HEATH STORIES Supplement #1 HEATH STORIES #19 MEMOIRS AND ANTECEDENT ANTICS The Customer is Always Right - - Kit Sales Incidents A man came to see our Legato speakers, the HH-1 series, in work clothes. I was told we didn't have a Demo Room available for customers to hear them. But I insisted we could use the ones in the Engineering Sound Room, as we did a week back for a banker VIP, who didn't buy anything. And after I did that, my customer purchased 2 speakers! I came to work November 26, 1956 and received a small Christmas bonus in my first paycheck! Any wonder I became a loyal employee? One Saturday morning, after I had promised a customer an AJ-41 AM-FM Tuner, I found there were none in the plant. Curley Knapp, the general manager, was working that day and after I explained the problem he said: "Give me an hour." He hand-packed a Tuner, special, to bail me out! In February 1958 I was the last one to move from the old plant on Territorial road in Benton Harbor to the new building on Hilltop Road. Quite a change for me and for our customers! Matt Cutter will remember his Letter of Credit, given to a customer as a PR effort. Five years later the customer finally came to use it for a purchase, explaining that he was reluctant to part with it, for it was such a rare proof that a company would be so fair in their adjustments. Someone on Brass Row will recall the Air Force officer (errand boy), an attache for some Brass in the Service, stomping in to make demands of adjustments on one of our bad transactions. We were wrong. So when the attache stopped talking long enough to listen, he was told that we were wrong, that we would be fair, and honor his choice of any one of his requests! Once, in the "Bird Cage" (a nickname for the glass-walled store next to the lobby), a man came to tell the clerk how to run the Heath company, so he could get what he was not entitled to. HE was much smarter than I, so all I could do was to hold to a firm position of inaction. Some four hours later I crawled home, for I was so tired ... In any store the first idiot (clerk) that waits on a demanding customer has to play cops and robbers. First the clerk has to get the boss out Of the back room, so the customer can say: "I guess I showed them! I got waited on by the Big Shot (boss)." Every once in a while I would call on any person available, from Brass Row, from any office, or from the plant, just anyone, to assure the customer of what the House Rules were. One late afternoon at closing time in the Bird Cage, 3 men (customers?) came to shop at the store, and I was suspicious of them. One of the Security people sensed it too and he locked the store door, while allowing employees to exit for home. Then one of the customers said: "Let's get the hell out of here!" Little Bob Culver acted as my vacation relief and had a customer insist that he did not have to pay Sales Tax. Then Bob called Roy Shoemaker, who walked into the store, looked down on the customer and said: "Can I help you?" The customer said: "I just thought I could get away with it ... I had one customer who said he was a Judge in the Detroit area and did not have to pay Sales Tax. I said: "Terrific! Wait until I get our legal counsel and we will learn how to do this." Then the customer said: "Never mind. It isn't enough to bother with." We had one customer who came with a freight Bill of Lading for shipping his purchase interstate Tax Exempt. That's legal, if you have ICC route clearance for interstate trucking (which he did not). I requested a copy of the bill to send to the ICC, so that we were covered. But I think that he probably left a brown trail all the way back to Wisconsin No one will ever know the team spirit - the cooperation from the entire plant - which helped serve our customers forever better. Ken McConnell 3 Oct 86 HEATH STORIES #20 Schiumberger report for the nine months ended Sept 30, 1977 told in part: From "To the Shareholders": The only exception to this strong positive trend was at Heath where revenue was off about 2% compared to the third quarter last year as a major correspondence school contract is phasing out; September, however, was ahead of the previous year due to sales of the new personal computer kits. and on the back page: PERSONAL COMPUTERS - - NEW BUSINESS AT HEATH Can a person with no technical training build a digital computer and learn to use it by himself? Heath thinks so, and is out to prove it with a line of Heathkit computer products that include two powerful digital computer systems. The H-8 low-cost computer is easy to build and use, and has as much computing speed and power as the big computers that controlled the early space missions. Yet the H-8 is about the size of a portable typewriter and plugs into a household wall outlet. The H-1l, the most sophisticated and powerful computer available for individuals, is designed around the LSI-11 micro computer module supplied by the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). The H-11 is for the advanced hobbyist but also can handle many data processing functions in small business, educational, and industrial applications. With the H-1l, Heath supplies the complete DEC system software which has been proven and refined on DEC commercial computers in thousands of applications. Commercial computers with performance equivalent to the H-11 cost approximately twice as much. The capabilities of both the H-8 and H-11 computers can be extended by plugging in accessory printed circuits: to add memory, and to interface with external devices. Low-cost personal computers evolved from the development of micro processors just a few years ago. These tiny integrated circuits, smaller than one-quarter the size of a postage stamp, contain nearly all the functions of a digital computer. It wasn't long before several small companies successfully introduced personal computers, based on microprocessors. Meanwhile, Heath was developing plans to market digital computer kits; it was the largest single engineering effort in the company history. Emphasis was placed on comprehensive documentation, to guide the kit builder through the construction process, to assist the operator, and finally to help the user identify and solve operational problems. Self instructional courses in programming are available to help the customer learn how to solve his problems and implement his applications. To make it easy for the Heathkit owner to communicate with his computer, Heath has introduced several low-cost peripheral devices in kit form. A video display unit provides a 67-key keyboard for typing instructions and a 12-inch TV-type screen to show results. A paper-tape reader/punch offers a means for storing programs and data, and reading them into the computer. In addition, Heath sells preassembled, a cassette recorder for data storage on audio recording tape, and a hard-copy printer manufactured by DEC. The order rate for the new Heathkit personal computing systems is off to a good start; this market appears to be growing rapidly. copied by Bjorn Heyning 27 Oct 86 HEATH STORIES #21 During the late 50's I was working with a local truck line, Lake Shore Motor Transit lines. During this period I became well acquainted with nearly all of the companies in the area. While some were better than others, I was most impressed by the friendliness of everyone I contacted at Heath Company. Obviously, this was a good company, and they seemed to know how to treat their employees ... I really envied them. One day I was called over to inspect the first trailer load of electronic components that Howard Anthony had purchased on the West Coast. There was a minor discrepancy in the "count", so it was up to Jim Dew and myself to agree on the total ... I believe there were about 1,011 pieces, or 10,001, depending on how you counted the broken cartons. But Jim and I agreed that the load was complete. Since many of the open cartons looked "interesting", I asked what they were going to do with this material, and was told: "Our engineers will examine these and see what they can make into kits!" Having watched my father build our radio (which everyone did in the early 20's), I was fascinated with the thought of actual "Radio Kits"! Through my six year's association with the Heath people (over the phone, mostly), I was eventually asked to come over for a job interview. It seems that Daystrom had just bought the firm, and wanted Les Tacy to have an assistant ... what a break for me, I thought. To sum it all up, after interviews with Curley Knapp, Bob Swander and Les, I did not hesitate to accept their job offer, never dreaming that it would lead to thirty of the most interesting years of my life. As a "People Person", and one who enjoyed corresponding, this was my kind of place to be. I liked the fun of getting the right answers, of straightening out mistakes, and of just plain "Hand holding" with strangers, who became friends in very short order. Heath was different, and we worked hard at spreading this message It was a creative atmosphere, and lines of communication ran in all direction ... helpful associates, engineers, production workers etc. And we admitted to customers that we could do wrong! Some of the things we did to make things right would astound people (and I've kept a "Smile File" of thank-you letters as reminders). No, we couldn't win them all, and didn't always make the right moves. Many names come to mind, as I look back on the more difficult ones. It was usually a "Colonel" or "Major" or "Doctor" or "Registered Professional Engineer" who was rather "Testy" to deal with. However, none would compare with my personal Nemesis, Mr. Charles L. Not even LLewelyn Bates Keim, III, who will be remembered by Gerry Krepp and many of the Tech Consultants. At least he was more rational than some "professionals". Mr.Charles, during a weaker moment (which was rare) had admitted to Jack West that his psychiatrist had recommended a hobby, as a diversion from his political career (in Brooklyn); and, furthermore, he used several different names in his various enterprises. We did learn that he was the proprietor of "Charles Liquor Store" in Brooklyn, through tracing his address, "259 Hopkins St" (I've memorized this over the years). Even though he had "tipped his hand" this once, he would never admit to any of this later on ... he was Ben Kamirisky, Jeff Kassover, Mr.Charles, Mr. Ames and others. I believe he thought of himself as the Ralph Nader of the Electronics Industry, and once expressed the wish to be our "Messiah". He tried to convince Bill Johnson that he was the only one who could take him around Manhattan and show him how to set up a Heath Dealership. When this idea was rejected, he decided to get even and kept this up until we last heard from him in 1981. Let's look at some of the items extracted from his file (one of our permanent files): William E.Johnson, General Sales Manager replying to his offer: Mr.L., the sales approach outlined in your letter has been thoroughly reviewed by our market staff ... and we are aware of the considerable thought you have given to the proposed outline. We appreciate your level of interest, and regret that we cannot give you a positive answer ... From this point on, Mr.L. would purchase a kit, report that all tubes were missing (among other things), and then proceed to find all kinds of problems for the Tech Consultants. Eventually, he would press for a refund including all out-of-pocket expenses. He always portrayed himself as the "injured party", threatening to report us to the FTC and other agencies, and with lawsuits. While things were left at my level, he was unsuccessful, and I was later able to have Neal Turner convince Charlie Kirkland to "let us handle this". Eventually, Mr.L. decided to go higher up ... quoting a memo from Robert B. Wyland, Vice President of Daystrom, to C. M. Kirkland, President of Heath Company: "This afternoon I had a lengthy telephone conversation with Mr. Charles L., propietor of Charles Liquor Store, etc." "Mr.L. is indignant about Heath's marketing effort in New York, and is indignant because his gratuitous advice has not been given proper attention at the highest levels". "I am sure it is of no consequence whatsoever that a psychiatrist told him it would be good to keep himself busy with electronic kits. Obviously, he forgot to counsel him to keep his cotton pickin hands out of kit management." further on...." at several points during this absorbing conversation, I asked if the conversation was being recorded, because there were unmistakable electronic sounds. Occasionally, Mr. L would leave the phone for what I guess would be changing of reels". My memo to Bill Johnson in 1965 outlined Mr.L's past behavior, and brought him up to date on his latest caper, namely, having bought a kit from a dealer closeout, he then proceeded to arrange for us to pay him the retail price for all the "missing tubes When we hesitated to make the adjustment, he called us as "Mr. Heller", an attorney representing Mr.L. ... He was a "Heller" airight! During the late 60's and early 70's he "fell in love" with the idea of building the AR-15, and later on the AR-150O ... and would nit-pick at every detail of the circuit description, schematic, alignment procedures etc. This usually occupied his time through the long winter; by springtime he was ready for the "kill" and managed to find a new unsuspecting contact, either at Heath, or at corporate level (he was good at finding new names). Once he put his finger on this unsuspecting victim, he would "go right for the jugular vein", trying to get as much money out of the Heath Company as possible. Finally, he took us to court, and lost. At that time, Dave Nurse corresponded with M. S. McCorquodale (Schlumberger Legal VP, I believe), telling him that it would be impossible to guess at the number of calls and letters we've had from Mr.L., and from his many aliases. Dave tried his best to keep their adjustments at our level, knowing that "Corporate" would prefer to settle such "Nuisance Claims" out of court. Later on, Mr.L. took Schlumberger to court, and we were obliged to refund the assembled price of the AR-15 that he had built. On leaving the courtroom, he told Monty Shipman that he was going right out and buy another AR-15 kit ... which he did! One point Mr.L. stressed to Schlumberger's Legal VP was: "when we advertise a kit as a kit, the advertising is misleading unless the kit is complete. By complete he means all of the instruments necessary to align the assembled thing should be present in the kit. If our advertising does not tell all the equipment needed we are misrepresenting." He warned that he was going to contact the BBB and the "Department of Consumer Frauds" in Washington, D.C. Of course, he was always threatening us. However, he did serve a useful purpose in pointing out the need to pre-align, tell what instruments were needed, or build-in the testing circuitry in the kit. Tom Bardos, Assistant Counsel for Schlumberger, reviewed his complaint in 1969, and stated to him, "I am informing you that my advice to Heath Company is that you do not have a sufficient case on which to base a claim for refund". Dave Browning, another SL attorney, was advised that we had offered to replace his AR-1500 with a new, assembled unit. Mr.L. responded that he was taking us to court, as he had five engineers, who would testify against us regarding the AR-1500; and he was further naming STEREO REVIEW and AUDIO MAGAZINE, because they had, supposedly, reviewed the AR-1500. At one time, Mr.L. wrote to one of the magazine publishers, warning them not to accept any further advertisements from HEATH Co., and pointed out our "deceptiveness". There were so many of these situations over the years, and the pattern never changed. Each time an alias was used, WE were able to recognize this, after an exchange of correspondence. The complaints were the same; the addresses were either Flushing or Brooklyn; the handwriting was identical (or he printed to disguise the letter); and often he used the same, old typewriter, which we recognized. Even his deep voice on the phone was recognizable, whenever he pretended to be the "Lawyer" for Mr.L., or one of his aliases. On one occasion I told him, "Mr. Ames, if you are an attorney representing Mr.L., I suggest you contact our Legal Department for settlement, instead of continually harassing our clerks'" Yes, there were many challenges to be met; most were satisfying experiences ... but there had to be at least one that wasn't. It was small consolation to learn that other companies have had similar cranks to deal with. I kinda miss him, he was always a challenge to me personally. We last heard from him in 1981, when he was trying to get Jerry Pearlman's attention ... and failed. Matt Cutter 30 Oct 86 HEATH STORIES #22 JOHN FRYE's column in Electronics World, July 1966: In the past twenty years, the kit business has grown into a major industry with very bright prospects for the future. ELECTRONIC KITS Barney dropped his alignment tool under the service bench and smothered a huge yawn as he stooped to pick it up. "If sound from this set I'm working on is keeping you awake, I can turn down the volume," Mac, his boss, suggested sarcastically. "You were, maybe, spooning under the June moon too late last night?" "Nope, I was home assembling my new 'Heathkit' SB-10O transceiver. When I get started on one of those darned kits, I can't seem to quit. It was one-thirty this morning when I finally yanked the pencil iron and swept up the clipped resistor leads." "I know," Mac agreed. "An unfinished kit is harder to let alone than a bowl of salted peanuts. You ought to be pretty good at putting amateur kits together." "If practice makes perfect I should be. I put together the Mohawk receiver, the SB-1O SSB exciter, and the DX-100 as well as the Apache and Marauder transmitters before tackling this SB-100 SSB transceiver. It's fascinating to observe how ham kits - or all kits, for that matter - and assembly manuals have improved since I started 'kitting'." "How do you mean?" "Take manuals, for instance. The DX-100 manual had 60 pages that told you how to put the kit together and tune the transmitter, but that was about all. The SB-100 manual has 149 pages and is far more than a profusely illustrated assembly guide. For example, it has six pages of preliminary checks and resistance measurements to be made on the completed transceiver before power is ever applied to it. The function of every circuit is explained. Operating instructions for every set of conditions are given. Finally, there is a complete trouble-shooting section. In short, it is a theory, assembly, operating, and service manual all rolled into one." Early History "I was acquainted with the man who started the Heath Company in the electronic kit business," Mac offered. "After the war I bought my first 'Heathkit', a scope, and put it together. I had some trouble getting the spot as small and round as I desired because of stray magnetic fields, and I cured this by putting a war-surplus Mumetal shield over the cathode-ray tube. I wrote Heath about this and started a correspondence between Howard Anthony, the president, and myself. When he invited me up to Benton Harbor to see his plant, I accepted and had a most enjoyable visit with him. "Originally the Heath Company actually marketed an airplane - the famous Heath 'Parasol' - in kit forin. The founder, Edward Bayard Heath, was killed in a test flight in 1931. Howard Anthony purchased the company in 1935. During the war they were engaged in building some electronic gear for the government but could not buy the test equipment they needed because of insufficient priority; so they simply started building their own test instruments. Howard told me this proved to be so interesting that after the war he designed a 5-inch scope around a surplus scope transformer he had in quantity and took a small ad in RADIO NEWS, now called ELECTRONICS WORLD. The response was most gratifying, and the Heath Company was off and running in a new direction. Howard Anthony was killed in and airplane accident in 1954. Daystrom bought the company and then sold it to Schlumberger Limited in 1962. "The first 'Heathkits' were service instruments - scopes, v.t.v.m.'s, v.o.m.'s, etc. - designed to be assembled by experienced technicians who needed little more than a diagram and a picture or two in the way of instructions. This continued to be true when Heath came out with kits for radio amateurs. Most hams at that time were experienced in construction because a large percentage of their stations were 'home-brew. New Trends "But gradually two divergent trends have developed in electronic kits: 'kitted' devices are becoming more and more complicated and sophisticated; yet people buying them know less and less about electronics. Musicians are building electronic organs; housewives are assembling hi-fi amplifiers; high-school boys are building laboratory-type scopes; 'plug-in appliance' hams are tackling complicated SSB equipment; and Sunday sailors are building marine telephone, direction-finding, and depth-sounding equipment for their boats. "This provides a real challenge to kit engineers and persons preparing the manuals. Designing a complicated instrument so that it can be easily assembled by a person who knows nothing about mechanics or electronics and must be told how to make a decent soldered connection before he starts is no snap." "Use of printed circuits and pre-assembled and aligned critical components has helped," Barney suggested. "For example, in the SB-1OO, the linear master oscillator that controls the frequency in both the transmitting and receiving modes comes pre-assembled and sealed. The same goes for the crystal filter. Practically all wiring is on printed-circuit boards, and that means distributed capacitances so important in high-frequency work, are carefully controlled and independent of the builder's wiring." "Pre-assembled and aligned units raise the cost considerably," Mac pointed out, "but through their use any kind of electronic device can be offered in kit form - everything from color-TV sets and videotape recorders to TV cameras and Electronic computers." "My friend Jerry, who is an EE student at Purdue, recently did a term paper on the kit business, and he let me read some of the background information he collected," Barney said. "It was most interesting. The Eico Electronic Instrument Company is another big name and pioneer in the electronic kit industry, and this company started when Harry R.Ashley, the founder and president, quit his radio servicing and insurance selling back in 1945 and brought out a v.t.v.m. in kit form. Since that time 3,000,000 Eico kits have been sold. Unlike Heath, who sells kits directly from the factory, from seven domestic Electronic Centers, or from several foreign branch plants, Eico markets its 250 products through independent electronic distributors - some 2500 of them. Eico kits cover a wide range of service instruments, hi-fi equipment, amateur and CB equipment, and industrial electronic equipment." "You don't need to tell me about Eico equipment," Mac interrupted. "I've always admired the good shielding and excellent tracking adjustments on their Model 324 r.f. signal generator. How about'Knigh-Kits'? Did Jerry have any dope on those?" "You bet. 'Knight-Kits,' of course, are a product of Allied Radio Corporation of Chicago. You might say 'Knight' is a real patriarch in the electronic kit business. Allied first offered electronic kits in the 1920's, although they were not called 'Knight-Kits' then. Early Allied catalogues offered a choice of a 3-tube Cockaday kit, a 5-tube Neutrodyne kit or a 5-tube radiofrequency kit. All were broadcast receivers using 201-A tubes and batteries. The 'Knight-Kit' name was first used in the early 1930's, and one of the first kits offered was the '2-tube DX-er Shortwave Radio Kit' with these prices: All parts with' Wiring Diagram, $5.15; 4 Plug-in Coils, $1.58; Tube and Battery Kit, $2.80: Brandes Phone, $1.65." "Stop! I can't stand the nostalgia!" Mac interrupted. "I have a 'Knight' s.w.r. meter," Barney said, "and my experience with it underscores an important point. Fair results can be obtained from almost any kit with minimum Effort, but quite often outstanding performance can be obtained through careful assembly and precise calibration. I took great pains putting that s.w.r. meter together and then spent a half day calibrating it; but I was finally able to make it read right along with a directional wattmeter costing six times as much on five different bands. Anyway, 'Knight' offers about 100 kits that include everything from a crystal receiver to a laboratory scope. 'Knight' also has service instruments, ham, and Citizens Band equipment, hi-fi units, an even an exposure meter in kit form. "The Conar Instruments Company of Washington, D.C. is a comparative latecomer to the kit business, since it first offered kits in 1962; yet it is not new in the electronics field. You see, Conar is an expansion of the National Radio Institute's student supply division that functioned primarily to supply test equipment to NRI students and graduates. In fact, the name 'Conar' is rather tortuously derived from the first letters of 'COmpany, NAtional Radio.' Conar was thus able to enter the market with a complete series of radio-TV test-equipment kits of proven design developed by NRI's technical staff. Presently, Conar offers about twenty different kits with more in the developmental stage Some are rather unusual and exotic, such as their Model 800 closed-circuit TV camera kit that can be used with any TV set as a monitor and their metal locator kit that should go big with treasure hunters." "There are many more electronic kits on the market these days," Mac said. "The success of these large companies has caused many concerns to bring out one or more of their products in kit form. Some do well; others do not. After all, I suspect there are a lot of headaches in the kit business. Do the large kit manufacturers seem to agree on many points?" "Yes. All agree that when an instrument is offered in both kit and wired form, the kit far outsells the assembled unit. They agree aesthetic considerations are increasingly important in kit design. Not only must the completed unit work well, but it must also have an attractive appearance. The old, overgrown, boxy look is 'out'; the new, compact, stylishly-shaped-and-colored look is 'in'. All kit manufacturers stress the importance of giving prompt and helpful assistance to a purchaser who has trouble with a kit. All maintain service facilities for straigthening out the difficulty if it cannot be handled through correspondence. All agree engineering a kit is much more difficult than engineering an instrument for assembly by skilled workers in a factory where progress is constantly being inspected. Finally, all were unanimous in foreseeing a bright future for the kit business." "I can't argue with that last," Mac said. "Good incomes, increased leisure, and increasing interest in electronics all point toward a healthy growth of the kit business. Americans are natural-born do-it-yourselfers, anyway; and kits are to electronic design what numbered painting is to art. In neither case is there true creativity, but there is still room for a lot of personal satisfaction and pride in the finished products." "It seems to me," Barney said slowly, "that kits have performed at least two major services for the electronics field. In the first place, they brought down the prices of formerly expensive laboratory instruments, such as the v.t.v.m., scope, sweep generator, and 'Q'meter, to where every service technician could afford them and learn to use them. Secondly, they have aroused an interest in electronics in many people working in unrelated fields. Photographers, musicians, and boat owners have assembled simple electronic instruments for use in their own hobbies and have ended up with electronics as their second hobby." "That's right," Mac agreed. "And that probably helps explain why weak little 'kits' have grown into roaring tigers in only two short decades." copied by Biorn Heyning 31 Oct 86 HEATH STORIES #23 TWO DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS T'was two days before Christmas and all through the shop Not a person was working, they had come to a stop. Cigarette and cigar smoke had clouded the air. The earphones were placed on the desks with great care. The typists were nestled all snug in their chairs Just gazing around with their normal blank stares. And the boys at the back split a bottle of booze And then settled themselves for a short morning snooze. When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter That Barbara jumped up to see what was the matter .... Away to the window she flew like a flash, She threw up her hands and dropped all the cash. Wahneta came back from where all the girls go, So fast she was running, she stubbed her big toe! And what to her wondering eyes did appear? Bob Swander, the goof, had dropped 12 cans of beer! Out ran our friend "Curley", so lively and quick, Bob's face turned so red, he looked like St. Nick. and quicker than Swander, the fellows all came, And Bob whistled and shouted and called them a name .... "Hey Stanley, you, Gerry, and Ernie, and Grear, You guys get away, take your hands off my beer!" The fellows all ran to the end of the hall, And Swander was left without any at all. Look at Gene Fiebich, cigar in his teeth, And the smoke it encircles Boots' head like a wreath. He has a big smile and a little pot belly You know when he laughs, that it's not full of jelly. And now let us down to the service shop fly To see if these guys have begun to get high. Here's Louis, so tiqht, he shouts at the rest, "This scope has no trace, I can't make a test!" And then for a moment, they each take a look, Turn to Louie and say, "Look it up in the bo0k." Chet looks at the others and says with a grin, "You might make it work, if you'd plug the thing in." Now out from the service shop, let's look around Down the stairway Ralph Lhotka comes with a bound. A box full of beer cans are slung on his back, And he looks like a hobo, just cleaning his shack. His eyes they were bloodshot, so glassy, so glary, He looked like FOUR ROSES topped off with a cherry. He yelled, "Hey you guys, I heard someone snore," And he threw all those beer cans down on the floor. He woke up Jim Dew who went back to his work, Mumbling and grumbling, "That dumb stupid jerk" Then Whit says, "Let's kiss Mitzi, come on, Let's have fun." But she heard him, say brother, how that girl can run! And placing her thumb at the front of her nose, She wiggled her hand, yelled, "You dumb so and so's!" The gleam in her eye and the glare on her face, Soon let them all know they should stay in their place. Then all sprang to their feet as they heard the noon bell, And away they all flew to the party, pell-mell. To you all our friends, we have one thing to say .... "Merry Christmas to a115 and to all a Good-Day!" Pat Habada This poem was evidently written about a typical Christmas Party at the Heath Company in the early 50's. The last working day ended officially at noon, and then the company party began with a sumptuous meal, speeches and presents. But unofficially the party started a bit earlier, with the "bar" behind the Purchasing files opening at 11am or before, and similar activities in other areas. This poem was read at the Golden Oldies party in '85, but then my copy was misplaced. A year later Joe Mitowski came across a copy in his old files and submitted it for the "Heath Stories". copied by Biorn Heyning 12 Oct 86 HEATH STORIES #24 MEMORIES OF HEATH I remember a couple of guys in the Correspondence Department, Bob Scowaroft and Chuck Plummer. One day, while they were out target practicing with their revolvers, Bob was going to show Chuck his "Fast Draw". As he drew, the sight caught on the holster and he shot himself right through the fanny! From then on he was known as "Quick Draw McGraw". I remember when Dell Ward was head of the Engineering Model Shop, with Jim Otte as second in command. One day Dell was holding a fabricated part in his hand and trying to drill a small hole in it. When the drill suddenly went through the part, Dell was unable to stop and he drilled right through his hand. The engineers nicknamed him "Dilbert" from then on. I remember when Georqe Althouse was head of the main office and Gerry Krepp was head of the Correspondence Department. One day a customer's call was answered by Gerry: "Heath company, Krepp speaking". Finding that the customer was trying to trace an order, Gerry told him he would need to talk to Mr. Althouse. The customer replied: "Some company! First I talk to Crap and then to Outhouse!" Carl Heald 14 Nov 86 HEATH STORIES #25 MEMORIES OF THE HEATH COMPANY When I was eighteen years old I was eager to learn to fly, but my father wouldn't allow it. He did, however, know the the sales manager at the Heath Airplane Company, so he secured a job for me there so I could learn to build airplanes. At that time the plant was located in the 1700 block of Sedgewick Avenue in Chicago. The company built the "Heath Parasol", which was a single seater high-wing airplane. It was powered with a converted Henderson motorcycle engine. The airplanes were assembled in the factory and towed out to the airport, where they were test-flown. The airport was near Main Township High School at Dempster, at Potter Road. I helped to make and assemble whole airplanes, including the engines. I learned to cut out and stretch muslin over the frames, and when these were completed, they had to be painted. Most of the time I worked with Eugene "Gene" Gallagher, and I was paid $20.00 a week. However, most of the planes were home-built, from parts contained in kits made up of several units, which were sent to the buyers. The purchasers followed the written instructions included in the kits. These home-assembly kits were shipped all over the country and all over the world. The company was owned by Ed Heath, a well-kown racing pilot, who designed and flew the famous "Baby Bullet" airplane at the big National Air Races, which were usually held in Cleveland or in Chicago. When he flew the "Baby Bullet", he won all the races he entered. Mr. Heath was a very small man - short and slender. He was very nice, and extremely thoughtful of his employees. Mr. Heath was married, but I do not recall if he had any children. He was recognized as the father of the light airplane and the originator of the home-built airplane. Mr. Heath was commissioned by a customer to build a special racing airplane. It was a low-wing model, which was designed by Mr. Heath and Mr. Linstead, and built over a period of time. The design used aluminum struts to support the wings, which was a completely new idea. When the plane was finished, it was towed out to the airport. Mr. Heath told the test-pilot to just fly it around and not do any stunts, because he would do the final testing himself. On the next Sunday Mr. Heath went out to the airport to test the new airplane. When he put the plane into a spin while test-flying, the aluminum struts buckled and the wings collapsed. The airplane crashed, killing Mr. Heath. Ed did not believe in wearing a parachute. Following Mr. Heath's death, the Federal Government insisted upon pilots and aircraft being licensed. This meant that the Parasol airplane had to be redesigned and tested. The stockholders began to look for a new location which would be cheaper. They were offered a tax-free, rent-free building in Niles, Michigan, which they accepted. The staff was reduced to about twelve employees. I was one of the people who moved to Niles, where they started licensing procedures for the Parasol. The license was obtained, but the home-built model had to be changed, also. Certain parts had to be built in the factory. It became my job to write the instructions for the new home-built plane. When that job was completed I had to go back and work in the factory, because this was depression time and business fell off. Eventually several employees had to be let go and I was one of them. I went back to Chicago, but kept in touch. The new general manager, Mr. Walter Clinnin, invested some of the remaining Heath money in activities at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 and 1934. They lost money on this investment. The company had built a racing airplane for a Mr. Howard Anthony. Later, when the company went bankrupt, Mr. Anthony bought the assets and the company name. Among the assets were many airplane parts, which Mr. Anthony proceeded to sell. I don't know the date, but Mr. Anthony became involved in selling a home-built oscilloscope. He had moved the company to a building in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He married Helen Ballard, the secretary to the general manager. Much later Mr. Anthony was killed in an airplane accident and Mrs. Anthony became owner of the Heath company. William D. Sandel 15 Nov B6 Mr. Sandel 'S story came at the request of his niece Barbara Troost, who read part of the first release of Heath Stories at the St.Joseph Public Library, and thought he could tell a tale which would fit. HEATH STORIES #26 ADVENT OF THE COMPUTER - A PERSONAL VIEW While we got exposed to Computers in the early Daystrom days with the Analog Computer kit, pushed by Chalmer Jones and designed by Carl Heald, the Digital Computer, now so widely used, came to Heath around 1960. It was an IBM 360, and it worked for us in many ways. The Parts Book, for years laboriously updated on a typewriter in the Purchasing department and copied on the Ozalid machine, went on the computer. The kit sales record, kept by hand on Kardex files in Jack West's Production Control, went the same way. No longer could an engineer step across the hall to his cubbyhole between the vault and the cafeteria for a look at how his babies were selling. It now appeared monthly on a printout, and was not nearly as easy to get a hold of. As usual, I was reluctant to turn to such innovation. Just as with the advent of the transistor, I felt that when the time was ripe, I'd get involved, when necessary. And that took years. And I succeeded in avoiding contact with the H-8, our first kit. But after the H-89 was well established, Larry Grover gave me a Basic disk and suggested that I pursue that in my spare time. There was a unit in another lab, I think Rod Brahman's, I could use after hours. Larry then got me started and I played for an hour with it, using the textbook. But that started at a point well beyond where I needed to be. Thus I had to ask someone how to turn it off, when I wanted to quit. And a week later I had to ask again how to start and stop. So I felt it was not for me. A year or so later, Jim Jerling, a fellow engineer across the aisle and a sharp computer man, insisted that I would find it a handy tool to write on. I could not dissuade him, and he lent me an AutoScribe text and Tutor disk, and got me started on an H-89 in the Audio section. All went well until I was supposed to print some lines, and the H-14 printer didn't budge. Jim quickly grasped that my disk was set up for a Diablo printer, and offered to change it to run on the H-14. His try made it print, but while the first line was fine, the second was garbage, and the third was OK again! Back to Jimq and he agreed that the second line read backward, for it still expected a printer that prints both ways. Another fellow reconfigured the disk for the H-14. Then I was in business, and soon I wrote with gusto on the new device. About that time the trend was away from AutoScribe, and soon all secretaries used WordStar. But again I was slow on the uptake and stuck with the system I knew. This time the first breach in my stubbornness was made by Bill Tolbert, one of our Manual writers, who gave me a WordStar Tutor disk, a print of its contents, and a manual text. It took me a year to even look at it, and by then he had retired. So when I finally got around to trying it, and came to a screaming halt when the disk suddenly ended, I could not consult him. Up to that point it had been delightfully user-friendly, telling how to start up and how to stop. But I wanted more, so I asked the experts for the rest of the training disk, and learned to my amazement that there was no such thing! Seemed to me that it was a thing developed by Bill, and without his backing I gave it up as a bad deal. I went back to AutoScribe. With retirement, I knew I'd miss many things: the daily contact with boss and co-workers, the access to the zillion of parts in the bins and the warehouse, the free subscriptions to trade journals, the contacts with suppliers, the office materials from pens to paper and binders. And the access to copying machines and most of all to a computer and printer. Was all that really unavoidable? No, retaining access to a computer was a possibility, I found. So I consulted with various experts and ended up getting good advice from Jimmy Lee, son of a former Engineering VP, who worked in the Retail Store. We considered a good used H-89, but that was not too handy for WordStar, and with my wife using WordStar, although reluctantly, at her work, I felt I could not fairly stay with AutoScribe only. So I had Jimmy's recommendation for an HS-151 kit and lots of software and an Epson LX-80 printer at a price sharper than the catalog could ever show. The farewell gifts from both company and co-workers made it economically possible. Soon I had it put together and checked out, and restarted to learn WordStar. Practiced diligently by writing a Retirement Diary, which forced daily exposure to the computer and WordStar. And soon I wrote letters and reports without too much trouble! Not as an expert, but as readily as I had used AutoScribe at work. Without the pressure of a daily work routine, there were times I could venture into new things, so I took a look at the MultiPlan material for a spreadsheet, which came with the kit. Even though the text took me step-by-step into it, it was a real challenge to the mind. Especially finding the proper subject to try it on! The worst part is that if you let it lay for a few weeks, it is hard to get into it again, for so much is forgotten! Fortunately I had access to expert brains, whenever I ran into problems. Not only Jimmy Lee, but also Ron Hackney, who tauqht a company-sponsored class in BASIC for Heath families, which my wife and I attended. Roy and Ester Shoemaker and son Jeffrey, and Randy Kaeding and daughter April were among the students. That was a fascinating experience, but again the ideas of how to use it to advantage were hard to come by. I used it once to write a program for determining the MPG for a car from the fill-up data. Looks like Computers are here to stay ... Bjorn Heyning 17 Nov 86 HEATH STORIES #27 A HEATHKIT STORES EXPERIENCE When we opened our Heathkit Electronic Center in Redwood City, I flew out and interviewed the applicant for manager, Bob Lord, who has since passed away. He had worked for Motorola and came with a high recommendation from Tommy Thompson, one of our other store managers. We hired Bob Lord and a short time later, when I was back at the factory, I received a phone call from Bob. He stated that he had a problem. I told him to tell me about it. He said that he had come up two hundred dollars short in his cash register that day. "Oh," was my reply. "But that is not all," he said. "We had a radio telephone stolen from our exhibit at the San Francisco Boat Show." "Oh." "But that is not all. We had a shipment of wired units returned from a customer and some of the units are missing in the warehouse." There was a period of silence as Bob waited for my reply, possibly expecting to be fired. I thought of how Dave Nurse would have handled the situation. Although Bob had the potential to be a good manager, the circumstances could not be overlooked. "Bob, what have you learned from all this?" "That I need to be a better manager," was his reply. Bob did go on to become a better manager, in fact a very good manager, and we found the employee that had contributed to most of the problems. Later, at a managers meeting, Bob stated that this experience generated a tremendous amount of loyalty toward Heath, which he tried to communicate with his store employees and customers. Following the example set by Dave Nurse in handling employees always resulted in a positive experience. He was a very special person. Robert E. (Bob) Carson 30 Nov 86 HEATH STORIES #29 A VISITOR FROM ST. JOSEPH One end of our den is going to be used for my electronic equipwent. This includes the weather station, test equipment and the ham gear. My plans are to build one wide shelf at desk height aNd two smaller shelves across one end of the room and a short distance along the side wall. The best way to do this is to mount heavy duty shelf standards along the wall and use brackets to hold the shelves. I could not find what I wanted in Ft. Myers, as I needed to purchase them from a store fixture supply house and we don't have any here. I wrote to Marion Nielsen at Heath. She is the one who worked with us in getting store fixtures, when I was setting up the retail stores for Heath. I asked her if she could Find prices on what I needed, so that I could make an order to Reflector Hardware in Chicago, who had supplied these in the past. She dropped me a note to state that they were remodeling a number of stores and had taken out a lot of wall standards and shelf brackets, and I could have what I needed for nothing if I would pay the freight. She had everything at Heath, except some long shelf brackets, and these were at Morey Doddington's of Kitchen Mart, who was involved in the store remodeling She said shE would contact him to get some of the long brackets I also needed. It was not many days later that the phone rang and it was Morey. This was not too great a surprise, as I thought he may be asking exactly what brackets I needed from him. The big surprise was that he was in Arcadia, about 35 miles from our house. He and his wife were on vacation, visiting relatives. Marion gave him my address and phone number and he came over that night to visit us in our uncompleted house. He checked out what I needed and said he would get it over to Heath when he got back and would have Marion send it down. Our visit with Morey brought back many memories, especially setting up stores with Bob Furtaw and Ray Nelson. We used to arrive at the store on a Monday morning and have two trailer loads of material from the factory waiting. Each person knew their assignment and would pick some of the new local store employees to work with them. We would go night and day and the store would be all fixtured, set up and ready for the grand opening on the following Friday morning. Joe Schulte, who is now president of the retail store group at Heath told a story at my farewell party. He was assigned to a store set up for the first time as a new employee. We worked like mad until the evening hours and then I suggested that we all go out and have a drink. He expected to go to a local bar and spend the rest of the evening in social discussion. He was surprised when I hauled them all down to McDonalds for a milk shake and after 15 minutes said it was time to go back to work, which we did until well after midniqht. Joe was very happy to see us leave. One of our big problems was that Morey would build our sales counter custom for each store, along with a lot of the shelving. He had to get his work completed and over to Heath, so it could get into the two trailers that were going out for the set up. It seems in well over 50% of the cases Marion would try everything she knew to get Morey to get the fixtures over, but he would miss the truck. He would then get in his own truck and drive them to the store himself. He drove the fixtures clear to New Orleans and also to Buffalo, New York. This must have cost a princely sum, compared to the free shipment on our trailers. Somehow I have the feeling that he did this deliberately to get away from his shop. Last Thursday the wall standards and shorter shelf brackets arrived and I put them up that night. It was like old times, and I was working on them after 10 PM. And it seemed that late at night I was really ready to roll setting up store fixtures. If Bob Furtaw and Ray Nelson were here, the party would have been complete. I spent a lot of time under pressure with these two men and if I was ever given a task that appeared impossible and could pick two people to help face the challenge ... these would be the two ... with the help of Marion to see that the needed material would get to us. These three people have had a special part in my life. Now all I need is the long brackets from Morey to finish the set up for my equipment and I appreciate the help from both Marion and Morey. Robert E. (Bob) Carson Since his retirement, Bob has written chapters covering his many experiences in WWII and in College, and also his employment at Heath. He submitted the above passage from one of the chapters for the Story book on 4 Dec 86. HEATH STORIES #29 THE SHERIFF OF CONYERS Friday, Aug 9: We drove on down to Atlanta and checked into a new Red Roof Inn, not too far from the Church Atlanta Temple location. After we secured our room, we drove out to see the Stone Mountain State Park. We had heard about this for a long time and felt that this would be a good day to make the visit. My only concern was that Stone Mountain is not too far from Conyers, GA and I don't ever want to run into the sherift there, as some years ago he was looking for me. About fifteen years ago, when I was working for Heath, a man called our St. Louis store on a Friday and asked if they had a number of kits in stock. They did, and he came in on Saturday, picked up about $1,200.00 worth of merchandise and paid for it with a business check that later turned out to be on a fictitious account. We immediately sent a bulletin out to all stores, telling the employees to be on the lookout for this person. About a month later, the man came into the Houston store and pulled exactly the same stunt, using the same name, and he got away with over $2,000.00 worth of material. Obviously, Bill Nico, the manager, felt terrible, as he had ignored the warning. He made it a personal vendetta to catch the crook. By hounding the FBI and the local police, he found that this person had been doinq this to numerous businesses under various names. In any case, Bill would not let the police forget the case and kept hounding them for information regarding the wanted man. A few months later the man was stopped for a traffic violation in Meridian, MS. A LIEN check showed that he was wanted by the FBI and he was thrown in the local jail. Bill Nico got wind of the situation and called the Schlumberger attorney in New York, who then got in contact with the local police and the FBI. In running thinos down, they found that the man had been renting an old mobile home outside of Conyers, GA, but he had left some months ago and never paid his rent. The owner of the mobile home had entered the unit and found it loaded with electronic gear and notified the local sheriff. The Schiumberger attorney then called me at the Heath factory, stating that there was a good chance that our material was included in the items in the trailer. Ordinarily the material was impounded as evidence and it usually later just "disappeared" and the companies rarely got anything back. He suggested that if I could go to Conyers and convince the people that it was our merchandise and pick it up, we may qet it. Otherwise we would never see it again. He stated that, because this was an out-of-the-way place, they may not be as strict as the police in the big cities, where we wouldn't have a chance. Since I was on my way to locate another store site in the south, I agreed to see what I could do. I prepared by getting copies of all of the invoices involved, the bad checks and all of the other police information we had. I also pre-printed a bunch of shipping labels to the Houston store, so I could get rid of any material I picked up. I flew to the Atlanta airport, rented a station wagon and drove to the sheriff's office in Conyers. The Schlumberger attorney had called him to expect me. The local sheriff was a dead ringer for the sheriff on the old Dodge TV commercials: big, fat, cigar-smoking, cowboy hat, with a big gun strapped to his belt. He called his deputies, and me also, "boy". He told his two deputies to drive in their car out to the site, with me following. The two deputies were really rubes, about like Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith show. It seemed like we drove forever, up and down through the boondocks, before we arrived at a real junky trailer park with about 10 very old trailers, that looked like they were ready for the graveyard. When the manager opened up the trailer in question, it was full of electronic gear. I sorted out the material that had been supplied by our two stores, and it was all there, with the exception of few tools he had purchased. Unfortunately, many of the kits had been built or were partially assembled. I told the deputies that I had orders to take the items. They were not too sure of this and tried to call the sheriff on their radio, but were beyond the range of their system. In the meantime I had written out a receipt to their sheriff's department for all of the material. After some fast talking on my part, they let me load up everything in the station wagon, a full load, and I took off for Atlanta. At any moment I expected to see flashing red lights behind me, as the furious sheriff wanted his "evidence" back. I made it to Atlanta late in the afternoon. I stopped at several moving companies to see if they would pack and ship the merchandise, but after looking at the mess in the station waqon, they wouldn't touch it. I tried to get some boxes at shopping centers, but found they now crush all of their boxes to avoid pilferage. I finally went to a war surplus store and bought a one inch thick foam mattress pad, a pair of shears and some packing tape. I then drove out to the edge of a shopping mall parking lot and started packing the material. Each time I would spread the items out, a brief shower would come by, and I would have to throw it all in the station wagon, and wait to start packing again. I also was worried that a policeman would come by and ask what I was doing and contact the Conyers sheriff. Fortunately, an empty TV cabinet was one 0+ the items I picked up and I managed to get a lot of the material into it, all padded with foam. Finally I had the whole shipment labeled and ready to go, a total of about 19 cartons. I arrived at the Delta airfreight terminal at about 9:00 PM, checked in the shipment to go to Houston, turned in the car and flew on out of Atlanta to my original destination. When I finally got back to the factory at the end of the trip, my secretary stated that the sheriff at Conyers had called several times and was "most anxious" to talk to me. I never did return his calls, and imagine he would have liked to get his hands on me and throw me into his jail, and I guess I would have had a real difficult time getting out. We recovered well over $3,OOO.OO of our merchandise and I told Dave Nurse, our company president, that I never wanted this type of assignment again. Evidently my performance really impressed the New York attorney, as it was later that I did receive some nice stock options from the New York office. I guess that is one way to get noticed at the headquarters. Ever since the incident, I did not want to take any chance of running into the sheriff at Conyers, so I told Debbie, that on our trip to Stone Mountain she should be sure and do all of the driving. Stone Mountain is one tremendous piece of rock that comes out of the ground and is just about completely bare and about 600 feet hiqh. When we arrived at the park, we purchased tickets for all of the rides and attractions. We first took a Swiss tram to the top of the mountain, where we could get a good view of the park. At the tram terminal at the top they have a snack shop, souvenir shop and a small theatre, which had a cute film about gnomes and a professor that was visiting the mountain. It was especially made for children by Coca Cola and was very well done. The mountain top was also loaded with television and other types of antennas. The tram closes down in bad weather and high winds, and since the sky looked threatening, we were glad to get down without encountering any delays. We next visited the museum which was directly in front of the large carving on the side of the mountain, honoring a number of southern civil war heroes. It is hard to believe that this carving covers over 17 stories in height and that the workers stood in the mouths of the statues to get out of the rain. The figures were carved with special torches that burned away the rock, something that I had never heard of before. We then took a steam train ride about five miles around the base of the mountain. At one place we stopped at a small recreated village, where a robber was about to be hanged, and was rescued by his buddies. But the sheriff overcame them all in a gun fight and the local mortician came to haul them away. It reminded Debbie and me of the train robberies at Knott's Berry Farm. We enjoyed a nice barbecued lunch at a reasonable price at the restored railway station. Adjacent to it was a Georgia display, in three rail cars, that we found was not that great. They also presented a story of the Battle of Atlanta on a biq relief map in a nearby building. I thought it was alright, but Debbie said it was the most boring thing she had sat through. We took a ride on their lake on a diesel prop driven stern wheeled boat, that we could have also skipped. We did visit a restored southern plantation, with the central mansion and all of the other buildings, and this was very well done. And we enjoyed seeing how all of the people lived, the owners in luxury, and less luxury down to the slave's quarters. Frankly, I felt that the slave's quarters were pretty good, compared to what some of the early settlers endured. Another highlight of our visit was a building that housed a Music Box and a Car museum, something like the one in Sarasota. There were a number of "unique" cars, and most most of the Big Band Organs could be played by inserting quarters. They were all in good order, and it was a real treat to hear the good music and see the displays. We finally left, exhausted, and made our way back to the motel in Atlanta, escaping the clutches of Conyer's sheriff. Robert E. (Bob) Carson The above is a page from Bob's diary, which he submitted for the HEATH STORIES on 4 Dec 86. It is reproduced without cutting, to retain the diary format.