[Heathkit] Re The Heath Company

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Hi All,

As of late the "real" truth about what the Heath Company of Benton Harbor, 
Michigan is doing has been asked during the Saturday and Sunday HHI Nets. 
Here is some material from a few years ago provided by K7DDG. I hope it 
helps!

If any of you have "facts" on what Heath is doing, please post it here. 
Thank you.

For proper credit, it should be noted that this material is excerpted from

Shortwave Receivers Past and Present third edition copywrite 1998 by Fred

Osterman.


Heath Company

Benton Harbor MI 1945-1961


The fascinating story of Heath has been told many times on the inside cover

of Heathkit catalogs. Edward Bayard Heath founded the Heath Aeroplane 
Company

during the early 1900's. The first Heath "kit" was in fact an airplane

introduced in 1926. In 1931 the founder was killed in a flight test. Heath

remained an aircraft and aircraft parts company through World War II. Howard 
E.

Anthony, who had purchased Heath in 1935 gave it a different direction after 
the

war. With surplus electronic parts, he marketed the "O-1" oscilloscope kit 
for

$39.50. A line of test instruments, amateur radios and hi-fi equipment kits

followed.


Howard Anthony also died in a plane crash in 1954. Daystrom Inc. then

acquired the Heath Company. In 1962 Daystrom was purchased by Schlumberger 
Limited,

a leader in the development of electronic techniques for oil exploration.


Zenith purchased Heath from Schlumberger in 1979. They were interested in

Heath's computer production capacity more than amateur radio gear. Budget 
cuts,

difficulties with new models and increased offshore competition led to

increased problems in the mid 1980's. In the late 80's and early 90's the 
amateur

radio segment consisted primarily of assembled, private labeled equipment

from Standard, Yaesu and Ameritron. Heath now focuses on educational videos 
and

workbooks and is not in the radio market.


Roger

K7DDG



Duane Fischer, W8DBF/WPE8CXO
dfischer at usol.com

HHI: Halligan's Hallicrafters International
http://www.w9wze.net

HHRP: Historic Halligan Radio Project
hhrp.w9wze.net