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 Send your input to: (Address and phone number {which are no longer valid} removed at the request of the Heyning family.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