Re: Elecraft Digest, Vol 41, Issue 51

[Rick Wheeler]

This is a fascinating thread. It's nice to know Eric and Wayne have no
intention or retiring in the foreseeable future and although many of us
would like to think otherwise you guys can't go on forever!

I am only 46, and as nearly everyone who owns an Elecraft product, have
become very brand loyal to the Elecraft line. I am too young to
remember the Heathkit era but perhaps there are some parallels of early
Heathkit and Elecraft. Many times I read from old-timers that Elecraft
was the vital spark that brought them back into Ham radio since
Heathkit. Nothing since the demise of Heathkit with regards to Ham
Radio came close.

Perhaps someone more familiar with the history of Heathkit could draw
some similarities? I would be most interested to know what many thought
was the reason for the end of Heathkit with regards to Ham Radio.

Rick
K4LX
K2 #2006
 

> > From: "Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K rig's longevity?
> Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:19:18 -0700
> To: [hidden email]
>
> Retire at, or near 50? Are you kidding? (Wayne and I are both at the
> big
> five-o..)
>
> I tried it once, back in my 30's, and went crazy after a year of
> goofing
> off. After a year I started another company. (Verisys, Inc.) I'm not
> planning on retiring for a very long time, if ever. My father is
> still
> happily working at 75, not because he has to, but because he loves
> his
> work and it keeps his mind young. I plan to be doing the same.
>
> Elecraft is not venture capital backed and is fully owned by the
> founders, Wayne and myself. There are no external pressures to cash
> out. :-)
>
> 73, Eric   WA6HHQ
> ------
>
>
>
> David Woolley wrote:
> > [hidden email] wrote:
> >
> > The other issue is that Elecraft is a small company and we have
> > discovered, this week, that one of their founders is turning 50 and
>
> > another key technician learned algebra in the late 1950s, it seems
> to
> > me that a lot of the key personnel are reaching the point where
> they
> > think about retirement.  As well as losing the product knowledge,
> > founders of startup companies in that position often want to turn
> the
> > value of the company into cash to fund their pensions.  To me, the
> K3
> > could well be there in order to make the company sellable.
>

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[Brett gazdzinski-2]

 
In my book, comparing elecraft to heathkit is a bad idea.

While I built a number of heathkit kits, including:
HW7,
HW101,
Big antenna tuner,
VTVM,
Power supplies,
I think Heathkit built stuff with price way to much in mind, and often used
poor or very odd designs to save money and reduce kit price.

The DX100 was full of compromises to cost, with weird power supply
setups, very small driver transformer, 1625 tubes instead of 807's,
a rickety vfo, etc.
The HW101 used a poor filter at 9 MHz? and some really odd rare tubes.
Power supplies were always very marginal.

I can understand the HW7 was a very low cost direct conversion rig, but even
then, they could have made the design better for little or no additional
cost.

Elecraft on the other hand always seems to well exceed the sum of its parts,
they take very basic circuits, computer control them, and get fantastic
performance out of them.
Looking at the diagrams, there is not THAT much difference between the
sierra,
the KX1, K1, and K2, at least in the analog part. Single conversion, xtal
filter,
the differences seem to be more in the computer control...
The sierra was actually more complex with its IF amp chip...

While heathkit stuff always worked, it was usually a poor performer and had
loads of improvements that could be done to it.
That was part of the fun I suppose....

Brett
N2DTS
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Rick Wheeler
> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 8:13 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [Elecraft] Re: Elecraft Digest, Vol 41, Issue 51
>
> This is a fascinating thread. It's nice to know Eric and Wayne have no
> intention or retiring in the foreseeable future and although
> many of us
> would like to think otherwise you guys can't go on forever!
>
> I am only 46, and as nearly everyone who owns an Elecraft
> product, have
> become very brand loyal to the Elecraft line. I am too young to
> remember the Heathkit era but perhaps there are some
> parallels of early
> Heathkit and Elecraft. Many times I read from old-timers that Elecraft
> was the vital spark that brought them back into Ham radio since
> Heathkit. Nothing since the demise of Heathkit with regards to Ham
> Radio came close.
>
> Perhaps someone more familiar with the history of Heathkit could draw
> some similarities? I would be most interested to know what
> many thought
> was the reason for the end of Heathkit with regards to Ham Radio.
>
> Rick
> K4LX
> K2 #2006
>  
>

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[N2EY]

---Original Message-----
From: Brett gazdzinski <[hidden email]>

>In my book, comparing elecraft to heathkit is a bad idea.

I disagree!

>I think Heathkit built stuff with price way to much in mind, and often
used
>poor or very odd designs to save money and reduce kit price.

Having built or extensively worked on the HW-101, DX-20, DX-100, VF-1,
AR-2, QF-1, V-4, V-7, TC-1, GD-1, HP-23, HP-13, SB line, HW-2036 and
more,
I say Heath *sometimes* used unusual designs, mostly in the early days.

>The DX100 was full of compromises to cost, with weird power supply
>setups, very small driver transformer, 1625 tubes instead of 807's,
>a rickety vfo, etc."

There was nothing 'weird' about the power supply setup of the DX-100.
It was very conventional for the time. The driver transformer was small
because
they were trying to limit the frequency range of the rig. 1625s are
simply
the 12 volt version of the 807; they were all over the place back then
at
incredibly low prices. The VFO was simply the guts of a VF-1.

The DX-100 was Heath's version of the Johnson Viking 2/122 VFO combo,
built into a single box. Compare the schematics and see how similar they
are. To compete with EFJ, Heath had to offer a significantly lower
price,
and the only way to do that was to replace high cost parts with less
expensive ones, because the Viking 2 was available as a kit.

>The HW101 used a poor filter at 9 MHz? and some really odd rare tubes.

The HW-101 IF filter is at 3.395 MHz. It was no worse than many filters
of the day.

None of the tubes in an HW-101 were rare when the rig was designed.
They were all current-production, and using the types they did improved
performance and reduced cost. All of them can still be found with a
little
looking.

It should be remembered that the HW-101 originally sold for $250, which
was an incredibly low price for the time. Consider just the cost of the
tubes,
(more than a dozen, including two 6146s), the xtal filter (a prefab
unit custom
made for Heath) and the 12 heterodyne, carrier and calibrator crystals
(also custom made)  and it's a wonder they could keep the price so low.

>Power supplies were always very marginal.

Not in my experience! The only marginal power supplies in Heath ham gear
I know of were in the DX-35/DX-40. There was a cure for that, too.

>I can understand the HW7 was a very low cost direct conversion rig,
but even
>then, they could have made the design better for little or no
additional
>cost.

How?

When looking at old rigs, the realities of their times must be
remembered. Adding
a few dollars in parts to a kit meant adding several dollars to the
price, which
cut hard into sales. When you look at prices from the old days, run
them through
an inflation-adjuster to see what they translate to in 2007 money.

The amateur market then was much smaller than today, because there were
far
  fewer hams, more homebrewing and surplus, and the cost was so much
higher.

Sure, Heath made some clunkers. Any company that put out so many
products
and lines so fast and with so much attention to cost could have the
same problem.
But before labeling a rig as a clunker, consider its times, not today's
standards.

No mention of Heath ham gear would be complete without tribute to the
HW-16, a work of genius if there ever was one.

Try actually building a rig to compete with the old Heathkit designs,
using
only parts and techniques available then, and using prices from those
days.

>Elecraft on the other hand always seems to well exceed the sum of its
parts,
>they take very basic circuits, computer control them, and get fantastic
>performance out of them.

>Looking at the diagrams, there is not THAT much difference between
>the sierra,
> the KX1, K1, and K2, at least in the analog part. Single conversion,
xtal
>filter,
>the differences seem to be more in the computer control...
>The sierra was actually more complex with its IF amp chip...

The true radio performance (dynamic range, sensitivity) comes mostly
from
"the analog part". The features come from the controllers, except for
things
like the truly elegant VCO system. Schematics alone do not tell the
whole
story of any rig.

>While heathkit stuff always worked, it was usually a poor performer
and had
>loads of improvements that could be done to it.
>That was part of the fun I suppose....

In my experience, Heath gear performed well, compared to the
competition.
Of course an SB-line was not as good as an S-line, but when a complete
SB-line
setup cost less than an S-line receiver, that shouldn't be a surprise.

> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Rick Wheeler

> Perhaps someone more familiar with the history of Heathkit could draw
> some similarities?

One big similarity is the "hands on" approach. With kits, a ham had at
least
some idea what was inside the box, and a sporting chance of fixing it if
something went wrong. There's also the experience of using something
you actually built, which simply cannot be had any other way.

For Heath, cost was a big draw as well. Look up what the average person
earned 40-50 years ago, and then look at rig prices in terms of "hours
of
work to own".

> I would be most interested to know what
> many thought
> was the reason for the end of Heathkit with regards to Ham Radio.

IMHO it was technological change coupled with competition from Japanese
rigs.

Before the widespread use of automation in electronics manufacture, a
significant part of the cost of anything electronic was manufacturing
labor.
Heath and other kitmakers saved money by eliminatiing most of that. The
limiting factor was the need to produce detailed assembly manuals, and
to
come up with designs that could be built, aligned and tested without too
much in the way of specialized tools, jigs and test equipment.

With point-to-point wiring and bolted-in components, there's a lot of
labor,
so lots of possible savings. Just look at a DX-100. The change to
printed
circuit boards reduced a lot of the labor to board-stuffing, but it was
still
significant until that process was automated. See HW-101.

The final blow was the success of imported manufactured rigs at
competitive prices. Why build a Heathkit when you could get a Yaecomwood
with more features for less money?

Heath actually outlasted many other US ham gear
makers (National, Hallicrafters, Hammarlund, SBE/Gonset, EFJohnson,
etc.)

What Elecraft did was to play a different game. They saw a part of the
market that wasn't being addressed, and met the need. They purposely
abandoned some of the standard paradigms of the past 20-30 years of HF
 ham rigs, and made a lot of hams happy in the process.


73 de Jim, N2EY


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[k6dgw]

Rick Wheeler wrote:
> I am only 46, and as nearly everyone who owns an Elecraft product, have
> become very brand loyal to the Elecraft line. I am too young to
> remember the Heathkit era but perhaps there are some parallels of early
> Heathkit and Elecraft. Many times I read from old-timers that Elecraft
> was the vital spark that brought them back into Ham radio since
> Heathkit. Nothing since the demise of Heathkit with regards to Ham
> Radio came close.

Well, I AM old enough to remember the Heath era, here's my take.  [{n}
refers to notes at the bottom].  In at least two respects, Heath and
Elecraft are very similar ... they both sell radio gear as kits, and
their offerings are inexpensive vs the other non-kit stuff out there.
In my view however, that's about where the similarity ends.

Inexpensive was a big deal for Heath.  The Novice class in the US was
invented in the very early 50's, it attracted a huge following of young
new hams, many of whom were teens and few of whom had very much
disposable income.  One of them was me, 13 at the time, and my income
came from cutting the neighbors' grass for 25 cents a lawn [Dad insisted
his grass be cut for free ... after all, it was his push mower.  To his
credit, he bought me a sturdy table for my rig after I pushed it off the
back of the card table in the excitement of my first QSO with my Elmer.]

Heath did not go for "high end performance."  They went for SOLID{1},
usable radios that the then ham market could afford.  And, except in
lofty radio engineer circles, IMD, Blocking Dynamic Range, Phase Noise,
and all the numbers we find in reviews today hadn't been invented yet.
RX sensitivity, the number of bands covered, crystal filters [the old
kind :-) ], stability, and the like ruled.  You wanted high performance?
  You shelled out the cash{2} for Collins, Hallicrafters, Hammerlund,
and those guys

There was close to an uncountable infinity of ham radio manufacturers.
I do not remember that Heath generated "brand loyalty."  There were just
a lot of Heathkits out there because they were more economically
accessible than the host of other rigs that more or less did the same
thing for more money.

The Internet and email hadn't been invented yet.  Hence, no email
reflector like this one for support.  Actually, the computer was just
being invented and it filled rooms with equipment.  There is a quote
from an IBM top-guy, probably not true, that "there might be a market
for a dozen automatic computing machines in the world."

Elecraft is quite different, and the world is quite different too.  The
ham population has aged [quite a bit, I think], many have more economic
means but still, for lots this remains a hobby, and not a lot of us can
put $10K on "the card{2}" for an IC-7800.

Contrary to Heath, the Big E DOES go for performance in multiple
dimensions.  In fact, performance means almost everything today.

Manufacturers of ham radios are now countable and nowhere near infinity.
  It takes only the fingers of two hands, even if you're missing a thumb
and maybe a finger.  We have Y-I-K, of course, then TT and ... hummm
...Oh the SDR guys ... I've undoubtedly missed one or two here, but not
many and hopefully you get the idea here.

"Radios From Aptos" come with an amazing amount of customer support and
hand-holding, something fairly absent from the rest of the market today,
and the Heath market many years ago.  The Internet and email DO exist
today, and it turns out, the market for computers was a bit larger than
predicted :-)  You have a problem with your E-radio?  Post a message and
you get instant response, and they can and do actually talk to the those
in Aptos.  I kept a few numbers from the reflector for a couple of days,
and it appears that 1)  Don Wilhelm doesn't sleep;  2)  He never leaves
his computer.  Maybe he's the Betty Crocker of Elecraft, there's more
than one of him.  And, he's not the only one out there with help.

I have two E-radios [K2/100 + KX1] and my third is on order [wanna
guess? :-) ].  They are my favorite radios.  I'm old enough to recognize
and not join cults, and Elecraft users, although passionate, are not a
cult.  We're somewhat passionate for a reason.  I had my K2 set up this
weekend for the CQ WW RTTY, and started the TQP with my TS-850 on the
premise, "Never make changes to your rifle in the middle of combat".  I
did the second section of the TQP with my K2 because it heard stations I
couldn't hear on the 850.  So much for never make changes.

So no, Elecraft is not Heath reincarnated.  Different time, different
world, different technology, different engineering tools, different
engineering, different market.  On a 5 hr trip down to visit my college
roommate last spring, I began wondering what The Aptos Wonders would
have engineered with Heath era technology.  Don't know the answer.

Just one view, I remain

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2007 CQP Oct 6-7
- www.cqp.org

Notes:
{1} SOLID:  My Heath DX100 took two men [Dad and Howard, the neighbor]
and one medium sized boy [me] to get it into the house when the freight
truck delivered it.

{2} CASH:  Credit cards hadn't been invented yet.  Neither had ATM's,
direct wire transfer, PayPal, and on-line banking.  Well ... on-line
"anything" hadn't been invented yet.

{3} I thought I noted #3 somewhere in there, but now I can't find it.
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[N2EY]

Just a couple of historical notes:

In a message dated 10/1/07 11:10:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[hidden email] writes:

T> he Novice class in the US was
> invented in the very early 50's,

Novice was created as part of the 1951 license restructuring that replaced
the old ABC system with named license classes.

There were just
>
> a lot of Heathkits out there because they were more economically
> accessible than the host of other rigs that more or less did the same
> thing for more money.
>

Heath wasn't the only company making ham gear in kit form, just the most
popular. Price *was* a big part of it: compare the Heath DX-20 ($36) and the
Johnson Viking Adventurer ($55).

> the computer was just
> being invented and it filled rooms with equipment.

The world's first high-speed, general purpose, electronic digital computer
was ENIAC, announced in 1946. It was in service until 1955. 18,000 tubes.
>
> So no, Elecraft is not Heath reincarnated.

One more similarity: Great manuals.

 > I began wondering what The Aptos Wonders would
> have engineered with Heath era technology.  Don't know the answer.
>
>
I do:

Great rigs!

73 de Jim, N2EY


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[Bob Waddell]

Having built a number of Heath products, especially the "SB" line, I can tell you they were quality pieces of equipment for their day.  I have built a couple of "E" products too.  They're very much state of the art, quality engineering and supported!  One more point:  Heath is no more.  There aren't any other companies out there that offer kits that can come close to the "Big E".  Perhaps as time goes on there may be.  Elecraft has raised a very high "bar".  

Bob
N4BGR

Bob
923-0591

> Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 20:07:34 -0700
> From: [hidden email]
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [Elecraft] Heath vs Elecraft
>
> Rick Wheeler wrote:
>> I am only 46, and as nearly everyone who owns an Elecraft product, have
>> become very brand loyal to the Elecraft line. I am too young to
>> remember the Heathkit era but perhaps there are some parallels of early
>> Heathkit and Elecraft. Many times I read from old-timers that Elecraft
>> was the vital spark that brought them back into Ham radio since
>> Heathkit. Nothing since the demise of Heathkit with regards to Ham
>> Radio came close.
>
> Well, I AM old enough to remember the Heath era, here's my take. [{n}
> refers to notes at the bottom]. In at least two respects, Heath and
> Elecraft are very similar ... they both sell radio gear as kits, and
> their offerings are inexpensive vs the other non-kit stuff out there.
> In my view however, that's about where the similarity ends.
>
> Inexpensive was a big deal for Heath. The Novice class in the US was
> invented in the very early 50's, it attracted a huge following of young
> new hams, many of whom were teens and few of whom had very much
> disposable income. One of them was me, 13 at the time, and my income
> came from cutting the neighbors' grass for 25 cents a lawn [Dad insisted
> his grass be cut for free ... after all, it was his push mower. To his
> credit, he bought me a sturdy table for my rig after I pushed it off the
> back of the card table in the excitement of my first QSO with my Elmer.]
>
> Heath did not go for 'high end performance.' They went for SOLID{1},
> usable radios that the then ham market could afford. And, except in
> lofty radio engineer circles, IMD, Blocking Dynamic Range, Phase Noise,
> and all the numbers we find in reviews today hadn't been invented yet.
> RX sensitivity, the number of bands covered, crystal filters [the old
> kind :-) ], stability, and the like ruled. You wanted high performance?
> You shelled out the cash{2} for Collins, Hallicrafters, Hammerlund,
> and those guys
>
> There was close to an uncountable infinity of ham radio manufacturers.
> I do not remember that Heath generated 'brand loyalty.' There were just
> a lot of Heathkits out there because they were more economically
> accessible than the host of other rigs that more or less did the same
> thing for more money.
>
> The Internet and email hadn't been invented yet. Hence, no email
> reflector like this one for support. Actually, the computer was just
> being invented and it filled rooms with equipment. There is a quote
> from an IBM top-guy, probably not true, that 'there might be a market
> for a dozen automatic computing machines in the world.'
>
> Elecraft is quite different, and the world is quite different too. The
> ham population has aged [quite a bit, I think], many have more economic
> means but still, for lots this remains a hobby, and not a lot of us can
> put $10K on 'the card{2}' for an IC-7800.
>
> Contrary to Heath, the Big E DOES go for performance in multiple
> dimensions. In fact, performance means almost everything today.
>
> Manufacturers of ham radios are now countable and nowhere near infinity.
> It takes only the fingers of two hands, even if you're missing a thumb
> and maybe a finger. We have Y-I-K, of course, then TT and ... hummm
> ...Oh the SDR guys ... I've undoubtedly missed one or two here, but not
> many and hopefully you get the idea here.
>
> 'Radios From Aptos' come with an amazing amount of customer support and
> hand-holding, something fairly absent from the rest of the market today,
> and the Heath market many years ago. The Internet and email DO exist
> today, and it turns out, the market for computers was a bit larger than
> predicted :-) You have a problem with your E-radio? Post a message and
> you get instant response, and they can and do actually talk to the those
> in Aptos. I kept a few numbers from the reflector for a couple of days,
> and it appears that 1) Don Wilhelm doesn't sleep; 2) He never leaves
> his computer. Maybe he's the Betty Crocker of Elecraft, there's more
> than one of him. And, he's not the only one out there with help.
>
> I have two E-radios [K2/100 + KX1] and my third is on order [wanna
> guess? :-) ]. They are my favorite radios. I'm old enough to recognize
> and not join cults, and Elecraft users, although passionate, are not a
> cult. We're somewhat passionate for a reason. I had my K2 set up this
> weekend for the CQ WW RTTY, and started the TQP with my TS-850 on the
> premise, 'Never make changes to your rifle in the middle of combat'. I
> did the second section of the TQP with my K2 because it heard stations I
> couldn't hear on the 850. So much for never make changes.
>
> So no, Elecraft is not Heath reincarnated. Different time, different
> world, different technology, different engineering tools, different
> engineering, different market. On a 5 hr trip down to visit my college
> roommate last spring, I began wondering what The Aptos Wonders would
> have engineered with Heath era technology. Don't know the answer.
>
> Just one view, I remain
>
> 73,
>
> Fred K6DGW
> - Northern California Contest Club
> - CU in the 2007 CQP Oct 6-7
> - www.cqp.org
>
> Notes:
> {1} SOLID: My Heath DX100 took two men [Dad and Howard, the neighbor]
> and one medium sized boy [me] to get it into the house when the freight
> truck delivered it.
>
> {2} CASH: Credit cards hadn't been invented yet. Neither had ATM's,
> direct wire transfer, PayPal, and on-line banking. Well ... on-line
> 'anything' hadn't been invented yet.
>
> {3} I thought I noted #3 somewhere in there, but now I can't find it.
> _______________________________________________
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> You must be a subscriber to post to the list.
> Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.):
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>
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[Dave Van Wallaghen]

>
> Well, I AM old enough to remember the Heath era, here's my take.  [{n}
> refers to notes at the bottom].  In at least two respects, Heath and
> Elecraft are very similar ... they both sell radio gear as kits, and
> their offerings are inexpensive vs the other non-kit stuff out there.
> In my view however, that's about where the similarity ends.
>

Well, at 46, I somewhat remember the Heathkit line. At a pre-teen I sat down
with the catalog and picked out my dream lineup I would purchase with the $8
a lawn (but they were 2-3 acre lawns) I was making in the summer. Never did
get to it - the money went for school and a car. I did have some experience
with Heathkit labs that we evaluated for our electronics teacher in the mid
to late 70's. Based on our evaluation, he worked them into his curriculum.
Like Elecraft, they were well built and had great manuals. Too bad I killed
all of those brain cells that stored that knowledge :-) Now I have to
relearn it all over again.

I think Fred hit the nail on the head. There are some basic similarities,
but certainly different times and technology. In retrospect, I'm almost glad
I went into a ham coma for 30 years. When I got back into it a couple of
years ago, I was very surprised to find an Elecraft type company out there.
I think I would have become dissatisfied with just operating in the 80's and
90's and not having the chance to play with the hardware. Just a guess -
maybe I would have gravitated to using boat anchors instead - who knows.

But one of the things that the current technology and times have brought to
me (and other newer hams I would guess) is regarding the very nature of
Elecraft's fine support and it's ability to listen and incorporate
suggestions by the community. The great side effect of this has been massive
flow of information regarding the technology. I have learned more about ham
radio and the technology employed in the hardware I've built and tested
right here on this reflector. I had no idea what roofing filters, IMD, BDR
etc. were until I read here how they would be used or measured with regards
to the K3. It inspired me to go to other resources and research and learn.
For me, that is why I got into this hobby - to learn and experiment.

Reading on a daily basis of how others use this technology is also a great
benefit. I certainly could sit down and constantly read books about most of
the technologies discussed here, but the contributors to this list put it
into a perspective that allows me to better understand the "why" of the
technology so that I can research the "what" on my own. For a younger ham
still working many hours, this is a pretty streamlined process that saves me
some time and allows me to learn quickly.

I can't imagine being able to do this 30 years ago and am forever grateful
to the current times, technology and people on this list that I am able to
benefit from the vast knowledge of all those before me. I wonder if those in
Aptos thought or planned for this side effect.

73,
Dave W8FGU

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[M. P. Haynes]

Hi Dave,

Very nicely put.  I would also add that the internet and reflectors themselves also add greatly to the development of and modifications to new, well engineered products that fit the requirements of the many facets of our great hobby.  I still find it somewhat amazing to see posts from Europe or even remote places on this globe posted, answered and reanswered in almost real-time!  It is a great time to be in this hobby, but, then again, I felt the same back in the fifties and sixties!

73,

Pat Haynes-K4BEH
K2 # 5061

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[N2EY]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Van Wallaghen <[hidden email]>

>There are some basic similarities,
>but certainly different times and technology.

Yep. Here's another difference: advertising.

In the bad old days, if a company wanted to sell to hams,
they pretty much had to advertise in the ham magazines
like QST and CQ. They also needed to print and distribute
catalogs/flyers of their products as widely as possible. And
the more info in the catalog or ad, the more it cost.
Those costs showed up in the product prices.

Today, a small company can put an incredible amount
of info on a website, which acts as a catalog and reference
point. Sure, ads in magazines are still needed, and websites
are certainly not free, but it's a completely different cost
and dynamic than in Heath's time. Imagine being able to
get a free copy of the manual for anything in Heath's
catalog *before* buying....

OTOH, we have largely lost the "cross-fertilization" effect
of the old catalogs. Someone who got a Heathkit catalog
because they were interested in a stereo kit or test equipment
stood a good chance of seeing the ads for ham gear and
wondering "what's ham radio?". IMHO, we hams are a lot
less visible today than 30-40 years ago.

>I think I would have become dissatisfied with just operating in the
80's and
>90's and not having the chance to play with the hardware.

I've been a ham 40 years come October 12, and there's *always* been
a chance to play with the hardware.

The existence of Elecraft is due in some part to the QRP movement,
which started in the late 1960s. Lots of homebrewing, articles,
and small companies making kits, which reached a growing community
of hams all through the 70s/80s/90s.

All of which is a Good Thing.

73 de Jim, N2EY
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