[Hallicrafters] Hallicrafters Re: Why A Storm Series

[WA1KBQ at aol.com]

I have a letter here from James Millen written sometime after his retirement 
to a Mr. Chadbourne in California which was one of several replies to 
questions asked about his company's history. One quote I found particularly 
interesting was a description of a time they were at a trade show where Millen had two 
working DFP receiver prototypes set up and on display as part of the James 
Millen Company exhibit. Millen had been a little distracted talking to customers 
but noticed Bob Samuelson (Collins Engineer well known for designing the HT-1, 
HT-4, HT-6 and HT-9 for Hallicrafters prior to that time) snooping around the 
DFP receivers when he thought Millen wasn't looking. Millen wrote you can't 
imagine his surprise when a few weeks after that Art introduced his new 75A 
receiver and it had his DFP dial on it! Millen immediately wrote Art Collins to 
call him on the carpet for Samuelson plagiarizing the DFP dial but since they 
were good friends and he had decided not to produce either DFP version anyway he 
said could keep it. 

Regards, Greg Gore; WA1KBQ

PS- I was amazed at all the prominent influential people in the radio 
industry that Millen was close friends with. In another letter Millen described when 
he had made a young Bill Halligan and his partner an exclusive distributor of 
National Company products in Chicago. He went on to describe advice he later 
received from Halligan to get out of the radio business and concentrate on 
white goods instead (stoves, refrigerators, etc.) Halligan quit and started 
Hallicrafters, his business partner took over the retail store.