INTRODUCTION

Heath Stories is an open-ended collection of tales about the 
Heath Company and pictures related to Heath,  from a multitude 
of sources.  They can  include personal recollections of present 
and former Heath employees, of people dealing with Heath, such 
as customers and vendors,  and stories published inside or 
outside the Company,  such as in-house organs, magazines, 
newspapers or books.

The open-ended approach makes it possible for this collection to 
start small, like the company has done several times already, and 
grow larger. The start is made in time for distribution at the 
Golden Oldies party on 2 Oct 86, with the fervent hope that recipients 
will be moved to submit their own treasured tales either in writing, 
or dictated or told on cassette, for the next release. Also more 
clear black-and-white photos - preferably large like 8x10" - with 
captions for those who forget names and places, would further 
enrich the collection.


Most likely some stories will be told more than once, but will 
remain interesting by reflecting different viewpoints and 
memories. No one is expected to read it from cover to cover in 
one sitting,  for there is no chronology involved, nor is there 
a thread of continuity. It is more likely to be read a paragraph 
or a page at a time, providing the reader with a chuckle, some 
added knowledge,  an increased feel for his or her contribution 
to our customers or coworkers,  or recalling his own experience 
at or with Heath.  Please document the 
latter as a contribution!  Thanks!


The real fun lies in you adding your tales to the Heath Stories 
and making it "our" collection, rather than mine.


Send your input to:
(Address and phone number {which are no longer valid} removed at 
the request of the Heyning family. If you have something you'd
like to contribute, see the contact information at
http://members.aol.com/wwheco1/index.htm.  --Bill Wilkinson)


 
MEATH STORIES #1

My first exposure to the Heath name came in my childhood. We had 
subscriptions to National Geographic and Modern Mechanics, and I 
had a personal subscription to Open Road for Boys from the US.  
I started learning English in 1930,  so my fascination with the 
Heath Parasol articles in Modern Mechanics must be from the early 
thirties. They told of the economy of building your own plane 
from full-size prints, from kits or partial assemblies, or from 
buying completely assembled Parasols for less than $1000. They 
extolled the inherent stability of the highwing design, the low 
landing speed of under 30 mph, and the completeness of the 
instructions.  Those even included a basic course in meteorology 
and a self-instruction course in How to Fly the plane. It was a 
single-seater and there was no room for a flying instructor. And 
the stories told of the many readers who had carried out the basic 
ideas of Ed Heath, which was to get many to share his love for 
flying at a cost they could afford. Little did I dream that one day 
I would cross the ocean and visit the US. And the idea that I would 
settle in this great country was even more remote. The thought that 
one day I would be working at the Heath Company and help people share 
the ideals of the owner, which were so close to those of Ed Heath, 
couldn't possibly have crossed my mind  then.

But miracles do happen!  I crossed in  1935, got my BS in RE from 
Tri-State in  1937 and then re-entered as an immigrant in  1938.  A 
few years later a college roommate told that he had met Howard Anthony,  
who then owned the Heath Company,  and that Howard was looking for a 
Radio man to help with the small Aircraft radio sets he was selling. 
So I wrote for an interview and soon I took the train from New York to 
So.Bend to meet Howard  in person.  The bus ride to Benton Harbor 
seemed endless, for the town refused to appear over the next hill, time 
after time. And when we did reach a town it turned out to be Niles,  
Berrien  Springs  and  St.Joseph! But I did get to the Benton Harbor 
bus depot eventually and asked the local agent the location of 
the Heath Company. It was a real shock to  find  he'd never heard 
of Heath!  I'd heard of the Heath company's fame from 3,000 miles 
away, and the  local  people were ignorant of it? How could that be?

Well, I found the number in the phone book, called, and Howard agreed to 
come and get me at the Vincent hotel lobby. Soon a young round-faced man 
came and we met. He excused the small car he drove,  saying it was his 
wife's car and proceeded to drive me to the plant. It took at least a half 
hour and he showed me all the fine points of the community.  Then  I met 
Helen,  the co-owner, who held the purse strings. Soon it was lunch time and 
we walked over to Holly's. I spotted the hotel next door and wondered how 
come we had spent all that time driving. He felt that getting an impression 
of the community was vital  for me to reach a decision on moving here. 
Before the day was over  I had taken a great liking to Howard and Helen,  
and to the small business they were running,  making parts for small 
aircraft and selling a radio receiver for light planes.

Howard spared me the bus ride back to So.Bend by asking one of his 
flying friends to take me to Elkhart in his Culver Cadet, so I could 
catch the train there. A fun way to end my visit!

It took another month of letters back and forth before I was accepted 
and in August 1943 we moved here. The first 2 weeks we stayed in the 
Vincent hotel in a room just above the main street entrance. We slept 
with the windows open, and all through the hot night the busy wartime 
truck traffic between Chicago and Detroit seemcd to stop and start right 
over the foot end of our bed. Then we found a house to rent on Highland 
and all calmed down.

Howard had bought the Heath company in  1935 when it had gone bankrupt 
in Niles, MI. He later told me that he had talked Helen out of her $300 
life savings, and with that he had bought the company, its good name and 
some spare parts for the 3-cylinder Szekely engines. He moved the company 
from Niles to a bay or two in the Baker-Vawter building on Park 
street and started to make tailwheels for small plianes. Most of them 
then had tailskids. He hired Ralph Lhotka right out of high school 
to help him machine the castings and complete the assemblies. Then 
Howard and Helen would drive to the various airport operators and 
sell his product. With the proceeds he paid off the foundry and 
the wheel supplier,  and started another batch.  Soon he added other 
items, such  as inspection covers, carburetor airfilters and such. 
In a few years he got into making windshields out of Plexiglass by 
heating the sheets and draping them over form blocks to cool in the 
right shape. 

When  I joined Heath there was a war on, and Howard had gotten a 
government contract for Glider skids for the CG-4A cargo gliders. He 
had a friend, Tiny Smith of Twin Cities Boiler Works, weld up a frame, 
added a pair of heavy Ausco hydraulic jacks, and that formed a press 
to squeeze the laminated wood blanks between a pair of steam-heated 
mold plates into the shape desired. It took him just a few weeks to  
get into production.

Howard had several planes and flew quite a bit. One time he flew into 
Chicago Municipal  and had to circle quite a while before he got the 
green light to land. There had been no traffic and he was annoyed at 
the delay. The controller at the tower told him he'd given the OK to 
land several times by radio.  Then Howard  learned a radio was required  
for  landing at Chicago Muni. So he ordered one and was irate,  when he 
found that his new RCA aircraft receiver for $125 was just a long-wave 
version of the $25 car radio! He asked his friends at  Meissner Mfg. 
in  Mt.Carmel,  IL to design and build him a radio to his specifications.  
And they did.  He sold them to the Airport operators and they furnished 
them to the flyers for $39.50. He also sold them through ads in 
Trade-A-Plane and each time he got an order,  a unit had to be checked to 
make sure it was operating right. Howard felt he could afford to hire me 
to do that job,  as well  as produce a transmitter to match.

Bjorn Heyning	27 Aug 86


HEATH STORIES #2
When I joined Heath, the plant was in the lower section of the
building at 305 Territorial,  with some space also in the Baker-
Vawter bldg across the alley on Park street.  It was below street
level. That had caused a problem the month before, when a heavy
rainstorm had flooded Ox creek and water was standing over the
curb on the street. Inside the plant the water had been over the
desks in the office and phones had been hung from the heating
pipes below the ceiling. Many of the files in the little file
room had been stuck together and smelled terrible when unstuck.

My workbench was in that file room to start. Across the way was 
the office section with Howard and Helen's office.  Cliff Edwards, 
Advertising,  and Don Reagan,  Sales mgr.,  in the next office.  
Then Gene Woods,  Chief Engineer,  and Chuck Christy,  draftsman. 
Another cubbyhole for the Purchasing agent, Dick Cook, completed 
the private offices. A couple of girls had desks and there was a 
Switchboard with an operator.  Behind the office section was the 
factory area,  extending to the alley.

It contained the machine shop area,  work benches with some 
footpowered riveters for the inspection covers,  the form blocks 
and the oven for the windshields, and the stockroom. Eldon Smith 
was the stockkeeper.  Ralph Lhotka was Howard's right hand,  
and we had some fine people as crew, including a grandmother, 
who had her pet dog at her feet as she riveted inspection covers. 
There was a war on and help was hard to get. For coffee breaks we 
trotted across the alley into the Baker-Vawter bldg where the
LaVanway's ran a refreshment  stand.

Soon after  I joined we had another flood, but with sandbags 
we kept the unhappy effects to a minimum.  A faulty reverse-flow 
valve in the toilet near the alley let some evil smelling water
into the factory area. We clearly had learned a lesson from the 
earlier flood.

For a while Howard had an assistant, but their thinking was not 
fully compatible and he soon left. We had a Test Pilot, Pappy 
Dillon,  who had to try out the new designs,  primarily the 
floats Gene Woods designed for Stinson L-5 and other small  
planes.  They were test-flown on Austin Lake near Kalamazoo,  
but most of that was done before my arrival.

My task, besides checking out the Meissner MA-4A radio receivers 
before shipment,  was to produce a small  transmitter on the 
basis of a prototype developed by Howard's friends at Southwest 
Airmotive at Love field, Dallas as the Heath HT-4. It sported 4 
tubes and transmitted at the then universal  frequencies of 3105 
and 6210 kc. Unlike the receiver, it required a 6 volt storage 
battery for power. We made several  hundred of them, and I had an 
assistant, Wilma Felgner, who drew sets of parts from the 
stockroom,  assembled,  tested and packed them.  Her record time 
was 4 hours for that process. We sold them to people with an A-2 
priority for CAP/WTS (Civil  Air Patrol/War Training Service) use.

The expanding volume of business let Howard enlarge the plant to 
include the upstairs, and soon new offices were built there.  It 
must have been during that construction that I had my workspace 
downstairs next to the spotwelder. A large sheet of cardboard 
kept the sparks from burning holes in my drawings. My old drafting 
table (which I still have at home!) served as my desk, my layout 
table and workbench as well.  It was conveniently close to the 
drinking fountain and to the airhose,  which I used to keep my 
pipes clean.

We made other interesting radio accessories at the time. A vital 
one was the Loop antenna,  which illustrated Howard's genius.  
He knew that most loops had slip-ring contacts for connecting the 
rotating loop to the stationary base. They would get dirty and 
create noise in the signal. He hit on the idea of limiting the 
rotation with a small stack of dog-washers to somewhat over 360 
degrees, which was enough to get the two nulls from the signal. 
Thus he could make the connection from loop to base with some 
very flexible tinsel wire, as used in shaver cords. It saved so 
much in the cost that he could sell a loop for less than a third 
of the current models. He had the base casting made locally and 
we cut the loops out of coiled brass tubing on a bandsaw. Then 
some drilling, brazing, plating, wiring and assembly made it a 
finished product, which worked faultlessly for many years.

Other radio products were a Trailing Antenna reel, made of 
scrap from the plexiglas windshield material.  And we made some 
metal pans for Storage batteries,  which were heavily coated with 
acidproof material. They kept acid spills from harming the plane.
 
The Meissner-made MA-4A receiver also reflected Howards talents, 
for at his behest it used filament-type tubes, so it could 
operate from dry cells.  The flat chassis was rubber-mounted to 
the main frame and case to prevent vibration from harming the 
fragile filament tubes. It was so compact that there was room 
in a small drawer under the radio for 3 D-cells and a 67  volt 
"B" battery. When they ran down, they could be replaced from the 
cockpit even in  flight,  if necessary. The A-model  had the 
connections for the  loop antenna and also a panel switch for 
fixed-tuned 278 kc Control Tower reception. It was quick and 
easy to install in the instrument panel, unlike most other 
aircraft radios, which needed a storage battery and a generator
to charge  it.

But  it didn't  have  a Range Filter to suppress the  1020 Hz
"A" and "N" signals from the Radio Range stations,  when  
listening to the occasional  voice signals on the same 
carrier. We made some experimental  filters, but they never 
got into serious production.

	Bjorn Heyning	20 Jun 86


MEATH STORIES #3


When I joined Heath in 1943, Howard lived in a cottage near 
Lake Michigan Beach, north of town. Then he moved to a neat 
small house on Seneca Road. Later he moved to a large house 
on U533 north of town. One time he had a brush fire there 
and half the company went out to help put it out.  Then he 
got intrigued by Frank Lloyd Wright and got him to design a 
house for him.  It was built on Miami road, close to where 
he lived before. It drove the builder crazy, for the right 
angles were few. Most were 30 and 60 degrees. It was a 
lovely place,  inside and out.

Those moves reflect his fortunes. As I heard tell, the first 
few years of Heath ownership were hard times.  The depression 
was on in full  force in  1935, when he bought it. There were 
times when he was so short of funds that they faced 
starvation. For a couple of weeks they stole or borrowed 
canned fruit,  stored by Michigan Fruit Canners in the basement 
of the Baker-Vawter building,  so they wouldn't starve to death. 
When he finally got the payments from the airport operators 
for the tailwheels he had sold them, he repaid his debt promptly. 
But his experience with poverty was evident in his 
relationship with his employees the rest of his life. And 
they all admired and respected him for his humanity.

At  Christmas time in '43 he rented the Aircastle restaurant 
for the company party and there was food, drink and presents 
for all employees and their spouses. A year or two later he 
sketched up a for a kid's wagon and got a number of us to 
work after hours to build them for the employee's kids.  The 
traditional wagons were unavailable in the stores because of 
the war. But he had been optimistic about how long it would 
take, and it ended up that the experts built them during 
working hours the following week.  They were real fine 
wagons,  with Heath ball-bearing tailwheels!  Our son enjoyed 
his red wagon for many years.

One of the fringe benefits was typical  for the Anthony's.  
Shortly after I joined,  Blue Cross was the up-and-coming  
Health  Care  plan and Heath signed up as a company for all 
of us, provided we would sign up for Blue Shield. The fee for 
that would be deducted from our weekly paychecks. Typical of 
Helen, she found the added work of figuring the checks was 
not worth the savings, so by the second check Heath paid for 
both Blue Cross and Blue Shield!

Howard backed the United Way,  also just appearing in this 
area, by getting the whole company to put in a half day on 
Saturday without pay, and the earnings went to the fund drive. 
We all went outside in 3 groups and had our pictures taken.  
It gave us good publicity in the community!  Howard was 
real proud of the community and often spoke of the value of
making things here and selling them all over the country. 
That enriched the local area. It took us years to make as 
large a contribution again, for the half day work idea was 
not repeated.

Howard Anthony had two great  loves, beside his wife Helen. 
One was flying and airplanes. The other was Electronics, 
which was then called Radio. I don't know when he learned 
to fly, but he was a good private pilot, when I met him. His 
skills in the field of radio I heard about as follows. After 
finishing high school in Dowagiac,  it seems he spent some 
time at Hillsdale College, but I don't think he graduated.  
If he did,  he never mentioned it.  He said that in Dowagiac 
he lived on the wrong side of the tracks. It seems possible 
that he didn't finish college for economic reasons. But he 
had an interest in radio and probably built one of the famous 
Meissner radio kits. Seems he set up a little production 
line for a radio receiver in his parent's garage and some 
of the neighbor ladies did the building.  Possibly zoning 
ordinances brought that venture to an end.

His experience with building and servicing radios made 
him value the test equipment needed for that.  During 
the war he spent some of his spare time building an 
oscilloscope, one of the newest devices, at that time, 
for seeing what goes on in electronic circuits.  
They were both scarce and costly.  He enjoyed trying the 
newest circuits described in Radio  News and other magazines.

One day a fellow named Don St.Clair from Chicago stopped in 
and asked for scrap windshield plastic material.  We asked 
what he had in mind and he told he wanted to make chassis 
for a Vacuum Tube Voltmeter or VTVM he had designed. We 
offered to make it out of metal, and he liked that better!  
Then we agreed to make the cabinets too,  and even assemble 
the instruments for him. He had the parts on order,  but 
they came COD and soon he was out of money. Then Howard 
bailed him out and we ran the assembly line during the week.  
On the weekend Don came to town and did the calibrating with 
precision standards.  Howard sold the  VTVM's to Bill  Acker 
at Radio Distributing in So.Bend until his expenses had been 
recouped,  and then Don got to sell the rest of them. They 
were fine instruments for their day, and Howard  learned a 
lot from that experience. Later Don talked Wilmak Corp.  
into building more of them,  for we had enough of that fun.

During those war years I designed  the  HBR-4  and  HBR-5  
Battery-powered  receivers for both the Beacon (200-400 kHz) 
and  the Broadcast band.  We made a number of them.  There were 
other designs worked out too,  but  I don't believe they got 
beyond the prototype stage.  For the receivers we ran a small  
4-person assembly line.  My instructions were step-by-step on  
file cards  and that seemed to work out well. One problem we 
ran into was excess heat on the tube socket pins, which let 
the solder run into the contact.  Then a tube couldn't be 
plugged in and repair was needed. We fixed that quickly, 
by letting the person who had  let the solder run down do 
the repair!  A nasty job,  but after that it seldom happened 
again!

	Bjorn Heyning	20 Jun 86


HEATH STORIES #4

Howard Anthony was a young man, unhampered by prior knowledge 
why something would not work. Thus he could do unconventional 
things, or apply old,  basic principles to new needs. Once he 
bounced a clever idea off me and I gave it some thought. Then, 
my regret,  I had to tell him that it didn't work on paper.  
He agreed that my calculations were convincing and felt as sad 
as I did.  But next morning he brought a working breadboard and 
said that while I was correct,  he found it did work,  and we'd 
do it that way! And we did.

It seems the first floats we made were constructed out of 
Plywood and they worked well.  But in spite of the protective 
coverings of paint and such, they were subject to considerable 
wear from sand on the beach. Then he found some plywood with 
a canvas-based outer  layer.  It was much more abrasion-resistant.  
So the floats I saw all had that material on the lower hull. 
Then he heard of the potential benefits of some 
fiberglas-impregnated plastic, which was light,  strong like 
steel, and very much more abrasion-resistant. That art was 
still  in its infancy, and he hired an expert consultant,  
Charlie Skogland, to develop a process that would suit our 
needs. After a few months we had the method,  so a female 
mold and an oven were built. The floats worked fine, I think, 
but by then there was no market for them.

Undismayed,  Howard sought for other applications for fiberglas 
construction  and thought of a dinghy for yachts.  He got the 
famous John Alden to design one for Heath. Soon we had one 
built and the dinghy did all  it was expected to do. There were 
test rides on the St.Joseph river with a small outboard motor 
on it and seven people aboard!  Not bad for a 7-foot dinghy!  
But it had some disadvantages.  It was round-bottomed and had 
no keel. That means you could row it easily, but if you stopped 
rowing it would turn and go sideways,  backwards and on till  
it headed straight again!  And if you stepped into it a bit 
off-center,  it would dump you into the water in a split 
second!  Fine dinghy,  but not much of a boat for fishing 
or other locally popular purposes.  Cliff Edwards designed 
a nice label for it with the name "HeathCraft by John Alden",
but still  it didn't sell.

Soon Howard had another mold made for a standard flat-bottomed
fishing boat. It was stable and we sold several  of them.  
But  many came back,  for the fiberglas developed some 
porous spots and water would seep through slowly.  I later 
borrowed one of the dinghys and had it out at  Paw Paw Lake 
for many years.  I enjoyed it,  in spite of its drawbacks. 
Little did Howard dream that only a few years later a large 
share of the boats built in the world would be made of 
fiberglas! Or maybe he did have that dream, and perhaps 
he was one of the vital  links in such development.

Even though it didn't become the success for Heath he envisioned, 
he certainly enjoyed the striving for a better,  lower cost 
way to make floats,  dinghys and small boats for people.

Many of the early light planes, particularly those used 
for training new pilots, had open cockpits. It was difficult 
for the instructor to talk to the student,  with propeller,  
engine and wind noise blanking any voice. Here Howard saw 
a need and an easy low-cost way to help.  He had gut-less 
earphones modified with stub tubing in place of the wires, 
connected the stubs with rubber hose to a metal Y junction 
and then a single hose led to a rubber-molded mouthpiece.
With this "Airphone" the instructor could speak to the 
student and be fully understood, in spite of the ambient 
noise. A beautiful, simple solution!

One of the key men in '43 was Jimmy Pakela,  our young,  
expert machinist.  Howard counted on him for many things.  
But when  Howard had an assistant for a little while,  
the assistant gave Jimmy an order, which was not followed 
promptly for some reason. So Jimmy was  fired.  Funny,  
but Howard hired Jimmy right back,  and soon after that 
the assistant was gone.  Maybe Howard took firing rather 
lightly, for his faithful helper Ralph Lhotka was fired 
regularly with Howard's angry shout of "Lhotka,  you're  
fired!" and Ralph would smile and say "Yes, boss" and 
show up next mornmg as usual  anyway.  He knew Howard's 
anger wouldn't  last.

One time,  the story goes,  Howard needed something from 
Indianapolis in a hurry, so he sent Ralph down in one of 
his planes. The weather worsened on the way down, and Ralph 
could not return, for he had no instrument rating.  Howard 
had Ralph return by bus and sent our Test Pilot, Pappy Dillon, 
down instead. By then even he was not permitted to take off! 
It took several days before the plane and pilot got back. 
It sure irritated Howard!

One of the earliest products was the Inspection Cover. It 
was a dished aluminum disk,  with two formed spring steel 
strips riveted onto the back, and the plastic rings to brace  
the hole in the airplane fabric. A ring was glued or doped 
to both the out- and inside of the fabric and then the center 
was cut out.  This hole gave access to control-cable pulleys 
and such.  The cover was then snapped into place to close 
the hole. We had a punch press to stamp the cover,  the 
springs and the rings.  Foot-operated presses were used  
for the riveting. It looked to me like we sold many.

For the radio chassis we used Whitney hand-powered punches,  
a foot-powered shear and a hand-operated brake. We also had 
a spotwelder,  made by Peer  Inc.(now Teledyne-Peer), a  
local  outfit. Howard dealt locally, whenever possible, in 
support of local business.

For the float construction there were the usual woodworking 
tools and many electric hand tools for drilling and for 
driving the great number of woodscrews holding the floats 
together. They broke down often enough to keep Al Tabor in 
Riverside busy rewinding  and  fixing the shorts and 
broken-down insulation.

	Bjorn Heyning	27 Aug 86

HEATH STORIES #5

After the war ended in the summer of  1945 it didn't take long 
For the defense contracts to run out.  Everyone turned to 
Civilian business and that took some time. The private flying 
business didn't spring back to life instantly,  and we had 
layoffs. The business had the big concerns,  like RCA, applying 
their weight to the component makers,  and without the 
wartime priorities the small outfits,  like Heath,  had prospects 
of waiting for years to get needed parts,  such as tuning 
capacitors.  I saw no chance for continuing at Heath and Howard 
made arrangements for me to transfer to another company,  
Wilmak Corp.,  even without me meeting the principals of that 
outfit. That was in the spring of '46,  when the Heath staff 
shrank from over  125 to only  8.

Howard found himself in dire straits,  and then his flying 
friends, the Zollar brothers,  Charles and Herman, gave him 
the idea to join them in dealing in war surplus materials. They 
taught him how to bid on surplus lots and soon we had all 
kinds of materials on hand.  I recall several huge crates filled 
with sparkplugs for  14-cylinder radial engines!  They had 
bought the stuff jointly, but when a Zollar sold a batch and 
didn't put the proceeds into the kitty, the decision was made 
to split the operation into two parts. The Zollars kept the 
Aircraft parts and formed Aircraft Components Inc.,  located 
at the airport.  Howard kept the Radio parts at Heath.  They 
remained good friends,  but kept their ventures separate. 
That move was the key to the change at  Heath from Aircraft 
to Radio business.

Soon Howard had warehouses full of surplus electronic parts,  
and many had nothing to do with flying. It led to opening a 
Surplus store in the lower part,  where I'd first seen the 
offices,  and we had many customers come in and browse.  
The deals Howard made got him lots at very low cost, 
something like 5 to 15 cents on the dollar. But the common 
people had little use for most of the special custom-built 
military grade components. For instance, who would have 
need for a collapsible whip antenna of some 8 to 10 feet? 
But Howard, with his ingenuity, sold them for a couple of 
dollars as collapsible fishing poles, which could fit 
inside one's tackle box! The usual  30 and 50 cal  
ammunition boxes were always useful as tool boxes,  and 
the special 2-deck storage cases for transmitting crystals 
were fine for small hand tool  storage.

Then he got a  lot with hundreds of 5BP1  cathode ray tubes, 
and  it didn't take him long to wonder if he could make an 
oscilloscope out of them and other  surplus parts. A couple 
of months of work led to a workable prototype and he felt 
that this was a valuable tool  for radio men. He wanted to 
share the fun he had building it with others, and therefore 
offered in a small ad in Radio News a kit of parts for a 
Scope at the low price of $39.50 in the summer of  1947.  
To his delight it brought a stream of orders and it kept 
him busy packing the kits,  including Heath-made chassis , 
cabinet and a cast aluminum bezel for the tube, turned on 
a lathe by Jimmy Pakela. I doubt that he knew if it was 
profitable, but  I don't think he cared.

Cliff Edwards, the advertising manager, applied his skills 
to the silk screening of the panel and to the sketches showing 
where the parts were supposed to go.  Howard wrote the brief 
instructions of how to assemble the kit and test it when done. 
There was also a parts list and a schematic to complete the 3 
legal-size sheets of instruction.

After his years of having to wait for months for payment 
after shipping his products, both from airport operators and 
later from the government, he was elated at the idea of 
Cash with Order for the kits.  Now,  instead of the customers 
operating on his capital, he was working on their capital! 
Helen kept the reins so tight that such cash was kept in 
escrow until shipment, while she took pride in always 
discounting incoming bills by 2%,  whether it said so or 
not,  as she paid within  10 days.  It surely added to our 
reputation and gave us great respect and cooperation from 
our vendors for many years to come.

We dealt directly with the customers on a mailorder basis,  
so there was no wholesale cost,  nor dealer mark-up to raise 
the price to the customer.  Any inquiry or  letter got a prompt 
reply. One early letter I have quoted often. In brief it said: 
Saw your Scope ad, sent the order and in 3 days I got the kit. 
Fine! Checked the parts against the parts list and they were 
all  there! Mounted the parts and they all  fit! Wired it up 
and tried it out. It does all you said it should! Marvelous! 
What do I do with it now?  ...  Please send me your next kit.  
Signed  So-and-so,  MD. Clearly he wasn't so much after the 
Scope as the joy of building something outside of his field 
and  learning from it.

It was rumored years later that before the war Howard had 
talked to Hickock Instruments and suggested putting test 
equipment  in kit form,  but they laughed at that idea.  
In the  late 50's it seemed everyone was in the kit game, 
but I don't recall ever seeing a Hickock kit.  Maybe their 
disbelief was  sincere.

With the surplus business going well  and the Scope kit 
gaining by leaps and bounds, it wasn't long till Howard 
said he had a spot for me again. So I rejoined in Oct 47 
and started the VTVM or Vacuum Tube Voltmeter.  First I 
scoffed at the idea,  and sassily asked Howard how he 
planned to handle the calibration.  Have the customer 
return it for adjustment after it was built? Or send the 
precision standards on  loan? But Howard had the answer: 
We'll measure the Ohms battery,  mark it,  and that will  
be his standard. Them I sneered:  And  for AC we send 
an AC battery?  But  Howard kindly said: No, we'll tell 
him to connect to the line and set the meter for  115  
volts!  I objected:  You know that isn't even close, 
most of the time!  But Howard said it would get him 
started, and he could use better standards, such as at 
the Electric Co.,  if he had to be more accurate.  And 
history proved  that he was right,  for that idea worked 
without fault for many years.

	Bjorn Heyning	27 Aug 86


HEATH STORIES #6

In the early days of the surplus game, and maybe even before 
the first Heathkit was launched,  we offered complete items,  
like the Command set receivers and transmitters for use by 
Hams. There also was a larger unit for higher frequencies.  
And the small plug-in tuning units for another model could be 
changed readily into a small crystal receiver. For the Command 
sets we designed and offered a 24 volt power supply in kit 
form. We made the chassis,  had the transformer custom-built 
by K.C.Retzlaff of Grand Transformer,  and used surplus parts 
for the rest. A sketch or two was sufficient for instructing 
the skilled customer.

One of the problems Howard faced,  with a couple of warehouses 
full of parts, was how to advertise them and how to retrieve 
them as needed to  fill  the orders.  For that he hired 
H.C.Knapp,  better known as "Curley",  who toured the 
warehouses with Howard and made notes of which parts Howard 
felt worth selling, what they were called, and where they 
were located. From the data he made a numbered  listing and 
soon the sales blossomed. The same talents relieved Howard 
from packing kits personally.  Curley set up racks and had 
gals fill bags with the right parts from bins (surplus 
cabinets,  set on a slant on a wood frame). Soon Curley 
was a mainstay of the Heath operation.

Early in the game Curley had a problem with his feet, and 
walking all  around the warehouses didn't help him a bit.  
Somehow he got word that Knapp Aerotred Shoes could solve 
the problem.  A salesman came and sold him on a pair. 
A week later the salesman returned with the shoes  from 
the Brockton,  MA factory ...  but he was on crutches!  
We laughed at that, but those shoes did wonders for 
Curley!  Soon  I got a pair,  too,  and have been 
wearing Knapp shoes ever since.

The third Heathkit was an RF Signal  Generator, designed 
by Joe Miller. Our contact with him went back to the wartime 
need for coils, which got me to spend some time in Chicago 
with Standard Coil,  Inc. After they expanded and set up a 
plant in Bangor,  MI, we dealt with this nearer plant, and 
Joe Miller was the head man. After the war was over, he 
swore never to get into the coil game again,  and started 
making parking meters!  But Howard  felt Joe's talents and 
expertise were in the coil field,  gave or sold him some 
coil-winding equipment he got in the surplus lots,  and that 
became Milleradio in So.Haven.

The clever part of the Generator design was that Joe felt 
he could wind the coils so accurately, that a single trimmer 
would adjust all 5 bands. And it did, so calibration against 
a local broadcast station made it right for the other 4 bands.  
Many of our customers took our claim with a grain of salt. 
One wrote that he intended to put individual trimmers on 
each coil,  but tried it our  way first.  A check in his 
company's lab proved we were right! And he never added the 
other  trimmers.

Another clever part was the source for audio modulation of 
the carrier. I don't know if it was Joe's or Howard's idea 
to keep it as simple and low-cost as possible, but it used 
a neon-bulb relaxation oscillator, which made a 
sour-sounding sawtooth. It was certainly Howard's genius 
to sell it as a valuable feature: "The distinctive audio 
modulation makes the signal easy to find on the shortwave 
bands".  It was (and still  is) not uncommon to find a 
strong carrier with a tone modulation on shortwave,  and 
that could easily be mistaken for the test signal from 
more costly Signal Generators. But not from the Heathkit!
Typical of Howard's sense of fairness was his deal with 
Joe Miller for the set of 5 coils. As we agreed to go 
ahead with the design,  Howard asked Joe the price.  Joe 
said a dollar. Howard said:  "You can't do that and 
survive,  so  I'll  give you  $1.25." Joe protested that 
it was too much,  but Howard was firm.  He was not about 
to deal with a weak company, have it go broke and then 
have to find a new source for the parts.  Part 
humanity,  and part good business and  common  sense 
on Howard's part.

We did several more kits of Joe's design in following years, 
and he was our main coil source till he died. Then we dealt 
with Joe's wife and Joe's brother Erle Miller. After a while 
the wife and Erle didn't get along,  leaving Milleradio run 
by Bill Schaaf, the wife's protege. Erle set up another 
coil company called So.Haven Coil.  Again he couldn't get 
along with his partners there,  so he pulled up stakes and 
started his own outfit called Antran. Over the years we 
dealt with all three of them there in So . Haven.

Our relationship with Grand Transformer went even farther 
back. During the war I needed output transformers for the 
little radios we made for  aircraft use. With our priority 
we couldn't get any transformers made.  Somehow we got some 
of the right size,  but with the wrong windings for our 
circuit.  Someone steered us to an Anaconda Wire plant  in  
Muskegon,  I think,  where  K.C. "Casey" Retzlaff was 
working at the time. Yes, he could make new windings for 
the units we had,  and did that quickly.  After the war 
he went into business  in his hometown of Grand Haven,  
MI making transformers. When we needed such for the Command 
set power supplies he was our  first choice,  of course.

He soon knew Howard well enough, so that when he got a 
phone request for a sample,  he calculated the design during 
the day, wound it after the  line shut down,  impregnated  
it during dinner and  put it on the bus before  11pm.  Howard 
got  it the next morning.  Casey knew that if it came a 
day later,  Howard's  interest would have jumped to his 
next idea, and the sample would be for naught. By now it is 
hard to think of such lightning sample service....

Bjorn Heyning   2 Sept 86

HEATH STORIES #7

The instructions for assembly of the sets of parts started 
with simple sketches by Cliff Edwards to illustrate the text 
by the responsible engineer. Thus the 0-1 Scope only had a 
few legalsize sheets, which sufficed for those skilled in 
the art. But soon the V-1 VTVM followed with everything on 
standard-size pages stapled together inside a green cover. 
A real manual!  It had assembly and calibration instructions, 
what to do in case of difficulty, sketches, parts list, 
schematic, and even how to build an optional RF test probe!
And there were added references to articles and books which 
dealt with the subject at hand, so the builder could add 
further to his knowledge.

Soon there was clamor from our customers to add more pictures 
and we added photo-print pages. They helped a little, but it 
wasn't long before we did better than that,  as Cliff drew 
detailed Pictorials. Those have developed into a real art 
form over the years. His first helper was Lloyd Cookson and 
later a cute little spitfire, called Colleen, did a fine job. 
She later became his daughter-in-law by marrying Jack Edwards, 
head of the machine shop at the time.

The early text was typed and mimeographed, but then Howard got
together with "Pat" Patterson across the street,  who had 
started a printing business; There gals typed and retyped to
justify the text on IBM typewriters. The galley proofs were 
checked before offset printing. Manuals looked better and 
better.

Howard wrote the first instructions.  I did the next several 
ones, for they were my kits.  As our engineering staff grew,
the authorship expanded too. That went fine, until some good 
engineers didn't write too well,  or didn't feel the need for 
meticulous accuracy and thoroughness.  Customer feedback led 
us to correct and revise at reprint time. Soon we felt that 
even our first edition should be near-perfect, both in the 
manual and in the kit of parts.  That  led to the Proofbuild 
approach.

When a kit was designed and a prototype built, the manual 
was written in  longhand by the engineer. Then the galley 
proofs were used with a set of parts to have another model 
built by someone else,  who had to report on all the errors 
or improvable matters in the model  and the manual. Thus 
corrections were made before the first production run, and 
criticism of obvious errors from the field were significantly 
reduced.

Well, if one proofer found most, but not all errors, a few 
more proofers would find most of the rest. As each proofbuild 
became the property of the builder (as a reward for his 
efforts),  there were many who volunteered their spare time 
for that. And the proof program grew. The SS-1  Speaker 
Systems made for proofbuild formed a fair-sized wall of 
some 25 cabinets,  finished in many different ways! Gene 
Fiebich found that Esquire shoe polish did a fine job for 
him.

The steadily growing volume of projects led to the creation 
of a new department for Manual development. Bruce Capes headed 
that venture,  shortly before we moved from Benton Harbor to 
St.Joseph. It called for Authors to apply a standard format. 
That way the impression of various Heathkit manuals was quite 
uniform. In time it led to a number of Standard paragraphs, 
pages, and a multitude of stock sketches and details.

In the beginning I debated at length with Bruce about the goal 
of the manual effort.  He felt they should be "Uniform".  
I maintained that it would lead to customers not reading the 
text, and thus not following it. In my opinion each kit should 
be a unique and new experience, even for the repeat customer. 
Bruce finally did agree that the manuals should be "Uniformly 
Useful". In any case there was a great challenge for the 
department to make the new manuals better and better, without 
increasing the cost of their development and production any 
more than absolutely necessary.  In that the department 
certainly succeeded.

For a while the Proofbuild idea caused a problem. Errors 
found before the prooofbuild started would be shrugged off 
with: "We'll fix that after proof".  It got so bad for a 
while,  that we went to an additional step of Pre-proof. 
Finally someone lowered the boom and we went back to a single 
proof cycle. Funny, but the current practice again uses a 
2-step approach of pre-proof and proof,  and even adds a 
third step, called Line Proof. Preproof is done by the 
engineer, the chief and the Product Line Manager. The Proof 
is widespread, with units assigned to various departments to 
make them aware of the new kit, as well as a few interested 
volunteers who willingly aid the product development. The 
Line Proof is the building of 2 chosen at random from the 
first 10 on the kit line. If those are "clean",  
production can proceed.

The history of the manual department spans the development of 
the Xerox process.  Around  1960,  after we had moved to the 
St.Joseph plant, the manual department had a wall covered with 
Xerox equipment.  Harold Hansen readied a cassette with a static 
charge, inserted the original and the blank paper,  added carbon 
granules and shook it like a teeter-totter,  and there was a copy!
It was a slow process, but faster than photo-copying or retyping.

Bruce Capes also saw to it that with the move into the n~w plant 
we got our own camera and darkroom facility. For years Harold Hansen
headed that function, reducing the artwork from the oversized 
originals to the final size.  The pasted-up pages were also 
often reduced to final  form negatives.

For a few years we also made "Daystrom Kits",  to be sold 
through stores at higher prices. And for those we developed 
fancy manuals with 2-color printing.  They did  look more 
impressive,  but I don1t think the customer found  
it worth the extra cost.

	Bjorn Heyning	7 Jun 86


HEATH STORIES #8

From "the Model Builder" - 1973

THE HEATHKIT STORY

The history of the Heath Company has almost made a complete 
circle. It started with full scale aviation and is now producing 
radio control systems for model aircraft.  Here's the story 
of what happened in between.

The name Heathkit should be well known to every R/C hobbyist.
Heath Company is the world's largest manufacturer of kit-form
R/C equipment, and of electronic kits in general. In addition 
to its line of radio control electronics, there are Heathkit 
color television sets, service instruments, stereo components, 
automotive tune-up instruments, even garage door openers and 
electronic organs. All in all, more than 350 kits of all kinds 
fill the 1973 Heathkit  Catalog.

What the R/C enthusiast may not know however, is that Heath 
Company's involvement with flying and flyers goes back to the 
beginnings of aviation as a popular sport. As a matter of fact, 
Edward Bayard Heath was a pioneer in a time when young men, 
all across America,  followed the exploits of Eddie Rickenbaker 
the way today's kids chase after the latest rock band.  Young 
Ed Heath grew up with aviation in the early 1900's.  And by 
1918 he had opened the Heath Aeroplane Company in Chicago.

The first years were devoted to buying and refitting surplus 
World War I planes for resale,  but Ed Heath dreamed of 
producing a simple,  low-cost personal aircraft that virtually 
anyone could fly.  In  1926, the company introduced the 
Heath Parasol,  a stable, high-wing single-seat monoplane 
powered by a modified Henderson 4-cylinder motorcycle engine. 
But looking back, perhaps the most prophetic aspect of this 
early product was Heath's plan to make the Parasol available 
to the greatest number of people possible. He offered  the 
aircraft  in  various stages of completion ...  For $99 you 
received a set of full-size plans.  Several hundred dollars 
more purchased an uncovered frame and wings. A finished plane,
less engine, was $699.  Ready-to-fly,  a new Parasol cost $999.

But Ed Heath did not have the market to himself. Other small, 
low-cost planes like the Curtiss,  Buhl "Pup",  Church 
"Midwing" and others competed for their place in the sky. 
Then in the early 30's,  low-wing all-metal designs were seen 
on the horizon. Furthermore,  new government regulations were 
making it harder to produce kit-form aircraft at any substantial  
savings. So Heath began work on a midwing aircraft, the Heath 
Baby Bullet, which quickly made its mark in racing circles. 
In  1931, during a test flight of another new design, Ed Heath 
was killed. After the loss of this visionary leader,  the 
company moved from Chicago to Niles,  Michigan, where it quietly 
went bankrupt in  1935.

Another ambitious young aviator took over leadership of Heath 
Company during the late 1930's. For $300,  Howard Anthony 
purchased the floundering operation and moved what was left of 
it 20 miles to the eastern shores of Lake Michigan at Benton 
Harbor, Michigan. Anthony began producing a line of accessories 
for small planes. At first there were tailwheels, windshields, 
skis and inspection covers. Then, as airport traffic increased,  
Anthony had a compact radio receiver designed to his 
specifications. The resulting Heath MA-4 saw wide use because 
of its initial low cost and simple installation procedure.

The Second World War saw Heath busily engaged in manufacturing 
floats and windshields for light observation planes, air 
filters, direction finding loop antennas for Civil Air Patrol 
and War Training Service, as well as skids for CG-4A Cargo 
Gliders.  But with the end of the war,  Heath Company shrank 
from more than  125 employees to less than 10.

With borrowed money,  Howard Anthony bought surplus materials. 
First, aircraft parts, which included some aircraft radio 
equipment,  and then electronic parts of all kinds. Soon he 
had several warehouses full and marketing the useful parts 
in often ingenious ways restored the company's economic 
health. These immediate post-war years saw the company shift 
its emphasis from aviation to  electronics.

The experience of building some electronic test instruments 
during and after the war, both to satisfy his personal 
curiosity and for profit,  boosted Mr. Anthony's insight. 
With all  the surplus parts on hand, he saw a good chance to 
package an oscilloscope kit.  Thus,  a small adverisement in 
a popular magazine in the summer of 1947 offered a 5-inch 
oscilloscope in kit form for $39.50.  This 0-1  was the first 
Heathkit.  The initial  success encouraged rapid development 
of two additional basic test instruments: the V-1  Vacuum Tube 
Voltmeter and the G-1 Signal Generator. These, too, were well
received, and a steady development of kits followed. When 
suitable surplus parts ran out,  new parts replaced them,  
and soon the kits consisted of all  new materials, bought 
especially for the purpose.

Heath Company was in the kit business to stay.  And as the 
product line expanded,  so did the company's expertise at 
showing people how to build kits. Spartan,  three-page 
instructions,  giving  a schematic diagram,  parts list and 
assembly and testing information, gradually developed into 
today's Heathkit Assembly '~anual, recognized around the world 
as the most comprehensive and luoid set of kit instructions 
ever devised.  Prepared especially for every Heathkit product,
the Assembly Manual breaks down complex building procedures 
into steps so simple even a beginner can assemble an exotic 
piece of electronic hardware. With larger kits,  computer 
designed flow charts are included to permit the owner to 
perform advanced maintenance and troubleshooting operations.

It was not until late 1966,  15 years after Howard Anthony's 
death (strangely enough also caused by an airplane crash), 
that Heath Company again became involved in aviation. This 
time it was on the R/C modeling level under the leadership 
of Bill Hannah, a Product Line Manager and active R/C modeler 
who felt that people interested in building a flying model 
might just welcome the opportunity to build the electronics 
necessary to fly it. So Hannah, who at the time was restoring 
his personal Heath Parasol in his spare time, began  
formulating a plan to offer a hign quality RIC system at a 
substantial kit-form savings.

After researching the market, he went to Kraft Systems with 
the proposal that Heath and Kraft collaborate on producing 
an R/C System in kit form. What followed was the Heathkit 
GD-47 System, complete with dual-stick 5-channel transmitter, 
receiver, battery pack and servos, and selling for $219.95, 
some $200 less than the assembled units would cost.

On the basis of this amazing first success, Heath began 
assigning and recruiting engineering talent for its 
fledgling R/C group.

By the summer of  1969, the GD-47 was replaced by the famous 
Heathkit GD-19 System,  still one of the most popular pieces 
of R/C equipment on the market. Kraft plastic parts were 
retained, but the solid-state transmitter circuitry,  a new 
smaller receiver,  new servo electronics and battery packs 
were the products of Heath's growing R/C engineering section.  
In the spring of  1970 came the Heathkit Spectre R/C car  and 
the GD-47 3-channel  rig.  In 1972,  the GD-405 8-channel  
system was added.

Today, the Heathkit line of R/C electronics includes single 
and dual-stick 8-channel  systems, standard, miniature and 
sub-miniature servos,  plus popular accessory items such as 
the Heathkit Thumb Tach and Servo Simulator. For the soaring 
pilot, the company recently introduced a new 3-channel system 
that can be converted to 4-channel with a simple modification 
kit. And the ideas are still  coming.

Heath is a mail-order business, but a sister company operates 
retail  Heathkit Electronic Centers in almost every major U.S.
metropolitan area.  Each of these Centers stocks a complete 
line of Heathkit R/C equipment and has at  least one full-time 
technician who is schooled in R/C electronics.

Bill Hannah,  now Product Planning Manager  for all  Heathkit
products, still is an active participant in the R/C hobby and 
uses the new Heath R/C flying field located on land directly 
across the road from the 380,000 sq.  ft.  headquarters and 
plant  facility in  St.  Joseph,  Michigan.

"Because of Heath's position as the world's largest manufacturer 
of all kinds of electronic kits it can give the R/C hobbyist 
certain advantages in terms of quality and service that very 
few in this industry can match," Hannah points out.  "The fact 
that Heath also is the largest producer of kit-form R/C gear,  
I would think, indicates that the modeling fraternity 
recognizes those advantages."

Claude Meyer, the present Product Line Manager for R/C,  
stresses the company's total involvement with the customer 
as a reason for continued success. "Heath has grown at a 
fantastic rate,  but some things have not changed since the 
Howard Anthony days," Meyer says. "Our present customers are 
still the prime movers in our R&D efforts.  Every Heath 
Company engineer and technician working in R/C has a real 
commitment to the sport. We make a point of getting to every 
R/C show and event possible in order to stay in personal touch 
with the guys who are flying the equipment. We want our 
customers to feel totally comfortable with us,  and not the 
least bit reluctant to call or write with questions and 
suggestions.

Illustrations in the article included:

Ed Heath flying a Super  Parasol "hands-off"

Heathkit  Electronic Center  interior

Heath MA-4 aircraft receiver installed in plane

Stacker section of Heath warehouse

Heath R/C field with engineers Gaishin,  Covert and Grover

Hannah kneeling by model  in a field

Test bench check with Meyer,  Brahman and Covert

	copied by Bjorn  Heyning	11  Jun  86


HEATH STORIES #9

We started the kit business as a Mail Order operation. In those 
days the mail was much faster than in later years. The orders 
came swiftly (with cash enclosed!) and we shipped promptly.  
Our customers were happy about how fast they got the kits. 
When they had questions, they wrote to us and we had to reply 
clearly and fast. At first Howard did that. Then it was up to 
the engineers to give the answers. Fortunately only the 
technical problems, and with Lois Rudduck's help it just needed 
a few remarks in the margin of the customer's letter to prompt 
Lois to compose a fine letter in reply.  Then the engineer 
signed it.

As the business grew,  there wasn't enough time for the 
engineers to handle all the simple problems,  so we got a 
Tech.Correspondent to do a full-time job on that. That job grew 
and one of the early ones was Gene Fiebich.  He soon headed the 
group.  Later,  as he was promoted to head Engineering, Gerry 
Krepp led the team for many years. They were a vital link 
between Heath and the many thousands of customers. They 
reflected the helpful attitude of the company and our respect 
for the customer, which brought steady growth. The vital 
observations from the field were relayed to the designers 
and led to better products.

That Tech Correspondence group was not only hard-working, but 
also had a lot of fun in life after hours. George McCotter, 
who broke records of the number of letters per week, lived out 
in the country with a friend and a dog.  He threw a party there 
with a lot of Heath people in attendance. Someone, maybe Frank 
Brumbaugh, found that the dog liked beer, and shared many a 
drink with the dog. Next morning the dog, after falling off 
the porch, was so hung over that he was a pitiful sight, 
holding his paws over his aching head.

A summertime party was at the home of another Tech Corr.  down 
on Lions Park Drive. Many of us went across the street for a 
swim in Lake Michigan.  It was the first time most of us saw 
the secretaries in bathing suits and without their makeup.  
Another fond,  but by now hazy,  recollection of a fine party.

And,  speaking of parties,  there was a Christmas season 
party at the Fuller home in Watervliet. Our musical genius in 
the Marketing section,  Lee Sneden,  was talked into downing a 
small  Martini in a single gulp in a side room. Others didn't 
believe it and so he had to do it again.  Someone claimed he 
couldn't repeat that, so after a couple more he passed out! 
But he survived it without lasting after effects.

There were also the company-sponsored parties. The Christmas 
parties were often held on our premises and started officially 
at noon on the 24th. Not much work was done after lOam ... The 
Purchasing group usually opened the bar before 11am. We had 
a fine noon meal  and then a gift exchange.

One year, when we ate in the Flying Saucer Lounge, where we 
used to have our coffee breaks, there were speeches by several 
of the chiefs. Bill Gard, our Purch. Agent, gave a spirited 
talk, for he had been repeatedly at the bar. When he sat down, 
he missed the bench and landed on the floor!  But he didn't 
hurt himself.

Another year, when the group was larger and the plant had 
expanded to include the lot next door, there was room for 
many long tables in the machine shop area. That is where 
the meal was served. We had rigged wires up near the ceiling, 
with dial pulleys on the wire and mistletoe fastened to them. 
Then we swatted a pulley, and if it stopped over the head 
of a pretty girl, we'd point it out to her and made use 
of the chance!

That lot next door had a number of tales too. It had been 
the home of Bertha Russell, the Madam of the local House of 
Ill Repute. Howard always claimed she was the best neighbor 
he could have, for she kept an eye on Heath day and night. 
One time Neal Turner, who was part-time with Heath then, 
worked late and found he didn't have his key.  So he opened 
a side window and climbed out, closing the window behind him. 
When he turned, he saw a couple of growling dogs, and Bertha 
on her porch, with a frying pan in her hand. He had some 
explaining to do before she let Neal get away.

After Bertha finally was "caught with the goods" by State 
police, because the local officials were unaware of the raid, 
the place was for sale.  Howard bought it to expand the plant. 
The day before the house was razed, he had Ralph Lhotka conduct 
guided tours through the place, and the office staff was among 
the most interested group.  One wag later told that Howard 
sent a splinter of wood from the wrecked place to most of the 
City officials, with a note:  "This is the  last piece you'll  
get  from Bertha's"!

Related to "the place next door" is the story of some visitors, 
who were shown through the plant and all  the warehouses.  
After they were back in Howard's office,  they asked gingerly 
to see Heath's TV development section, even though that logically 
would be kept secret in those early days of TV. Howard denied 
having such a lab, but they pointed out that the house next 
door,  sporting a fine TV antenna, was obviously where it was 
at. Howard smiled and said:  "You may go there at your own 
risk.  But that is the local Whorehouse!" In those days TV 
antennas were rare, but Bertha did a thriving business 
and could afford it.

Rumors have it that after she had served her sentence, she 
got a job as salad maker at Schujer's restaurant on Red 
Arrow,  just north of Glenlord road. A few years later she 
passed away. She also had a fine daughter, who went to 
college and drove a yellow convertible,  but she was not 
connected with the business at all.

	Bjorn Heyning	27 Aug 86


HEATH STORIES #10

From the Daily Press, St.Marys, PA, Thursday 29 January 1976 
AVIATION PIONEER


Albert B.  Meyer, son of Henry and Agnes Meyer, was born in 
May, 1901 on the Meyer farm on Rosely Road. He attended 
township schools and worked at Speer's and the P.S.& N.  
Railroad.  Those who knew Albert will vouch for the long 
hours of hard work he put into his farm training.  As Al 
used to put it "I started working when I was six - living o
n the farm meant chores for everyone and I didn't want to be 
left out".  He milked his share of cows before he started 
his career.

Al was 13 when he saw his first airplane, a 1911 Curtis 
Pusher, which performed every afternoon at the Elk County 
fair. There the pilot,  Albert said, flew the plane for 
about ten minutes each day and for this he was paid $100.

It was not the money that fired the youthful imagination of 
Albert.  It was the early plane itself that planted the seed 
of flying  in the farm boy's mind.  Always burning with the 
desire to fly,  it was not until  1918, with all the attendant 
publicity on airplanes in the first world war, that Albert 
was able to buy a certain book in our small home town.  He 
paid $2.50 for the book, that was supposed to contain all 
the information needed to build a successful glider. But at 
that time there had not been very many successful gliders 
built.

Albert said later that it was probably the best $2.50 he 
ever spent.  It started him on his career and taught him an 
important lesson:  "A fledgling pilot needs an instructor to 
fly a glider."

Albert spent six months of his spare time and a few of his 
father's dollars building the all-wing plane, using strips 
of wood from the barn and "old green window shades for the 
covering." The plane,  for it can be called that, was a 
wing-only aircraft,  no tail,  no fuselage.

To fly it, Albert stepped into a slot in the middle and 
picked up the structure with his hands and waited on the side 
of a hill for a good stiff breeze to come along. It came, 
and Albert, hanging on for dear  life,  went aloft.

The design of the glider called for the pilot to shift his 
weight from side to side or back and forth for control.  
The flight, needless to say, was of extremely short duration. 
Albert estimated it probably lasted all of three seconds 
and ended in a pile of splinters, fabric and a breathless 
pilot.

Undaunted,  Albert was next attracted to flying by an 
advertisement appearing in an issue of Popular Mechanics magazine
about the old Heath Airplane Co. in Chicago, which conducted 
a flying school in conjunction with an aircraft parts 
manufacturing business.

He enrolled as a student, but upon his arrival he discovered 
the school had no planes. Remnants of an old Standard bi-plane 
lay in the corner of the school shop, waiting for parts to be 
made before it could be reassembled.

Albert went to work for the Heath Co.,  earning 25 cents an 
hour, making propellers. To keep body and soul nourished, he 
worked evenings as a dishwasher in a nearby restaurant, in 
exchange for meals. On occasion he would even sell his blood 
to add to his income.

The company finally completed the rebuilding of its one-and-only 
airplane and Albert began taking flying lessons, six months after 
his arrival in the Windy City. After three hours and fifteen 
minutes, his instructor told him he was ready to solo. But the 
company would not trust the plane in the hands of any of its 
students.

The instructor told him of a job in Florida, where the owner 
of a surplus Curtiss "Jenny" training plane needed a pilot 
for exhibition flying. The enthusiastic Albert hopped a train 
for Wauchula, located southeast of Tampa, Fla.

His enthusiasm dimmed a bit, when he arrived in the orange 
grove country to find the keystone of his new employment 
reduced to a pile of wreckage. For his troubles, the would-be 
employer gave the wrecked Jenny to Albert,  who promptly 
scrounged up enough parts at a nearby abandoned Army training 
field to rebuild the plane.

Albert made his first solo flight by taking the plane on its 
first test hop. Then he settled down to making a living in 
aviation.  His first day of hopping passengers earned him 
$120 and from that day on,  Albert made flying his career.

His hard earned plane came to an abrupt end six months later 
when,  flying to Chicago,  Albert ran out of altitude in the 
hills of Tennessee. Finally, making his way to the Windy City 
minus his airplane, Albert again went to work for Heath, this 
time as a flight instructor. Before long, he was second in 
cnmmand of the firm,  which by this time was making its  
famed  Heath aircraft.

By the mid-20's,  small airlines were cropping up all over 
the country and Albert went to work to one of them,  "Royal  
Airways", flying a Travelair monoplane from Madison, Wis, 
to Chicago. But early airlines being what they were,  and 
Albert's desfre for self improvement being what it was, 
he was forced from one employer to the next.

In  1927, the Federal government, under the auspices of the 
Department of Commerce,  formed an Aeronautics branch. One 
day,  and employee of the department, who called himself an 
inspector, approached Albert and told him he had to have a 
license to fly. Albert produced his license,  issued by 
the Federation Aeronautique Internationale and signed by 
Orville Wright. But this failed to impress the inspector, 
so Albert got his license, number 616.

In 1928 Albert opened his own airplane repair shop in the 
Chicago suburb of Maywood and business was good. But the 
following year his old friend Ed Heath told him that the 
government was looking for experienced personnel for the 
new Aeronautics branch.

Albert applied for the job and got it. And he had it until 
he retired. His early assignments were in Michigan and 
back here in Pennsylvania. He moved to the southwest in 
1937 and worked out of Dallas, Amarillo, Albuquerque, 
Little Rock, Midland and later in El Paso. With 47 years 
in aviation, Albert Meyer saw the industry come of age. Not 
only a pioneer pilot and builder of planes, he is also a 
pioneer in what is known today as the Federal Aviation Agency.

As the ruling authority in the construction and operation of 
aircraft, and in his work in flight testing, accident 
investigation, violation processing and personnel administration, 
Albert helped write the rules and regulations by which pilots 
fly and planes are built.

Albert B. Meyer died at the age of 70, at his home in 
Albuquerque,  N.M. in 1971. He is survived by his wife,  Martha 
Whitehead Meyer, a son, Albert G. Meyer, a daughter Martha 
Meyer Morris, and four grand-children.  Mr.  Meyer is also 
survived by two brothers,  Edward L.  Meyer of Center Street 
and Leo H.  Meyer of Winter Park,  Florida.

	copied by Bjorn Heyning	19 Jun 86


HEATH STORIES #11

In the late 1940's Howard Anthony had a sailboat, a sturdy 
2-masted, ketch-rigged double ender, called Betsy. One winter
he took it down the Mississippi river with his friend George 
Paxson and sailed it to Florida. He told us how they ran into 
some real rough weather across the Gulf. It had driven all the 
fishermen into port,  for they had warnings on the radio. Seems 
they only barely survived, and Howard boasted that even with 
only the small reefed staysail up, they made a speed of some 
7 knots!

Howard had it shipped back up to Michigan, and one spring I was 
invited to come along to sail it back from the yacht livery 
in Holland, MI to Benton Harbor. It was a fairly rough ride, 
and Howard went below decks for a while, where he got seasick! 
That summer he was too busy to sail it much, so it lay mostly 
idle.

That summer we had two students working temporarily at Heath, 
Bill Miller, a small, teenage-looking fellow with a voice of 
a giant, and George Zindler, also a young college student. 
One day i asked Howard if we might borrow the Betsy for a 
weekend sail to Holland and back. He felt that it would be 
OK if an experienced young sailer, like Bob Reagan, Dr. 
Reagan's son and member of the local Yacht Club, went along. 
We made a good foursome.

One Friday, right after work,  we headed to the Betsy and got 
things ready. By then we decided to have a bite to eat before 
we sailed. Thus it was well after seven before we cast off. 
It was quite windy out,  and I suggested to Bob that we put 
the jib up, or ready to hoist, before leaving the shelter of 
the piers. But Bob felt that was not sportsman-like. Once 
outside the harbor we headed into the wind,with me as the old 
man at the tiller. The others hoisted the main and staysail , 
and then started on the jib,  with George on the bowsprit.  
He got soaked to the waist with every dip into the waves. Got 
it all snapped on and started to hoist it,  but found it was 
upside down.  Took it off again in the darkening evening light, 
passed it to Bob, who handed it to Bill, with his arm around 
the main mast.  Then it went back and was again ready to hoist, 
but it was again upside down!  Both Bob and Bill had turned it 
over! We finally got it up, raised the mizzen, shut off the 
engine and  sailed.

Soon George heaved his cookies,  felt better,  but also very 
much embarrassed. Bob laughed at such a landrat, but a few 
minutes later he did the same thing! Then George felt real 
fine! Bob divided us into watches, and he and George hit the 
bunks in the forecastle.  Bill  looked at me and said the 
helmsman's job looked easy. So I let him have the tiller and 
told him to keep course on the North star. I sat in the 
companion way and soon we fell silent. When I roused a bit 
later,  we were right on course.  Bill held the tiller steady 
and I complimented him on it and got no response.  He was 
fast asleep!  I woke him and we finished our watch  in good
shape.

At sunrise we found the wind getting steadily stronger and 
decided not to go on to Holland, but settle for Saugatuck 
instead. Carefully we entered the Kalamazoo river between 
the piers and wound our way through the dunes to the Yacht 
Club dock.  Bob was familiar with the lay of the land, and 
we spent a fine day there. Bob knew several of the young 
people around the water front,  and in the evening we decided 
to take them for a little sail. Motored out to the lake and 
noted the compass course as we went between the piers.  After 
a good sail we returned on the opposite course, took the 
sails down and slowly approached. Bill had the spotlight on 
the foredeck and suddenly yelled!  We were headed right for 
the huge cement blocks alongside the pier!  We steered clear 
and felt our way in with the spotlight. It wasn't till  later 
that we learned that the compass had been calibrated with the 
gearshift lever out of the way, and with it in place there was 
a significant error in its reading.  That had made our approach 
to the light at such  an angle to the pier!

On Sunday we sailed back with the rail awash, but only as far 
as South Haven. Then the wind died,  and we motored the rest 
of the way. It sure was a memorable adventure for all  four 
of us. And especially for Bill and George, who had never been 
on a boat.

We had several fine sailings that summer. Once we had 8 aboard, 
with wives and girlfriends, and my young son too, for another 
trip to Saugatuck. And evening trips with even more aboard, 
with soft drinks and a bushel of muskmelons along. On one hot 
night we returned after 3am and found the State street bridge 
closed.  So we honked the horn and circled.  No response from 
the bridge tender. Did it once more, without results. Them 
little Bill got angry,  stood on the foredeck,  cupped his 
hands and shouted:  Open the G.D.bridge!  That made lights 
flash, bells ring, gates close and the bridge opened!  Yes, 
he had a BIG voice!

In September '48 my parents came for a visit,  after a  10 
year separation. Within a few days I invited them to cone for 
a sail on the Betsy,  with some other friends.  It was a fine 
day,  but there wasn't much wind,  so we motored up around  
Rocky Gap and drifted a bit.  Then my father suggested we go 
for a  swim.  We agreed,  and in seconds he was in the cabin,  
into his trunks,  back on deck and dove in! I was utterly proud 
of my 65 year old father!  My mother joined us too! Well, those 
Dutch and  Norwegians are a hardy race.  And they had been 
swimming regularly all summer long in fjords with often much 
cooler water.

In my opinion we had the best way to enjoy sailing. Practically 
full use of the Betsy, and none of the fixed expenses. All we 
had to pay for was the gas,  and it seems that for entering 
and leaving the harbors we used less than $5's worth of gas 
for all the sailing we did that summer.  Howard owned the 
boat,  paid  for the mooring fee,  the winter storage and the 
outfitting in the spring. It clearly shows how he felt about 
his employees, as he let us use and enjoy his Betsy with nary 
a question.

	Bjorn Heyning	16  July  86


HEATH STORIES #12

From around 1960 to 1979 Heath was a part of Schlumberger Ltd. 
and thus there is a relationship which may justify the following:

     FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST LOG
     Address by Jean Riboud,  President of Schlumberger

I have always loved  fiftieth anniversaries.  It is because 
one of my happiest childhood memories was the golden wedding 
celebration of my grandparents. It  was a great occasion, in 
an old  family house in Beaujolais.  All the women wore long 
black gowns,  with gros-grain neckbands edged  with rhinestones,
and  they looked  so old. There were flowers,  and lots of cake.
It is because I have always  admired  Claudel's verse:

     This moment between spring and summer.
     Between tonight and tomorrow the one moment left.

Now that we have reached the mid-point, the high noon of the 
Schlumberger century,  allow me to think aloud for a few 
moments, to reflect on  what Schl umberger' 5 spring has been,  
and  what  its summer will be.

Many inventions have one thing in common:  they are essentially 
unexpected - if I may say so,  incongruous.  The  invention of 
the electric log  was no exception. We use the  English  word 
"log" because it is not as ugly as the French word used 
originally, which was "carottage".  Only the  Soviet Union,  
traditional  and conservative,  continues to use carottage.
The Schlumberger brothers were apparently more talented  in 
physics than  in linguistics.

What a challenge!  Two French engineers who had never  seen an 
oil well, in a country which had not drilled as many as ten 
oil wells,  made a discovery that was to become one of the 
most important contributions to the  fascinating  adventure 
of exploring  for oil. And  yet their discovery was almost  
fortuitous:  they  were not looking  for  it,  since they 
were basically engaged  in measuring resistivity to define  
the  structure of the  earth's  subsurface.

I never met Conrad Schlumberger,  but I was hired by Marcel 
Schlumberger.  This was more than twenty-five years ago,  
in  a restaurant adjoining the church of Sainte  Clotilde  
where he had asked me to lunch. He said: "I would  like you 
to join  Schlumberger". I hesitantly asked, "To do what?". 
He replied, "I haven't the  slightest  idea".

Perhaps I learned more from him than from any other man. But 
if I had to get down to the essential and unique lesson, I 
would say that the most important thing I learned   from  
Marcel Schlumberger was to have an  independent mind - to 
think  for one's  self,  to analyze by one's self,  not to  
follow fashions,  not  to think like everyone else,  not to  
seek honor or decorations,  not to become part of the 
establishment,  to preserve one's independence at all cost, 
one's  freedom of thought - that is the most important thing 
I  learned.

The second generation of the Schiumberger family succeeded 
the inventors. I worked a good deal with Henri Doll and Rene 
Seydoux, with Jean de Menil and even more with Pierre 
Schlumberger. I am glad he is here today and I would like to 
greet him. Often without anyone knowing it, through his discreet,  
I might almost say diffident style, his contribution has been 
essential.  It is he who was the first to grasp that this 
enterprise could grow only if it ceased to be a family firm, 
and became a public company. The whole second generation, 
whatever difficulties there may have been, has never questioned 
this decision. It was also he who wanted Schlumberger to become 
truly the crucible in which to blend the best of Europe and the 
best of America. This has been such a success that for 
twenty-five years, many have told me in France,  "Schlumberger 
is very good,  but it's too American",  and as many have told me 
in America, "Schlumberger is great,  but it's too French". That 
suits us.

The Schlumberger family has played a key role in the history 
of these fifty years.  But to insure success,  other factors 
were essential.

First,  it required science. Faithful to our origins, despite 
the great depression and the war,  research has never ceased 
to play an ever increasing role in our techniques. I am happy 
that Henri Doll is here to represent all the physicists,  
mathematicians, electronic and mechanical engineers who, in 
growing numbers, work in our  laboratories.  Like him,  they 
are not always easy.  For instance,  it's difficult to get 
them to change their minds. With Henri Doll, how could 
you - when he was able to crush you with technical  arguments 
for eight whole hours without letting you get in a word?  
But what conviction,  what faith in the future,  what delight 
in creation - this triumphant joy of which Bergson has written 
so admirably!

It required field engineers,  the backbone of Schlumberger 
service. I'm glad that Bill  Gillingham represents them here. 
He has had all  the important jobs at Schlumberger that an 
engineer could dream of having, but his heart will always 
belong to his years as a field engineer and as a field manager.  
Passion for service work,  a conviction that the customer is 
always right and  always comes first, the incredible ability 
to work day and  night, and  in addition,  being very careful 
about pennies - his own as well  as the company's.

Of course,  it required clients, many of whom are with us 
today, and who alone are responsible for the growth of 
Schiumberger.  To be sure,  they can be demanding,  but 
their demands are  indeed our greatest motivation. I hope I 
never see the day when  I, myself or any man  in 
Schlumberger - could remain sitting knowing that a customer 
is unhappy with our  service.

The Schlumberger family, the scientists, the  field engineers, 
the customers - all these alone would not have sufficed. We 
needed one final  factor,  and  its name is  luck.  It's true,
we've had  luck. The votaries of that very important Roman 
deity,  Fortune, must have been present at the birth of the 
first electric log,  fifty years ago,  for the three operators 
who were at  Pechelbronn,  in Alsace, on September 5,  1927 
to run the first  log,  are with us today, fifty years later, 
in defiance of every law of statistics  and  geriatrics.

These fifty years have not been without their problems and 
crises, but spring is always a difficult season. What will be 
the summer of Schlumberger?

On the technical side, we are engaged in a revolution as 
momentous as the one that Heni  Doll directed immediately 
after the war: that of the continuous recording, of the steel 
cable with six, then seven conductors, of the modern 
sophisticated resistivity measurements, first the microlog 
followed by the induction log.

Today,  we have in the field 50 units completely computerized, 
that is mobile laboratory trucks or offshore units,  the 
nerve center of which is a computer with a capacity of 32,000 
"words". The commercial success of this new unit,  its 
considerably increased capacity to record,  to transmit,  to 
compute data,  its potential to make our measurements more 
accurate,  finally the probability that this technical 
breakthrough will enable us to develop sensors and therefore 
to measure new parameters of physics - all these constitute 
not progress, but revolution. Within five years, we will have 
replaced all our existing logging units with these new units,  
some  1,200 units representing an investment of more than 
600 million dollars.

The future of the technique depends on the men who will serve 
it. But I, myself, am stunned and sometimes even worried by 
the magnitude of the figures we are dealing with. This year, 
solely for the field engineers who do the "logging services" 
- that is, without taking into account the research and 
development engineers, the manufacturing engineers, all 
engineers hired for the activities of Schlumberger in other 
oilfield services or in electronics - we have recruited 420 
engineers in the United States alone, that is more than 1% of 
all the engineers graduating this year from all American 
universities and colleges.  In Europe, this year, we have 
recruited  340 field engineers for logging services.

Some months back,  I visited a Schlumberger center on a little 
island south of the  Persian Gulf.  It was  11O'F in the 
shade,  and besides a few oilmen,  the only inhabitants were 
the fishermen of a small village.  I spent the day with eight 
young engineers whose leader was only twenty-nine. I have 
never met a group of men more ardent, humorous,  enthusiastic,  
and more convinced that they work for the best company that 
exists in the world. May the oldtimers, many of them here, 
believe me: these young engineers have lost nothing of their 
enthusiasm, of what  Americans call  "l'esprit de corps".

Should  I apologize for having spoken with warmth of 
Schlumberger? Since 1951 the idea has never entered my mind 
that I could work anywhere else. No siren has been able to lure 
me from this rock.  I believe this company more lifegiving 
and more charged with promise than it ever has been.

     Clamart,  France,  September 30,  1977
        (translated  from the French)
     copied by Bjorn Heyning	18 Aug 86


HEATH STORIES #13

The  following was presented to the Store Tech Seminars 
on 24 June and 8 July 1974.

     ELECTRONIC HISTORY

Howard Anthony of Dowagiac,  MI was interested in many things. 
Among those were Flying and  Radio.

During the depression he built radio receivers in his parents 
garage and  sold them  for profit. He quickly learned to  
respect and appreciate test equipment  for the help it could 
provide.  And he  found  they were costly tools. After  1935,  
even though his main effort was devoted to his newly-acquired 
Heath Company,  his interest  in  radio never left him.

Before the second World War he learned that even private 
pilots needed  a radio receiver  for  flying  into larger 

airports. Comm ercial equipment proved to be expensive,  so 
he called on his friends at  Meissner, Mt. Carmel , IL and 
commissioned them to design a radio to his specifications.  
It embodied novel  features: self-contained batteries,  
shock-mounted  sub-chassis,  fixed-tuned tower switch,  and 
a few months later prov~sions for loop antenna and  an  
external "A"  and  "B" battery  were  added.

During the war a transmitter,  designed in Dallas,  TX was 
produced at Heath.  It  was followed by other  transmitters 
and  receivers.

Just after the war, Heath produced a VTVM, designed by and 
made for Donald  St.  Clair.  Howard's love  for  instruments  
was clearly in evidence.  Even during the war Howard 
experimented  with bridges and  such new-fangled devices as 
oscilloscopes.

The post-war slump in private flying curtailed  company sales 
of aircraft  accessories.  Out of necessity Howard  learned  
to bid on war surplus equipment.  Among the cases of spark 
plugs  and other aircraft components he came across aircraft  
radio  equipment and spare parts. He  saw more  future  in 
his second main  interest: Radio. Soon he  was one of the  
largest dealers  in  Electronic  War Surplus.

His spare tine experimentation led hin  to development of a  
simple scope, made  from  surplus parts. Here  was his chance  
to carry out the  idea he had  proposed before the  war  to 
Hickok Instrument  Co. without success:  Radio  service  
instruments in  kit  form. There existed  pre-war  a line of 
Meissner radio kits,  some Allied  Radio beginner's radio 
kits,  Thordarson amplifier  kits and  Stancor transmitter 
kits. None  were really complete kits. So Howard offered the 
0-1  Oscilloscope - a complete set of parts and 3 sheets of  
instructions - all  for $39.5O in  August,  1947.  The 
response  was beyond his highest expectations!

Not only Engineers and Technicians turned to the Heathkit Scope, 
but Doctors, Lawyers, Preachers and other professionals placed 
their  orders.

The Scope was followed quickly by a VTVM,  Signal Generator, 
Capacitor Checker,  Signal Tracer and other handy and useful 
test instruments.  The kit concept wasn't without problems,  
however!

The first problem came with the VTVM.  Our earlier experience 
was based on calibration after assembly with accurate standards. 
This wasn't practical with kits.  So Howard made the 
breakthrough of measuring and marking the Ohms battery and 
using that as the kit calibration standard. For AC the customer 
was referred to the line voltage. Accurate?  No.  But accurate 
enough for most purposes and access to better standards would 
improve a customer's calibration  accuracy.

The second problem came shortly thereafter. The Signal 
Generator (actually a simple test oscillator) was a 5-band 
unit,  and standard frequencies below and above the broadcast 
band were hard to come by. Joe Miller designed the circuit and 
made the coils. He solved the problem neatly by making the 
coils so accurately, that only a single trimmer across the 
tuning capacitor to compensate for stray capacitance was needed. 
That adjustment was easily made on the high end of the broadcast 
band, after slipping the dial pointer to read properly on the 
low end. Customers were surprised at the accuracy!

The kit design technique was maily recognizing what our 
customers faced and designing problems out of the way.  It 
was,  and always will  be,  hard to visualize our customer 
as someone who doesn't know all  that we know,  and doesn't 
have the tools,  instruments, lighting and other  facilities 
we take for granted.

Heeding the feedback from our friendly customers (and the 
angry ones too!)  led to development of manuals to provide the 
know-how. Use of nuts and bolts avoided need for riveting, so 
common in factory assembly.  Adjustment techniques of the type 
described enabled satisfactory calibration.

By  1950 the scope had a 2-step input attenuator with  
frequency compensation.  It was easy to adjust the one trimmer 
with a  square wave.  If the customer didn't have such a 
signal   we advised him to leave it unadjusted!  Neal Turner 
didn't  feel  satisfied with that solution, and by 1952 he 
had a scheme of using the internal sweep signal  for adjusting 
the two trimmers for the  3-step attenuator

In the years that followed many little break-throughs were 
made; some short-lived,  some of lasting value, but all 
contributing to the success of the "Heathkit  Idea".

And today we still rely heavily on the same sources as we did 
in the early days: not only Engineering ideas, but also from 
Factory and Field Service, our clever Customers and any 
department or individual who cares enough about Heathkits to 
share his ideas.

True, not all are practical or adaptable to present or future 
products, but remember that one idea may spark another, so 
that a ridiculous suggestion may trigger an important 
breakthrough!

Make sure no one blocks the vital feedback path to Engineering!

If the coverage of the intervening years (1952-1974) seems 
skimpy, it is not for lack of experience, but it is hard to 
pick highlights out of such a voluminous history. Suggest an 
area and we'll go from there


To sum up the History at Heath:

Young men such as Ed Heath at the beginning of this century 
and Howard Anthony during the depression provided the spark 
to bring new ideas into practice. Their endurance made the 
Company survive the hard times  it  faced.

Co-workers,  who shared their vision,  added their skills 
and talents and made the Company grow.

In the kit era especially,  the Customer plays an important 
role through feedback to correct and improve our products 
and services - reflecting the "Do-it-yourself" spirit  in 
a broader sense.

Howard shared his interest in radio with everyone he met, 
and because he liked our Customers,  they,  in turn,  
liked us.

"Radio" has grown  fantastically into "Electronics"  in  a 
mere quarter  century.  The know-how required to keep up with 
the growth is one requiring constant  learning.

From radio to TV, from tube to transistor  and  IC, from FET 
to MOS - LSI ...  Rip  VanWinkle wouldn't believe the great 
advances made in a couple of decades!

Our customers expect the best and  latest from Heath, and 
they look to your expertise to help them succeed. Your 
know-how of Past,  Present and Future is essential  for 
their  success.

That's why you're at this Seminar.  Make the most of the 
chance to learn.

	Bjorn Heyning	21  Aug 86


HEATH STORIES #14

GROWING PAINS

During the early period of Heathkit explosive growth the small 
company enjoyed many competitive advantages. With growth some 
of the advantages were left by the wayside.  Simplicity of 
operation was replaced by complexity. All in good business 
format, of course. This was particularly true after Howard 
Anthony's death in  1954, when ownership of the company was
acquired by outside corporate organizations. Change was 
inevitable. Many changes were for product refinement,  at the 
expense of increased cost. Other changes were in personnel and 
organization. The employee roster grew from less than 50 people 
in 1950 to over 1600 in 1986.

A Few of the Highlights

As a very small company, many formal operational procedures 
were dispensed with. For example, the machine shop made 
production metal part runs from engineer-developed templates. 
Dimensioned drawings and specifications for Production and 
Purchasing were non-existent. The company was moving ahead 
too swiftly to wait for specification development. Surprisingly, 
the error or rework level was low.

Another example, the fledgling purchasing group was expected 
to buy production material based upon a physical sample of a 
coil or transformer or whatever. It was usually a vendor 
sample, which, upon approval for kit-use by the engineer, 
became a standard. Of course problems developed in multiple 
sourcing and repeat ordering.  The standard was gone!

This growing need  led to the formation of a strong specification 
group under the very capable and experienced direction of Ray 
Freridge. Now vendor samples were subjected to approriate tests 
before approval  for production use. Components were defined 
by category,  part number,  and electrical and mechanical  
specifications. Then all  pertinent information was transferred 
to a dimensioned drawing.  Now accurate data could be reproduced  
in as many copies as required,  and Heath retained its standard.  
There is no question of the validity of this program, but, 
like so many others,  it did add cost to the product.

In the early days a formal  Quality Control  dept. was unheard 
of. Conscientious employees were also informal QC inspectors.  
Women kit packers noted  if a tube socket pin was missing, or 
a transformer wire was pulled out,  and made any number of 
visual  checks on parts.

Of course no electrical  inspections were possible. With the 
advent of the specification program, information on incoming 
production material was available,  but there was no one in 
the Receiving dept.  qualified to make tests.

Technical people were hired,  and this was the beginning of 
a Quality Control group. Over the years QC responsibility 
expanded from checking incoming material to many other phases 
of company operation. Here again, there was no question of 
the desirability or need for a QC group, but it did add cost 
to the product.

Similar refinements or expansions occurred in other areas with 
formation of services or functions not previously existent 
in a formal sense: Personnel, Marketing, Publications, Value 
Engineering, computerization of detailed operational data, 
and on and on. A full and detailed accounting of all of the 
operationai changes, thru growth, could fill a book.

Before leaving the subject of change, a rather controversial 
one is worth mentioning.  As the company and number of employees 
grew, so did the problems. One of these was inventory shrinkage 
or pilfering. The revelation of a particularly sobering 
system of stealing finished goods resulted in the installation 
of a Pinkerton Security Guard system. This led to a requirement 
for employees to enter and exit the plant at prescribed areas. 
Outgoing packages were subject to inspection, lunch boxes - brief 
cases etc.  No materials - sample or proofbuilt products or 
finished goods of any kind - could be taken out without a package 
pass issued by the employee's supervisor.  Again this system 
was based upon sound business practice, but the annual cost 
exceeded the known  value of the shrinkage.  Additionally 
there was a circumstance where a plant guard was involved in 
shrinkage!  Just illustrates that no  system  is perfect.

It should also be stressed that many very positive changes 
resulted  from sequential  ownership of Heath by large and 
remote corporate structures. Among these were the establishment 
of plant-wide pension plans,  fair and standard job 
classifications along with periodic employee performance 
reviews,  and a uniform vacation policy recognizing and 
rewarding longevity of service.

In addition,  employees were encouraged and financially assisted 
in continuing educational  programs. A formal  patent program 
which encouraged highly creative Heath people to disclose 
their ideas for the betterment of the company and  for their 
own personal achievement and recognition.  A form of 
profit-sharing which enabled employees to voluntarily contribute 
to a personal growth fund, with contributions from the company 
related to current business performance - another nice 
nest-egg for  retirees  in addition to pension and social  
security income.

These changes are not all-inclusive,  but do illustrate the 
benefit of corporate operating philosophy.  Changes and 
refinements over the years added continual  improvement. And, 
of course,  just as the pattern in our great society, not all 
changes can possibly meet with the full approval of all people.

Change related to growth was also evident in advertising and 
marketing practices. As a fledgling company Heath depended 
heavily on Direct-Mail advertising through seasonal flyers and 
an annual catalog. This was augmented by saturation advertising 
of 12 to 16 continuing advertising pages in two popular trade 
magazines.  In fact, many customers assumed that Heath owned 
the magazines.

It was logical that further exposure of Heath products in some 
National trade show be tried. This met with overwhelming 
success. The Heath exhibit area was constantly packed with 
eager Heathkit fans.  A typical example, in the early 50's, 
was a Heath display at the National Electronics Conference 
held at the old Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. My attendance 
at the show as a visitor was quickly changed,  as Cliff Edwards 
begged me to stay and help staff the display area. A casual 
afternoon visit was changed into a three day stay!  Cliff 
arranged for hotel room, tooth brush, extra shirts,  socks,  
underwear,  etc.

Another prime example:  Encouraged by the Chicago experience, 
plans were made to exhibit Heathkits at the prestigious 
International Annual  Institute of Radio Engineers, now IEEE, 
show in New York City. The results were unbelievable. A small  
10' exhibition booth was solidly jammed with interested 
visitors, overflowing into adjacent booths and solidly plugging 
the aisleway all day long! The loyalty of enthusiastic Heathkit 
fans was awesome and humbling.

This loyalty characteristic can best be illustrated by the 
following incident:  In the 60's Heath released State of the 
Art TV in kit form,  starting with BIW and progressing  into 
a series of Color TV's.  The acceptance of these products was 
so strong  that it was difficult to keep up with incoming 
orders.  At times an allocation system was used.  This activity 
finally drew the attention of Consumer  Reports magazine of 
Mt.Vernon,  NY.  The Heathkit Color TV was reviewed and results 
published. The review was grudgingly favorable,  but the product 
was downgraded on the basis of a debatable technical point in 
the IF circuitry.  My immediate reaction was to take the TV 
engineering team,  Don Rupley and Roger Brockway, to Mt.Nernon 
and meet with the technical  group responsible for the report. 
The TV sample was checked, design philosophy explained,  
viability of relative performance characteristics discussed - all 
to no avail.  After hours of discussion and repeated visits,  
their position remained unchanged.  However, Consumer Reports 
was totally unprepared for the avalanche of protesting letters 
from loyal Heathkit TV builders.  In fact, during a succeeding  
visit  I was told that they had never experienced such an 
outpouring demonstration of product  loyalty and  it was 
necessary for them to print a form letter response to the 
incoming mail!

	Gene Fiebich	9 Sept 86


HEATH STORIES #15

     Fond Memories of "The Good Old Days"

As a small, but growing company, many situations occurred 
which could not be part of a corporate structure. For example:

Howard Anthony personally opened all Monday morning mail,  
the busiest day of the week. He was amazed at the steady weekly 
increase of orders,  jumping from 500 to 1000 - to 1500!  He 
was so enthusiastic that one Monday morning he loudly exclaimed: 
"If we ever hit 2500 orders, I'll treat the whole plant to a 
steak dinner!" About three weeks later the target point was 
quickly passed! Without further ado Howard's secretary,  Lois 
Rudduck, immediately contacted Tosi's restaurant and made the 
arrangements. Tosi's was a small restaurant in those days and 
couldn't handle the entire group at once. The steak dinners 
were held on two consecutive Wednesday nights. Certain 
conniving employees managed to go to both of them.

Another example:   One fine spring Friday Howard took over 
the microphone of the plant-wide paging system and said: 
"This is too beautiful a day to work indoors. We will all 
leave for lunch and not come back until  Monday morning." 
This was with full pay, of course.

The company family picnics and Christmas parties were legend, 
never to be forgotten.

     Humorous "Hi Tech" Anecdotes

Working closely with a steadily growing group of highly creative 
people was bound to result in humorous releases of personal 
expressions,  diversions or tensions.  Some of them:

In the mid-So's an engineering program was  launched to develop 
a kit for an Analog Computer. Carl  Heald was the project  
leader. The design was a large desk type unit. It was based 
upon  vacuum tube usage and required several  pieces of 
peripheral  equipment. After many months of almost  frustrating 
work in this new field, Carl  finally had a prototype ready 
for demonstration to eager company officers.  The product was 
set up - basic operation explained and then the switch was turned 
on  for performance demonstration.  The immediate result was a 
steady series of rising smoke puffs. Excitedly Carl  shut things 
down and did  a  fast troubleshooting check.  He found nothing 
wrong and the test was resumed, with more smoke and  in greater  
volume. More checks - no problems - more smoke. Finally the 
problem was solved by uncontrolled laughter from an adjoining 
lab area.  Chalmer Jones had sabotaged the demonstration by 
running a length of vinyl tubing thru the wall into the back 
of the computer and them puffing cigarette smoke at appropriate 
intervals. No reprisals, because Chalmer  Jones was the son of 
T.R.Jones,  Chairman of the  Board of Daystrom,  Inc.,  Heath's  
owner at that time.

Another:   During development of an electronic depth sounder,  
it was essential to be able to conduct repeated water immersion 
tests. This was difficult,  for lakes were not readily 
convenient and were frozen in the winter.  So a 20 or 30' 
masonry horizontal tank was built in the basement of the old 
engineering building. After it was filled with water,  it 
served the intended purpose admirably, even tho the basement 
was a dark area. Soon strange "glitches" appeared  in the depth 
sounder readout. Worse,  they were variable, no set pattern. 
Equipment was checked and rechecked. No change. Finally the 
solution: Some unnamed wag had released a half dozen turtles 
into the tank. Of course they were the "glitches" as they 
slowly swam through the sounding beam.

One more: During the Daystrom regime it was decided to release 
a tape recorder transport deck thru the Heathkit Audio product 
line. The tape recorder was owned by a Daystrom subsidiary and 
was never a successful product. Under duress, Heath began working 
with the sister company, trying to improve the product by 
problem reduction. After two years of an almost fruitless 
working relationship, it was decided that the tape deck would 
be demonstrated for the benefit of a forthcoming Daystrom Board 
of Directors meeting at the Heath plant. The demonstration was 
to be held in the Lab area. The engineers involved in this 
effort were so frustrated by lack of progress,  and so 
disillusioned about the residual  problems and chances of 
success as a product,  that unknown to me they took matters 
into their own hands.  Came the big day,  the Directors were 
impressed by all of the "improvements",  the switch was turned 
on and the equipment activated.  The results were astounding!  
The two spinning 7" tape reels were projected about 4 feet 
skyward and fell,  still spinning,  and spewing tape all over 
the bench.  Thank goodness the Directors had an unanticipated 
sense of humor that saved the day for Heath engineering,  
namely Dave Lewis.

Much more could be written about the early days, the growth 
and the changes at Heath.  However one basic characteristic 
that deserves high tribute and recognition is the unquestionable 
loyalty and dedication of a fine group of employees who didn't 
act like employees. Each did his job in the spirit and attitude 
of owning the company. Working relationships were beautiful  a
nd productivity amazingly high, consistently so. As problems 
developed, as the result of mistakes,  the emphasis was on 
banding together and getting it resolved. Not on trying to 
identify or crucify the person or group responsible.

This high level of morale was the direct result of the 
practices and relationships of Howard and Helen Anthony.  
In those years, under  the Anthony's, Heath was  indeed a 
great family.  There were new additions,  romances,  weddings,  
births and deaths.  A period of fond memories for this writer,  
who was proud to be part of that era of Heath's amazing growth.

	Gene Fiebich	9 Sept B6


HEATH STORIES #16

One of the enjoyable activities at Heath were the Show Duties 
in far away places. The first one I recall was a show in Omaha,  
NE. Cliff Edwards, our adverising manager, had constructed a 
fold-up 8-foot exhibit. He loaded it, together with several 
hundred flyers, in a small trailer and towed it behind his 
Ford ragtop. I still remember Iowa with curbs along the 
narrow 2-lane roads!  The show in a hotel was well-attended 
on Saturday. On Sunday we packed up and stopped overnight in 
Des Moines. Bill Miller,  Cliff and I had dinner in a restaurant. 
They ordered drinks and I asked for a beer. Found they couldn't 
serve beer,  for it was Sunday. But they got their booze, because 
that was illegal all the time!

We three went to a Ham convention at French Lick, IN with a 
newer setup. A fabulous hotel, with black waiters shimmying 
in with dessert on their heads at the Saturday night banquet! 
We left at Sunday noon for the NEC show at the Edgewater Beach 
hotel in Chicago, which opened Monday morning. Got there after 
midnight and set up the booth before turning in.  By then we 
had a 10 foot booth, but only an 8 foot space!  It was the 
end space,  so Cliff turned it sideways,  and our Heathkit 
logo was visible from afar! Attendance was so good that Gene 
Fiebich, one of our company visitors the first day, was pressed 
into service and stayed till Thursday morning. After the show 
closed we looked all around and found only one of our flyers. 
It had slid behind another exhibit! All the others were carried 
off by show visitors as needed info.

It wasn't all hard work at the shows, although the standing 
for hours on end made me feel I could touch the floor without 
bending over. We were unusual exhibitors,  for we had our 
thousands of customers for kits, but we were also good customers 
of many of the other exhibitors!  They invited us to dinners 
at their expense in fancy places.  At the first NEC show I 
was guest of one of the big Tube manufacturers. When  I got 
back I joined Bill  and Gene in the big Ballroom,  where they 
had dined at company expense and watched the floorshow with 
Hildegarde. Gene even asked her to dance afterwards,  but 
she declined.  After the second  show Cliff also joined us, 
but when the waiter gave Gene the tab, he passed it to Bill, 
who did the same to Cliff, as head man of the delegation.  
Cliff paled and shouted:  Sixty-four dollars!!??  He paid  it, 
reluctantly, and all night the three of us would wake in turn 
and repeat that  and wake the others with our  laughter.

A later NEC was held at the Sherman Hotel in the Chicago Loop. 
The Grid Dipper was introduced there and  I found we had the 
right kit-form approach. Another company,  Millen  I think, 
also had such a kit, but they supplied the coils broken down 
to coil forms, wire and pins.  Our coils were wound,  adjusted 
and matched to the calibrated dial  scale. Our customers 
preferred our way, by far! Later we saw the other extreme in 
an amplifier, where the whole circuit board was pre-assembled, 
so construction was done  in minutes.  It was a good amplifier,
but didn't sell  as a kit,  for it left too little for the 
builder to do on a $200 project.

In the mid-50's we went to the IRE show in New York with a large 
staff. For safety we split into 2 groups, one flying United 
and the other TWA. The latter was delayed by bad weather, 
missed the connection at Dayton and arrived after midnight at 
the Commodore hotel. The Coliseum wasn't finished yet, so the 
show was held at the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx. The city 
was snowed in,  but we had the subways to get there easily. 
Al Retzlaff and I roomed together and the first thing we did 
was to buy overshoes. We had thousands of Reference booklets 
along, showing schematics and specs on all our kits. One 
customer from New Jersy came late on Wednesday, after skipping 
class,  just to get the booklet!  But we were out of them and 
had to take his name and send him a copy.

We also exhibited at the WESCON shows, which alternated between 
Los Angeles and San Francisco each year.  They were well-attended 
and we won more customers. In L.A. we found smog one year. 
Only a faint odor when we woke up on the 10th floor, but 
stronger as we went down in the elevator for breakfast. Going 
out the door to the cab it hit like a brick and made your eyes 
water. Luckily we had our booth in the basement of the Coliseum, 
where the air was bearable. After noon it cleared up. Most 
striking was the attitude of the western people. They were 
easy-going and most pleasant. Not only our customers, but 
even the cabdrivers! A real change from the East coast, where 
everyone seemed to gripe. And it also struck me that all 
women were either pretty or very old.

San Francisco was different,  with the bay,  the bridges and 
a more temperate climate. Our flight was overbooked,  so I 
arrived a few hours later than the rest. It was a long haul 
from our hotel on Union Square to the show at the Cow Palace. 
Cliff Edwards had rented a Ford, but we had to wait for slow 
bus service. We tried to rent a car, but found none available, 
till about the last day. Then Carl Heald found a Cadillac, but 
Bob Swander had to sign for it, for Carl was too young! We 
drove around in comfort, even went to Twin Peaks one night for 
a view of the city.  And as the show closed,  Carl offered 
Cliff a ride,  and Cliff thought we were kidding. But he sure 
was upset when he saw the Cadillac,  and kept us from putting 
it on the expense account as cab  fares!

There we also rode the cable cars and visited Chinatown and 
ate at Fisherman's Wharf.  One time we had  Matt  Cutter  as 
experienced guide,  for he had been there during the war.  At 
a stand close to Fisherman's Wharf he bought a big crab,  
which was cracked,  wrapped in paper and tied with string. We 
walked a block and then unwrapped and ate it - delicious!  
Here, too, our customers were kind and courteous, but not as 
laid-back as in Los Angeles. But in all our contacts with the 
kitbuilders our good relations were clearly evident. We strove 
to please them the best we knew how, and they,  in turn, gave 
us their best ideas freely,  In spite of all the advertising 
we did, with flyers and multi-page magazine speads and the many 
trade show exhibits, most of our sales were attributed to that 
most valuable word-of-mouth advertising from our satisfied  
customers.

	Bjorn Heyning	2 Sept 86



HEATH STORIES #17


     "Random Ramblings about the Old Heath Company."


In  1948 I was working for a Chicago electronics manufacturer, 
coordinating Military Contracts. At that time most of the 
postwar military contracts permitted the use of war surplus,  
provided certain conditions were met. And I had been told by 
some of my Chicago connections that "this guy Anthony" had 
quite a stock of surplus in Benton Harbor.

To make a long story short, I wound up with Ralph Lhotka going 
through some of the Heath warehouses to see exactly what was 
available and whether or not it would have any interest to my 
company. After a trip through several dingy buildings, Howard 
Anthony appeared on the scene, introduced himself and said, 
"I want to take you for lunch today and we are going to eat at 
a place that has the best chocolate pie in the world." First 
we took a short tour of the area, and as Howard was accustomed 
to do,  it turned into a sort of Cook's Tour of the Benton 
Harbor St.  Joe area.  I was really impressed with his 
enthusiasm about where he had located and the many advantages 
of the Twin Cities. Quite frankly, after having lived in Chicago 
for seven years, the advantages of a small town were very 
impressive to me.

I had to agree about the chocolate pie! It turned out to be 
Ma Brown's place out on Pipestone and we went back there many 
times in the following years to enjoy the food. During the  
luncheon, though,  I mentioned to Howard that  I had seen a 
stock of generators in his surplus that I knew were going to 
be needed by an army contract.  He said,  "Why don't you keep 
your eye on it?  Let me know who gets it and maybe  we can get  
ttogether."  That	ended the discussion.  I went back to Chicago,  
back to work and	forgot about it.

After several  months,  the contract we talked about was awarded 
to a New York manufacturer and,  remembering my conversation,
I called Howard, gave him the name of the company etc.,  and
he thanked me very much and that ended  that.

The next contact with Heath was a complete surprise,  because, 
without any forewarning,  I received a check from Heath Company. 
This struck me as kind of a strange operation. I called  Howard 
and he said, "I told you that if we could get together on this 
thing,  we would make a deal.  And we are going to get together.
I would  like you to get over here this weekend,  if you can. 
These people are coming in and I may need your help." After a 
discussion with my present boss about a conflict of interest, 
I decided to risk it, and made the trip to Benton Harbor and sat
down with Howard and the representatives from the successful 
bidder.

The haggling went on most of the day and I was rather bored 
with the whole thing. I had a lot of work to do in Chicago, 
and it seemed like a complete waste of time to me.  
Incidentally the amount of money involved was quite substantial, 
I had had no particular financial concern, thinking that what 
I had seen was my end of the deal. Typical of Howard's approach 
to the problem, I remember him saying later in the afternoon - 
as I remember this is exactly what he said: "Gentlemen, in 
15 minutes I have a date to meet my wife downtown for dinner - 
in  15 minutes the price of this item is going to go up 
by 20 %". He turned around and walked away from the meeting. 
The representatives from New York got on the telephone and made 
some very frenzied phone calls and Howard came back to the 
meeting - I was not in on that part of it - I don't know what 
happened,  for I went back to Chicago and forgot the  incident.

Another surprise! Shortly after that I received another check, 
with no explanation from Howard, which represented a commission 
on  the purchase of the stuff by the New York concern.  The 
commission check was considerably larger than it should have 
been, based on the traditional scale being paid on commission 
sales. This was rather impressive to me.  I discussed the 
matter with my boss in Chicago and decided I might have a 
better financial future in the surplus business than in what 
I was doing at that time.

So I resigned, and again to make a long story short, started 
about a one year operation working with a Chicago surplus 
concern, selling to and buying from Howard, and becoming more 
and more impressed with his operation.

In  May of  1949 we moved to Benton  Harbor. It  seemed that 
we had just barely gotten in ahead of the wire,  because Heath 
Company's business began to grow at an unbelieveable rate. 
I went back and looked through some of my old statistics and 
uncovered some pretty startling figures. For a four year period,
ending about 1955,  the company grew at the rate of 80 % per year.
Expansion at that rate created a lot of problems, not the least 
of which was that of space.  By  1954 we were running out of 
places to put people,  stock and,  frankly, money!

I had started out as sort of a coordinator of government 
contracts for Heath Company,  but  I wound up one morning being 
asked by Howard if I would like to take a chance and write a 
couple of manuals for him.  The work that  I was doing didn't 
take up all of my time. I said, "Sure, I'll be glad to." I 
wound up as a design engineer, which was certainly outside 
my educational background. But I took on the chore and really 
enjoyed it.

Finally, after three years of miscellaneous manual writing, 
design engineering, etc.,  Howard asked me if I would take on 
the design of the new color T.V. oscilloscope. This was early 
in 1954. Technically, this was a bit beyond me, but I worked 
with Bjorn and with the other engineers and with Howard and 
did pretty much what I was told.

I remember very vividly sitting in my lab one Friday morning 
in July of 1954, when Howard came in with his usual windy, 
brusk appearance and dropped on my bench a prototype of a 5" 
oscilloscope. He said, "Turner, there it is, it's all done, 
it's designed, it works. All you need to do is to put it on 
printed circuit boards." And he turned around and left.  He 
said,  "I am heading for Florida, I'm going to look at a new 
airplane and I'll see you when I get back." That was the last 
time I ever saw Howard.

After his tragic death, Mrs. Anthony ran the corporation until 
January 1955, when we were told by her that she had agreed to 
sell the company to Daystrom, Inc. A condition of the sale was 
that the company had to stay in Benton Harbor and the present 
key personnel had to stay with it. Without revealing any 
confidential data, I think it is interesting to note that the 
gross sales of the company, in the following three months, 
were more than enough to cover the cost of the company to 
Daystrom.


A second personality, who had great influence on me was Bob 
Erickson,  who negotiated the purchase of Heath by Daystrom.  
Bob, who  soon became known to us as "Rapid  Robert",  because 
of the way he spoke and the way he moved, was a very dynamic 
guy. He introduced a lot of new business techniques., which 
sort of took the biting edge off of the rapid expansion thing.  
One of Bob's  favorite comments was: "Remember, the average  
living room in the United States takes a 9 x  12 rug."  Another 
comment,  which bore directly on our problems:  "There are no 
inventory controls as effective as four tight walls."

Bob and his wife Sally seemed to fit in very well with the 
Heath Company group,  despite the fact that they were obviously 
from an Eastern establishment background, which, you would have 
thought, would have created some real problems in Benton Harbor.
But their personalities were such that, if that problem did exist,
we certainly weren't  aware  of  it.

The company continued its growth at a rate that would have been 
unbelieveable, had you not actually lived through it.  I remember 
that before Howard was killed, he stopped me one night, as  I w
as leaving the plant and said: "Turner,  if things continue the 
way they are, we are going to do five million dollars this year." 
Surely,  after Daystrom bought Heath Company,  we exceeded that 
number by an order  of magnitude.

One of the most rapidly growing segments of the business was 
the hi-fidelity product line.   At that time a conventional 
way to market Hi-Fi was by introducing products at so-called 
audio shows. The hi-fidelity manufacturers had gotten together 
into a trade association, to which they refused admission to 
Heath because we were "not manufacturers." Therefore we were 
not eligible to participate in these audio shows. But Bob Erickson 
was not going to be stopped by that technicality.

In February 1958 the hi-fidelity show was going to be held at 
the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and we were not permitted 
to exhibit. So Bob set up a deal at the Alexandria Hotel, 
directly across the street from the Ambassador, and we sent out 
our audio product line and personnel to the West Coast. To say 
that the Heath show was a success would be an under statement! 
The crowds at the Alexandria became so large that the fire 
department refused admission to a long line of persons waiting 
to get into the show. Finally we had to actually go back down 
the line of people and tell them that they were not going to be 
permitted to come in that night. This continued for about three 
days,  as I remember it. One of the crowning touches, that was 
typical of Bob Ericksons's approach: we put a little sign at 
the entrance to our show, saying: "Please do not miss the 
hi-fidelity show across the street  at the Ambassador."

This kind of marketing and this aggressive app-oach to problems 
were typical of Bob. They made an impression not only on Heath 
Company but also on potential buyers in the hi-fidelity and 
amateur radio fields. By  1959 Heath Company had at  least  
12 kits in the line that Sold over  10,000 units each. In  
December  1958 we reached our peak.  We handled 54,776 orders
in the month of December. In the 24 months ending in the fall 
of 1959 we averaged over 28,000  orders  per month.

In direct  violation of Bob's own requirement about the  four
tight walls, it became obvious that we had to get to a bigger 
manufacturing  facility. After a long, protracted  zoning  
fight,  and  some discussions with the business communities 
in Benton Harbor and St.  Joe,  (and with the post office 
people)  it was decided to move Heath Company's operations to 
St.  Joseph.  The new plant  Open House was held in August of 
1958, and at almost exactly the same time,  Bob Erickson 
tendered his resignation  from Daystrom.

I was  fortunate (or  unfortunate) enough to be with Bob at 
a meeting  at Murray Hill, at which Bob made the third of his 
most impressive comments which I remember so well. There had 
been a long,  heated discussion about how Heath Company had 
been handling its inventory of surplus cathode ray tubes,  
which still was quite large.  And the Chairman of the Board 
of the Corporation asked Bob:  "How could you possibly have 
made this calculation,  which we find now to be rather 
misleading?" Bob looked him straight in the eye  and  said  
very simply:  "I was wrong." That ended the argument and  
the discussion.

I don't know if this had anything to do with Bob's decision 
to resign or not, but he left us shortly after that to go to 
work for Beckman in California.

And that led me to the fourth of his comments, which I remember
so well. He called me from the airport in Chicago one day and 
said something about buying some Beckman stock. He finally said, 
"Turner, let me tell you something I never want you to forget. 
When  you change jobs,  never move any farther East than you 
are." Bob now has resigned from Beckman and he and Sally, as 
I understand it, have spent many, many months traveling and 
playing golf, which are their principal activities.

A few interesting little anecdotes are probably worthy of 
mention.  It was the custom at Christmas time for the employees 
to leave the neckties off on the last day of work before the 
Christmas holiday. If you forgot, you were apt to have your 
necktie sliced off neatly by some of the more active engineers 
and others. On one such day,  Erickson and I were walking across 
Territorial to the plant, where the lunch was going to be held. 
I had forgotten about the fact that this was Christmas Eve. 
As we walked into the building,  Carl Heald sneaked up behind 
me and with a large pair of tin snips removed the bottom 70% 
of my necktie.  This was Erickson's first experience with this 
type of thing.  He was quite shocked,  and I was a little bit 
put out, because the tie was a gift from my son.

The first Christmas in the new plant,  I decided that it was 
time to even the odds a bit.  I made arrangements with Gene 
Fiebich to have Carl come to his office while I was there.  
Watching carefully, I waited until Carl left his lab, went 
in and got his necktie from his coatrack (because he had 
remembered the tradition).  I put it on, went in and sat down 
by Gene at the conference table in his room.  As Carl came in, 
he took one look at me,  turned around,  went out  and  said,  
"I'll  be back in a minute." He came back behind me,  reached 
down and nipped off the tie.  And as he did so, he said, 
"That's funny, I've got a tie just like that one at home." 
Well,  I guess that settled  the score.

In conclusion,  my 25 years at Heath were certainly most 
interesting and entertaining.  They exposed me to two men,  
Howard Anthony and Bob Erickson, who not only were good  
friends and good business men, but the type of entrepreneurs 
who we need more of today.  I sometimes wonder what Howard 
would think if he came back and saw the present Heath operation.
Somehow,  I think he would be disappointed.

	Neal Turner	23 Sept 86


HEATH STORIES #18

Cover story in "USA Today" - 22 Nov 83

         Heath Co. tuning into high-tech - by Rich Scheinin

      Kits popular with people who would rather do it themselves

	St. Joseph,  Mich. - Heath Co.,  which made its name 
selling kit for ham radios and other electronic gadgets to 
generations of tinkerers,  has gone high-tech.

	Do-it-yourselfers who find heaven on earth in a box full 
of circuit boards and loose components now are building Heathkit 
robots, word  processors and  computerized  weather  stations.

	Even in an age of prefabricated everything,  there still 
are plenty of techies who would rather put things together 
themselves.  Heath mails its quarterly catalog to 2 million 
customers. And  profits have never been higher:  1982 sales by 
Heath and  its sister computer company topped $152 million.

	"It's like  eating  popcorn or  peanuts or something.  
You start on the damn kit,  and you can't  stop,"  says retired
teacher George Barrett, 70,  whose Ventura,  Calif.,  mobile 
home  is filled  with the  150 Heathkit products he  has built
in 30  years.  "I've built clocks and weather equipment and 
motor tuneup stuff,  portable radios,  hi- fi,  color TV  ...  
your  indoor-outdoor  thermometer, digital  alarms.  God,  I 
could just go through the catalog.  I don' know how anyone 
could  resist  the  thing."

	Heath's customers - 98 percent are male, half earn  more 
than $35,000  and a third  are engineers or technicians -  are  
a  fanatical lot. Last year, when the company surveyed 200 of 
them for new kit  ideas, suggestions included  anti-gravity 
machines and  handheld  laser  weapons. Once when Heathkit 
hired  a research organization to find out how customers felt 
about the company,  interviewers routinely were invited  into 
homes for coffee and lunch in sessions that averaged 2 1/2 hours.

	Matt  Cutter, Heath's marketing  services manager  at  
its headquarters here in southwestern Michigan,  remembers 
lying on an operating  table  while the  surgeon described his 
progress building a  solar  heater  kit.

	William E. Johnson,  Heath's president,  tells about  a 
Columbus, Ohio,  physician who built virtually every new kit 
the company markets - about 50  a year.

	The company's new high-tech emphasis has created 
challenges and  some headaches -  for customers. Heath says 
it  should  take 60 hours for  the experienced kit builder  
to assemble  its $1,500 Hero 1  robot,  whose  1,200  pieces -  
including  140  semiconductor chips, 12 circuit boards and 3 
motors - come with three assembly manuals that  total  316  
pages.

	"I challenge anyone to even put the ends on the cable 
in 60 hours," said retired Army Col.  Larry Sites.  "Took 
me 300 hours. That's a son of a gun."

	Sites had no problems building 12 Heathkit computers or 
dozens of earlier kits, including Heath's first electronic kit - 
a $39.50 oscilloscope the company marketed in  1947 after buying 
four boxcars of surplus military parts.

	Hero  1,  and educational training robot introduced last 
December, appears to be a big success; Heath expects to sell 
about 8,000 by Jan.  1.

	The robot symbolizes the revolutionary changes at Heath 
that have moved the company away from the basement hobbyist 
toward a marketing strategy aimed more at industry,  schools 
and well-heeled professionals willing to pay for the opportunity 
to use a soldering  iron.

	"We've kind of replaced our price competitiveness with 
being the first to offer a product,  like the digital bathroom 
scale (cost  $109.50)," says company spokesman Myron Kukla.  
This strategy doesn't  always work.

	Last year, Heath quickly discontinued its Heathkit 
satellite earth station, which received television signals 
from satellites 22,000 miles distant and cost $6,000. "People 
were not using discretionary income for earth stations," Kukla 
jokes.

	But most of Hmath's gambles have paid off.

	Founded in  1923 by an ex-military pilot named  Edward 
Heath, Heath  Co. grew famous  in the  1950's  and  '60's by 
selling  ham radio, hi-fi and television kits at a substantial 
saving over assembled  products.

	Heathkit assembly manuals - so painstakingly detailed 
that some even explain how to unpack the box - convinced 
electronics neophytes that they too could build kits and save 
money.  Sen. Barry Goldwater once wrote Heath, "I actually 
think my English bulldog could  put one of your kits together."

	In the past  15 years or so,  mass production has made 
it possible to manufacture many electronic products as cheaply 
as kits, which are manufactured and sold in lower volumes.  
Not only has this put  Heath's major competitors out of business 
but  it has forced  Heath to reassess its product  line.

	In  1977,  Heath introduced  its first microcomputer.  
In  1979, looking for a way into the computer business,  Zenith 
Radio  Corp. bought Heath for $64.5 million.  In return,  
Heath got access to Zenith's television components and technology 
to make its TV offerings more competitive.

	Zenith took a line of Heath's assembled computers (Heath 
sells its products in assembled format at a higher price) and 
slapped a new name on them:  Zenith Data Systems. By 1982,  
computers and related products accounted for about 60% of gross 
sales by Heath and Zenith Data Systems.

	These trends make some industry observers wonder if it's 
only a matter of time before kits become a sideline: "Increasingly,
I get the feeling that it's a service they do for their old 
and valued customers," said Chris Kern, a kit builder for 25 
years who writes about electronics for Byte magazine.

	Heath has lost touch with its roots, says Tony Colucci, 
who runs a mail-order kit business called Triangle Electronics 
on Long Island,  N.Y. "You used to buy a little radio, build it 
and learn," he said. "A lot of the stuff they're selling now is 
way over the head of the average guy."

	Actually,  one of Heath's most popular kits remains 
the $18.95 portable AM radio.  And while Heath's  Johnson admits 
that the company might have an identity problem these days,  
he insists it isn't  about to abandon  kit  builders.

	In the past 18 months, new Heathkits have include a 
freezer alarm ($19.95;  it beeps when the power  in  your  
freezer goes off) and something called the Most Accurate Clock 
($249.95;  it synchronizes automatically with broadcasts from 
the National  Bureau of Standards).

	Heath's  175 engineers continue to dream up new products,  
and the USA's die-hard fraternity of kit builders say there 
still  are good  reasons to build them.

	"I have a tense job,  mostly self-inflicted,  and find 
building kits to be almost the equivalent of gardening," says 
Philadelphia industrial  engineer  Hon  Sagel, who has built 
"10 or 15"  computers.

	Explains William Otto, of Lyons,  Ill.,  Toyota dealer 
who has built everything from Heathkit radio amplifiers  to  
computers,  "I know when  it's  finished  it works,  and when 
there's  trouble  I can trouble-shoot  it,  and when  it breaks 
down  I can fix it."

	copied by Bjorn Heyning	22 Sept  86