[Hallicrafters] Fritz

[SX-25]

Duane,

Thank you for sharing the Fritz Frank file. It is very helpful to those of us who have a passion for Hallicrafters
to get these little insights to build a better understanding of the company and what it brought to us.

In the early 1980s I had the pleasure of speaking with Fritz while I was president of a shortwave listeners club. Through a friend of mine and former chief engineer of Hallicrafters, the late Bob Orwin, W9YKA, I had been put in contact with Mr. Frank. I was wanting to learn what copyright problems I might involve myself with if I produced Hallicrafters' 1960s 45-RPM record, "The Amazing World of Shortwave Listening" for free distribution. One day Fritz phoned me and asked how he could help me. I explained what I wanted to do. He laughed and he said, "Gee whiz...that's 25 years ago. Do you really think anybody cares anymore? How could there be a problem even IF anyone still cared?"
It was  refreshing to meet someone with such a down-to-earth approach. Ironically, the 1980s also marked the beginning of insane possessiveness brought on largely by the software industry now to where it can be a legal problem to use evens commonplace phrase like "Just plain sense" if one of the  charlatans in today's business environment has decided it is so-called "intellectual property." It's too bad gentlemen like Fritz Frank aren't still running things instead of the boneheads that now control such things.

All my best,

Vern WPE9GHF / WA9VLK