[Elecraft] Regarding Heathkit

[Monty Shultes]

Wow.  I had a DX-20 and NC-125 receiver in my college dorm room.  Threw a very thin wire out the second floor window into a tree.  It had to be loose because a few times the groundskeepers spied it and pulled it out of the tree.  I used the receiver to keep track of club radio usage - W1AF.  We had some international students who had no regard for band edges.

Wayne, you're not that old.

Monty Shultes K2DLJ,  Class of 1961

On Sep 9, 2011, at 3:57 AM, Wayne Burdick wrote:

> I grew up with Heathkit and built or repaired many of their products.  
> I learned a lot from them. (I would soon try my own hand at kit  
> design. Alas, the high price of 1970s-era TTL ICs doomed my digital  
> tach project.)
> 
> There was a Heathkit retail outlet at Grossmont Center, two miles from  
> my house in La Mesa. My high school friends and I would drop by  
> occasionally to drool over the all-Heath ham station on display. The  
> store's carefully dimmed ambient lighting enhanced the aristocratic  
> glow of the meter lamps, while the triband yagi on the roof never  
> failed to pull in strong DX stations on 15 meters. But in those days,  
> funded as we were by paper routes and push mowers, the dream seemed  
> far out of reach.
> 
> The sales counter, pristine and intimidatingly high, was staffed by a  
> clean-cut middle-aged man with a touch of gray at the sideburns. You  
> know the stereotype: pipe in one hand, soldering iron in the other, as  
> if he'd stepped right out of Heath's catalog. He politely denied my  
> credit application.
> 
> Wistful memories notwithstanding, the impending resurrection of  
> Heath's kit line reminds me of the story about a woolly mammoth that  
> drowned in icy waters some 10,000 years ago. Scientists found the  
> beast nearly intact, suspended in a block of ice somewhere in northern  
> Canada. Given the capricious nature of climate change, I suppose it  
> could just as easily have been western Michigan.
> 
> The mammoth was reasonably well-preserved. This elicited talk of a  
> revival attempt by the same sort of scientists who have themselves  
> quick-frozen upon their death, along with treasured artifacts like  
> their pipes and soldering irons.
> 
> Unfortunately, the best the team could do was thaw out a few small  
> steaks and serve them to the hopeful. I can just imagine the labored  
> grins on the faces of those hardy diners. We know from centuries of  
> native oral tradition that mammoth meat was a bit tough, even when  
> fresh.
> 
> But back to western Michigan. My wife's family has a cabin in  
> Ludington, a couple of hours north of Benton Harbor. We visit the  
> cabin every other summer to enjoy the miles of lonely beach along the  
> lake.
> 
> Next time we go there, you can bet we'll be detouring to take in the  
> Heath tour, which I hope includes a museum. I'd love to see my beloved  
> DX-20 transmitter, which hummed and sizzled and arced in a manner not  
> described in the literature, and which struck fear into the hearts of  
> nearby TV viewers in my ancestral La Mesa homeland.
> 
> With tongue firmly in cheek, and with appreciation for those who  
> bothered to read this far--
> 
> Wayne,
> N6KR
> 
> 
> On Sep 8, 2011, at 10:59 PM, David Pratt wrote:
> 
>> Not sure you should be advertising the competition on here, Nape.
>> Heathkit was excellent in years gone by, but for me it's ELECRAFT for
>> the present and the future.
>> 
>> 73 de David G4DMP
> 
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