Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Whatever Happened to Heathkit Message-ID: <16730@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 7 Feb 91 03:45:12 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA Lines: 47 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 97, Message 4 of 10 In article <16709@accuvax.nwu.edu>, Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com writes: > Many people recently got a Heathkit catalog. I think that the mailing ... > It was pitiful. About 30% of the stuff in the catalog was buildable. > The rest was sold assembled-only. The ham gear line has been > decimated, the stereo/television line is about gone, and their concept > of building a computer is to plug the boards in. I'm sure there are other factors, but one thing that happened to Heathkit was FCC part 15. I got to know Heath as a kid back in the 50's. In those days, if it wasn't a transmitter, no FCC certification was required. As a result, you could assemble a Heathkit table radio, or a shortwave receiver, and it was legal. Today, it has to be FCC type-accepted, and that means it has to be assembled by an FCC-approved factory, etc. About all you could do now is ship the RF parts pre-assembled and build the case around it. The market for kit-built electronics is pretty much limited to amateur radio (still legal for home-builts) and audio equipment with no RF-radiating ability. I have built a dozen or so Heathkits, ranging from a shortwave receiver (remember the AR-3?) to an electronic air filter for a domestic central HVAC system. I still have the IM-11 vacuum tube voltmeter, but the FET-VOM from Radio Shack is less expensive, more accurate, and more user-friendly. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [Moderator's Note: When I was in 5th grade or somewhere back in that era a buddy and I tried to build a Heathkit table radio. I think it had three or four tubes in it. Somehow we accidentally wired it up wrong and sent the wire which carried the IF (intermediate frequency at 440 kc) out the antenna. Although the radio would not play, we soon discovered it would radiate all over the house. With that in mind, we attached another 80 feet or so of wire to make a quarter-wave antenna at 1620 kc's and played 'radio station' for everyone within a three block range of my house. We re-broadcast Muzak from an SCA receiver my buddy had found at a junk dealer and the time signal from Boulder, CO at 15 megs. My parents found out a couple days later, raised cain and the 'radio station' signed off the air for good. PAT]