Re: ****SPAM(8.7)**** Re: Regarding Heathkit

[John Klewer]

All he needs now is a lute and to put it to music...he can be a poet, story
teller, engineer AND minstrel!



On Fri Sep  9  7:21 , "[hidden email]"  sent:

>
>Dear All,
>Wayne turns out to be a poet, story teller and an engineer.
>
>        73 Doug EI2CN
>Original Message:
>-----------------
>From: Wayne Burdick [hidden email]
>Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 00:57:08 -0700
>To: [hidden email]
>Subject: [Elecraft] Regarding Heathkit
>
>
>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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