the Grim Reaper takes away  an
increasing  proportion of the customer base for Heathkits,  while
the  shifting mores of young Americans prevent the  company  from
finding sufficient replacements.
     "Do your kids have the patience to sit down and build  their
own stereo set over the course of several evenings or a weekend?"
Johnson asked.  "Mine don't.  They want to buy one at a store, so
they can listen to it the very same day."
     But  to  lots  of  males born  before  the  age  of  instant
gratification,  a  stereo  or  radio was not  just  a  source  of
entertainment.   In kit form, it also provided the  even  sweeter
music of what Johnson calls the "Eureka Complex."
     It  was  an experience Johnson himself never  tasted  before
coming  to Heath as a marketing director about 30 years ago.   He
didn't  think  of  himself  as particularly  handy.   So  he  was
skeptical when his boss suggested that the best way to get a feel
for the company's products was to take a kit home to build.
     "My  neighbor laughed when he saw me sitting at the  kitchen
table  assembling electronic parts on a circuit  board,"  Johnson
said.   "But I was so excited when I finished, I pounded  on  his
door at midnight to come hear a transistor radio I'd made with my
own two hands."
     The  afterglow of such a personal triumph is  long  lasting,
Johnson  added, noting that he went on to assemble more than  200
more  Heathkits.   The  little curl of smoke that  rises  from  a
soldering iron as it joins resistors and condensers can induce an
intoxicating habit.
     So  Johnson  wasn't surprised by the results of  a  consumer
survey  he  once  commissioned.  The  consultant  firm  he  hired
reported:  "You  don't  have  customers.   You  have  evangelical
loyalists."
     "The  consultants also said they lost money working  on  our
account," Johnson recalled.  "They were used to spending about 15
minutes on each customer interview.  But Heathkit fans would talk
their heads off for an hour or more, pointing out the virtues  of
all  the  TV sets and weather monitors they had  built  over  the
years."
     H.  L. Parrish, who lives in Newland, N.C., built his  first
Heathkit,  a  $20  shortwave radio, in 1948.   When  he  recently
phoned  in a $285 order for Heathkit's super-accurate  electronic
clock, the factory's order taker broke the news to him that  this
project would be his last.
     "Tell  you the truth, I've lost count of how many  Heathkits
I've built," observed Parrish, 65, an insurance premium  auditor.
"But for many years there, I built every new kit as soon as  they
put it in their catalog."
     Johnson noted that Heathkit's partisans came from all  walks
of life.  Former Sen. Barry Goldwater, a long-time amateur  radio
buff, has assembled 75 to 100 kits, Johnson reported.
     "One Christmas, Sen. Goldwater built six of our Trashmasters
to give as presents," Johnson said.
     Given  such loyalty, Johnson dreads having to sit down  this
June  to write his customers a Dear John letter.  In it, he  will
tell them they will no longer receive the catalogs through  which
the company periodically announced wonders of modern  electronics
available by return mail in kit form.
     Time  was  when  lots of American  households  measured  the
passing  by  arrival of the Heathkit  catalog.   Spring,  summer,
fall,  and especially as Christmas drew near, the  postman  would
deposit  in  their mailboxes a 100 page  brochure  with  colorful
renderings of families gathered around a big-screen projection TV
or  a pinball machine that Dad had built.  A 1983  catalog  cover
showed the proud parent of a Heathkit robot diabolically grinning
at the electronic slave he had just wired together.
     For awkward adolescents of yesteryear, the Heathkit  catalog
was  a kind of electronic-age equivalent of the Book  of  Psalms:
something to be read in moments of despair and discomfort.   When
word  of the Heathkit's demise started seeping out, a  number  of
long-time fans called the factory to express their regrets, notes
company spokeswoman, Paula Hancock.  Some recalled how they  used
to take the catalog to high school dances.
     "They  explained  that they would bury their  noses  in  the
Heathkit  catalog,"  Hancock said, "because they were to  shy  to
speak to girls."
     The  Heathkit's origins can be traced back to the dreams  of
Ed  Heath,  perhaps the ultimate partisan of  the  do-it-yourself
philosophy  of life.  A barnstorming pilot in the early  days  of
flying,  he  founded  the  Heath Airplane Co.  in  a  factory  on
Chicago's  Sedgwick  Street in the 1920s.  There  he  designed  a
small, affordable airplane, which he christened the Parasol.
     "Heath  sold both fully assembled planes and kits for  folks
to build in their garages," Johnson said.  "Some customers  would
but their Parasol a wing at a time, for say $100 each, until they
had all the parts necessary to get their airplane up and flying."
     In fact, Heath's kits were assembled by thousands of amateur
aviators  across the country.  But in 1931, Heath died in a  test
flight  crash.  Shortly afterward the federal government  enacted
strict   regulations   governing  home-brewed   aircraft,   which
bankrupted  the  company.   Its surviving assets  were  moved  to
Michigan,  where  the company was acquired by Howard  Anthony  in
1936 for a few hundred dollars.  Anthony added two-way radios  to
Heath's  airborne offerings, and the company's fortunes  improved
during  World War II when it got government contracts to  produce
airplane parts for the military.
     One  day shortly after the war, Anthony got a call  from  an
electronics  parts  dealer  who  was  helping  to  liquidate  the
government's surplus stocks.  Sight unseen, Anthony agreed to buy
three box-car loads.  Then he rushed to his banker to borrow  the
money  he needed to consummate the deal.  When the railroad  cars
arrived  at  his  factory, Anthony found  that  among  the  other
gadgets he now owned were 1,000 oscilloscope tubes.
     An    oscilloscope   displays   the    mathematical    curve
corresponding  to a given electronic circuit, which makes  it  an
invaluable diagnostic tool for repairmen and technicians.  At the
time, an oscilloscope tube sold for $50 or more.  But Anthony had
bought his for about 50 cents each.  That allowed him to  package
a  tube  plus  all the other components  necessary  to  build  an
oscilloscope and sell the lot, along with a schematic diagram  of
how to assemble the device, for $39.50 each.
     With  minimal  advertising,  this  first  Heathkit  was   an
overnight  success  upon its introduction in  1947.   So  Anthony
began packaging additional sets of electronic parts that could be
assembled into other testing devices and amateur radio equipment.
Within  three years, the company was selling $4 million worth  of
kits  a year.  In the 1970s, when the catalog included  some  400
kits and accessories, sales of Heathkits topped out at about  $60
million a year.
     By  then,  the  simple diagram of the early  kits  had  been
replaced  by  elaborate manuals that walked  a  Heathkit  builder
through the process, step by step.  Those manuals also  explained
to novices the theory underlying the gadgets they were assembling
and, eventually, Heathkit developed a line of  laboratory-quality
kits designed to demonstrate basic electronic principles.  Widely
adopted  by  American  schools, those  kits  helped  upgrade  the
teaching of science at the secondary and college level.
     Heathkit also established a telephone consultation  service,
so  that the stumped constructors could share their  frustrations
with  a  technician at the  factory.   Heathkit's  much-trumpeted
motto was: "We will not let you fail."
     That  parlay  of quality parts and shared  know-how  enabled
even   rank   amateurs  to  construct   cutting-edge   electronic
equipment.   In the 1950s, the tinny sound of prewar  phonographs
gave  way to sophisticated amplifiers and speakers labeled  "high
fidelity."   Stereophonic sound was introduced, and TV moved  out
of the laboratory and into America's living rooms.
     Heathkit's customer often were able to build such  equipment
long  before their neighbors could but factory-produced  versions
in  department stores.  When computers were still  massive,  big-
bucks  items  that only corporations could afford,  Heathkit  was
offering a do-it-yourself version powered by vacuum tubes.
     Clifford Burr, who lives in Kenmore, N.Y., built a  Heathkit
color TV soon after the networks began transmitting in color.
     "When I finished, I was so excited to see color TV, I lugged
the  chassis upstairs without even mounting it to  the  cabinet,"
the 77-year-old Burr said.  "I turned the set on, and my  mother-
in-law thought I was a genius."
     When  he  recently learned of Heathkit's  impending  demise,
Burr  went around the house taking inventory of the kits  he  had
built.   At 100, he stopped counting, says Burr, who  built  kits
not just for his family's pleasure, but also to equip a TV repair
shop that he operated.
     When  he  retired  about 15 years ago, Burr  gave  away  his
oscilloscope  to a young friend with a passion  for  electronics.
Built  from Heathkit's first kit, that oscilloscope was still  in
perfect  working order after 27 years of continual use on  Burr's
workbench.
     Burr wasn't the only one to start a business with Heathkits.
A  few  years back, the Heath Co. wanted to cook up a  deal  with
Digital  Equipment Corp., a leading computer manufacturer.   Wise
in  the ways of the corporate world, Johnson expected to  be  put
off   initially  with  a   my-people-will-get-back-to-your-people
runaround.   Instead,  he  soon found himself in  the  office  of
Kenneth Olsen, Digital's founder and chief executive officer.
     "Olsen  said he was grateful for what Heathkit had done  for
him  when he was just starting out in the 1960s,"  Johnson  said.
"Olsen  explained he had had only a limited amount of funds.   So
he took half his money and built Heathkits to equip a  laboratory
for his fledgling company."
     In the end, Heathkits fell victim to the same rapid progress
in electronics that initially made them popular.  Early Heathkits
were powered by vacuum tubes whose filaments cast an eerie orange
light  on  the  builder's  hands.  Their  components  had  to  be
connected,  piece by piece, so that their chassis seemed  stuffed
with spaghetti-like masses of electrical wire.
     But  vacuum tubes have long since given way to  transistors,
and  printed  circuit  boards largely have done  away  with  hand
wiring.   A single electronic chip is now the equivalent  of  the
dozens and dozens of resistors and condensors that used to fill a
Heathkit builder's workbench to overflowing.
     In  recent years, many kits required only minimal  assembly,
thus  robbing  their constructors of the Eureka Complex  that  an
earlier generation of Heathkit fans experienced.  So young people
no  longer get the kick they once did from building  a  shortwave
radio  and  hearing voices from across the oceans,  notes  H.  L.
Parrish,  the North Carolinian who used to assemble kits as  fast
as  Heath's  engineers could design them.  Today,  an  adolescent
with a taste for high-tech adventures is more likely to become  a
computer hacker.
     "I  can't  see the kick of staring at  a  computer  screen,"
Parrish  said.   "To  me, there is no  excitement  like  that  of
plugging  in a radio you've just built, then seeing those  vacuum
tubes  begin to glow just a moment before the first  sound  comes
out of the loudspeaker."
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