saw the question on the Clegg Zeus.

I wonder still about the great die-off in the 1970's.

In the mid-60's when "incentive licensing" came about, Wayne Green
wrote editorials predicting the failure of incentive licensing as
well as the demise of amateur radio manufacturers and the eclipse of
the American electronics industry.

In retrospect, it seems to have happened, although there are
numerous other forces involved. Computers, the Internet, cell
fones, cable TeeVee, birth control, and of course, inflation.

Hallicrafters, Collins, Eldico, Clegg, Drake, Hammarlund, National,
Mosley, Telrex, Eico, Tri-ex, Hygain, Johnson, Heath, Knight,
Layfayette, Gonset, Signal/One, Globe, Henry Radio, add in the
distribution channels, the local stocking parts houses, the parts
manufacturers, the band activity, and it sure seems that Wayne
called it.

Before everyone heads for the big QSO party in the sky, how about
adding your I-was-there observations and recollections.

One thing I wonder was what happened when Heathkit unraveled? what
happened to the thousands of spare parts. Knowing how procurement
and inventory control works, I'm certain that they had hundreds of
SB, round and green, cabinets and thousands of green and black
knobs at the end.

Where did those parts go? I've seen rumors that someone or some
corporation bought up the parts inventory or that a rich ham has a
warehouse with several hundred unbuilt kits.

Did they take a tractor trailer to Dayton and liquidate the parts?
Was there ever a year that someone showed up with 40 SX-117's and
sold them for half price?

I have 70% of the parts for the Mosley CM-1 receiver. When Mosley
dropped the product line, they sold the inventory and a store in St.
Louis sold CM-1 parts kits, not all the parts but many of them.

That's what happened to the Mosley CM-1, this was in 1965.

That's what I'd expect happened to the other vendors unless they
continue today.

Collins folded in to Rockwell. MFJ got the the HyGain product line.
Signal/One devolved into a criminal operation.

Comments?

de ah6gi/4

--

Yeah, in retrospect, Wayne did a good job predicting the future.
If I remember correctly, Wayne made LOTS of predictions....

About the demise of Heathkit, and the inventory. Much of the old
stock was sold off at Dayton one year. I was there, but I don't remember
the year. There were a LOT of NIB kits, some missing parts selling
really cheap.

Steve

No Spam No wrote in message
news:ifgU75G3LLdo-pn2-K05odpZLgWie@localhost...
saw the question on the Clegg Zeus.

I wonder still about the great die-off in the 1970's.

In the mid-60's when "incentive licensing" came about, Wayne Green
wrote editorials predicting the failure of incentive licensing as
well as the demise of amateur radio manufacturers and the eclipse of
the American electronics industry.

In retrospect, it seems to have happened, although there are
numerous other forces involved. Computers, the Internet, cell
fones, cable TeeVee, birth control, and of course, inflation.

Hallicrafters, Collins, Eldico, Clegg, Drake, Hammarlund, National,
Mosley, Telrex, Eico, Tri-ex, Hygain, Johnson, Heath, Knight,
Layfayette, Gonset, Signal/One, Globe, Henry Radio, add in the
distribution channels, the local stocking parts houses, the parts
manufacturers, the band activity, and it sure seems that Wayne
called it.

Before everyone heads for the big QSO party in the sky, how about
adding your I-was-there observations and recollections.

One thing I wonder was what happened when Heathkit unraveled? what
happened to the thousands of spare parts. Knowing how procurement
and inventory control works, I'm certain that they had hundreds of
SB, round and green, cabinets and thousands of green and black
knobs at the end.

Where did those parts go? I've seen rumors that someone or some
corporation bought up the parts inventory or that a rich ham has a
warehouse with several hundred unbuilt kits.

Did they take a tractor trailer to Dayton and liquidate the parts?
Was there ever a year that someone showed up with 40 SX-117's and
sold them for half price?

I have 70% of the parts for the Mosley CM-1 receiver. When Mosley
dropped the product line, they sold the inventory and a store in St.
Louis sold CM-1 parts kits, not all the parts but many of them.

That's what happened to the Mosley CM-1, this was in 1965.

That's what I'd expect happened to the other vendors unless they
continue today.

Collins folded in to Rockwell. MFJ got the the HyGain product line.
Signal/One devolved into a criminal operation.

Comments?

de ah6gi/4

--

Steve wrote:

One thing I wonder was what happened when Heathkit unraveled? what
happened to the thousands of spare parts. Knowing how procurement
and inventory control works, I'm certain that they had hundreds of
SB, round and green, cabinets and thousands of green and black
knobs at the end.

Where did those parts go? I've seen rumors that someone or some
corporation bought up the parts inventory or that a rich ham has a
warehouse with several hundred unbuilt kits.

Did they take a tractor trailer to Dayton and liquidate the parts?
Was there ever a year that someone showed up with 40 SX-117's and
sold them for half price?


I suspect that the individual franchised Heathkit stores went to the
local hamfests and sold off the leftover inventory. At least that is
what happened in Maryland. First the local store offered reductions
on the kits in stock, and all of the demonstrator models that were
in the store, then after all the good stuff (read ham stuff) was gone,
they started showing up at the local hamfests with trailer loads of
heath trash. Weather stations, wiper delays, accessories, ...

All because Schlumberger had to get rid of the kit and computer division
to avoid an antitrust problem when they bought Fairchild.

-Chuck Harris

Chuck Harris ) writes:
Steve wrote:

One thing I wonder was what happened when Heathkit unraveled? what
happened to the thousands of spare parts. Knowing how procurement
and inventory control works, I'm certain that they had hundreds of
SB, round and green, cabinets and thousands of green and black
knobs at the end.

Where did those parts go? I've seen rumors that someone or some
corporation bought up the parts inventory or that a rich ham has a
warehouse with several hundred unbuilt kits.

Did they take a tractor trailer to Dayton and liquidate the parts?
Was there ever a year that someone showed up with 40 SX-117's and
sold them for half price?


I suspect that the individual franchised Heathkit stores went to the
local hamfests and sold off the leftover inventory. At least that is
what happened in Maryland. First the local store offered reductions
on the kits in stock, and all of the demonstrator models that were
in the store, then after all the good stuff (read ham stuff) was gone,
they started showing up at the local hamfests with trailer loads of
heath trash. Weather stations, wiper delays, accessories, ...

All because Schlumberger had to get rid of the kit and computer division
to avoid an antitrust problem when they bought Fairchild.

-Chuck Harris

That sounds a bit garbled.

Wasn't Schlumberger out of the picture a lot earlier? Wasn't it Zenith
that bought Heath, in the late seventies or early eighties, leading to a
period when pre-assembled Heath computers were sold as Zenith's?

Heath "died" about a decade ago. That's relatively recent. Even then, it
continued/continues, though on a much smaller scale and not as a kit
manufacturer. They continued with the educational kits, or something like
that. And I thought they carried some inventory, at least for a few
years. Even a few years back, people were pointing people to Heath as
a source of spare parts in various newsgroups, I'm sure including this one.

And I think it was other issues that got Heath out of the kit business.
there was a period when they were selling to a wide range of the public.
I remember a John T. Frye article in Popular Electronics thirty years ago
where he wrote about the process of turning an item into a Heathkit, and
they used novices to test build using the instructions, to ensure that
anybody could build the kit. So the market was not just those interested
in electronics, but anyone who felt up to assemblying the kit, and wanted
to save some money.

With time, the kits got too complicated, because the level of electronics
had risen. And the savings to the builder were little or none. Solid
state brough a high level of mechanization in assemblying, something that
was not the case with tube equipment. One could probably cut some money
off a product if the end user put it together, even given the extra cost
of making it a kit. But that changed as the equipment became more
complicated, so you were either paying the same price for the kit
as an equivalent assembled unit, or even paying premium. That surely reduced
the average public's interest in such things, and it was that wider
swatch of the public that made the company profitable. When only hard
core hobbyists were interested in the kits, they could not sustain
the company.

And that surely is why it got out of the kit business.

Yes, there have risen various companies since then who put out kits.
But they are much smaller companies, deal with a specific market, and
likely deal with builders who expect less of a level of handholding.

Michael VE2BVW

Michael Black wrote:
Chuck Harris ) writes:

All because Schlumberger had to get rid of the kit and computer division
to avoid an antitrust problem when they bought Fairchild.

-Chuck Harris


That sounds a bit garbled.

It isn't, though.


Wasn't Schlumberger out of the picture a lot earlier? Wasn't it Zenith
that bought Heath, in the late seventies or early eighties, leading to a
period when pre-assembled Heath computers were sold as Zenith's?

Schlumberger was/is a conglomerate corporation that is composed of
a bunch of dissimilar companies that they bought up and held... much
like what IBM, GE and Honeywell do. Schlumberger wanted to get into
the semiconducter manufacturing business, so they were looking for
a manufacturing plant to buy... Fairchild was up for sale.

The FTC strongly suggested to Schlumberger that if they bought
Fairchild they MIGHT be taken to court for antitrust violations.
The reason for this is Heath was one of Fairchild's major customers.
The FTC of that time didn't like anything that was vertical in that
way.

So, Schlumberger went looking for a buyer for Heath/Zenith, and that
buyer was a French company called Group Bull. Group Bull wanted to
enter the personal computer market in the worst way, so when they saw
that Heath/Zenith, a semi major player in the personal computer and
data entry terminal business was up for sale, they jumped. Bull never
had any interest in the Heath side of the business, so at the first
possible opportunity, they pulled the plug. Heath was set off on their
own. With no money, no manufacturing capability, and did I mention
no money?

What you say about the decline of the kit business is mostly true, but
I firmly believe that if FTC hadn't put their nose into the business,
and caused Group Bull to buy Heath/Zenith, there would still be a kit
company.

-Chuck Harris

For a more complete discussion of the life of Heathkit, read:
"Heathkit, A Guide To The Amateur Radio Products," by Penson.

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:31:34 UTC, (Michael
Black) wrote:

And I think it was other issues that got Heath out of the kit business.
there was a period when they were selling to a wide range of the public.
...
Michael VE2BVW

All reasonable points but I'm interested in what people observed
happening, not their interpretation of why it happened. You make
good points and are welcome to expand on them but I wonder how the
die-off appeared to folk who saw it happening.

The report on the Maryland Heath store (Rockville, I've shopped
there and at the Alexandria store) dragging the audio and other junk
to local Hamfests is interesting.

By the way, the old Heath Tube-Audio junque commands a premium from
the audio-nuts. I don't know why. It's not like -cough-cough-
tube SSB transceivers.

A word about tube audio vice tube (boatanchor) radio. The audio
nuts say that tube audio is superior, produces better sound.

Generally tube SSB/CW types don't claim that. I have tube radios
because they are inexpensive and I can fix them. Solid state
radios could be just as maintainable but the manufacturers make the
parts too small for me to work on. My SB-104A and SB-303 are
really tube style radios (except for the 104A's digital readout),
mostly big, cheap common parts.

It wasn't just the economics of kits, the Hallicrafters, National,
etc were done in by something else.

In the 1960's, during the ramp up to Incentive Licensing, Wayne
Green was blustering and pounding the table about how Japan, which
was toying with both no-code and a low-barrier licenses, would
produce millions of engineers and technicians, Their skills would
design and build products that would dominate ham radio and
eventually electronics.

While other factors contributed to the die-off, there is no question
that Wayne called it exactly right. Remember in the 1960's, there
was essentially no Japanese amateur radio gear imported, except for
that mechanical key and maybe code practice oscillators..

It probably wasn't until the early 1970's that Yaesu and Kenwood
showed up. Now ICOM, Japan Radio, and others have the lions share
of the market.

What happened to Hammarlund? EF Johnson? Were there fire sales
every year at Dayton? What happened to the last run of HQ-215's or
the last batch of NC-270's. Did National ever make a solid state
radio, other than the HRO-500?

When they turned the lights out at Hallicrafters, were there a batch
of SR-500's in a warehouse that took that last ride to Dayton?

Did people see bins of bare chassis or front panels at the tailgate
sales? Incomplete NCL-2000's?

I'm guessing that the die-off happened about 1970, give or take a
few years. I didn't go to Dayton until around 1980 so I missed it.

I also stopped reading the ham magazines between 1966 and almost
1980.

By the by, I'm here because I have started collecting and restoring
boat anchors. I believe these are valuable collectables and that
in 5, perhaps 10 years, these old radios will be incredibly
expensive. Currently the prices are rediculously low but that is
about to change.

Current prices are low because as hams age and go to the QSO party
in the sky, their prized radios are being dumped on the market,
primarily eBay.

If BPL doesn't kill HF and I don't think it will, not because we
will defeat it but because cable, DSL, fibre to the home, sat, and
Gen-3.5 cell fones will crush the interest in BPL, the proposed
no-code Generals and the almost no-exam entry HF licensees
will double and triple the interest in Ham Radio.

When that happens, everything Ham Radio, especially the historic
radios that have "class" will soar in value.

Even if that isn't a factor, the weird, useless stuff that people
collect, pottery, knick-knacks, wood furniture, carvings, Hummels,
and so on, if an HT-32B appreciates as much as that stuff, it would
be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Maybe that won't happen but when I can buy a 1960's tube radio for a
couple hundred dollars, it seems like a bargain. Especially when
that radio originally cost two or three times that much.

whatever. Tell me your stories from the die-off.

de ah6gi/4

Chuck Harris wrote:
Michael Black wrote:

Chuck Harris ) writes:


All because Schlumberger had to get rid of the kit and computer division
to avoid an antitrust problem when they bought Fairchild.

-Chuck Harris



That sounds a bit garbled.


It isn't, though.


Wasn't Schlumberger out of the picture a lot earlier? Wasn't it Zenith
that bought Heath, in the late seventies or early eighties, leading to a
period when pre-assembled Heath computers were sold as Zenith's?


Schlumberger was/is a conglomerate corporation that is composed of
a bunch of dissimilar companies that they bought up and held... much
like what IBM, GE and Honeywell do. Schlumberger wanted to get into
the semiconducter manufacturing business, so they were looking for
a manufacturing plant to buy... Fairchild was up for sale.

The FTC strongly suggested to Schlumberger that if they bought
Fairchild they MIGHT be taken to court for antitrust violations.
The reason for this is Heath was one of Fairchild's major customers.
The FTC of that time didn't like anything that was vertical in that
way.

So, Schlumberger went looking for a buyer for Heath


[ I just checked my reference, and I missed a step: Schlumberger sold
Heath to Zenith. It was somewhat later when Heath/Zenith developed
its line of computers that Heath/Zenith got bought up by Group Bull ]


buyer was a French company called Group Bull. Group Bull wanted to
enter the personal computer market in the worst way, so when they saw
that Heath/Zenith, a semi major player in the personal computer and
data entry terminal business was up for sale, they jumped. Bull never
had any interest in the Heath side of the business, so at the first
possible opportunity, they pulled the plug. Heath was set off on their
own. With no money, no manufacturing capability, and did I mention
no money?

What you say about the decline of the kit business is mostly true, but
I firmly believe that if FTC hadn't put their nose into the business,
and caused Group Bull to buy Heath/Zenith, there would still be a kit
company.

-Chuck Harris

For a more complete discussion of the life of Heathkit, read:
"Heathkit, A Guide To The Amateur Radio Products," by Penson.

"No Spam " No wrote in message news:ifgU75G3LLdo-pn2-6dc5RepOHFeN@localhost...
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:31:34 UTC, (Michael
Black) wrote:

And I think it was other issues that got Heath out of the kit business.
there was a period when they were selling to a wide range of the public.
...
Michael VE2BVW

All reasonable points but I'm interested in what people observed
happening, not their interpretation of why it happened. You make
good points and are welcome to expand on them but I wonder how the
die-off appeared to folk who saw it happening.

Here's what I saw:

Byt the mid-1960s there was a wide selection of US-made ham gear, new,
kit and used. Surplus was still all over the place and dirt cheap. If
you knew where to look for parts, homebrewing could be done easily.

Heath stuff was OK but not in the same league as Drake or Collins.
Drake was the poor man's Collins, Heath was the poor man's Drake. Swan
was in there someplace but opinions varied widely on it, and no
serious contester or DXer used Swan stuff. Hammarlund, Hallicrafters
and National were still in business but not nearly so popular as
Collins/Drake/Heath/Swan

There were a few Japanese imported rigs, but they were generally
considered to be inferior. Some were disguised - most Lafayeete stuff
was "imported", and the popular Henry 'Tempo One' was actually a
rebadged Yaesu FT-200.

All this may seem like BA nirvana but there was one big problem: Very
few rigs did everything well.

What I mean is that most rigs lacked basic features that we take for
granted today. Consider the SB-100 - nice SSB rig, 100W, 80-10. Pretty
good on SSB. But it had no provision for a sharp CW filter, no RIT,
and no AGC off/slow/fast choice. No processor or noise blanker,
either. The later SB-101 and -102 added the sharp filter option but
kept the other problems.

Now if you spent the money for an SB-300/400 pair, you could have a
sharp CW filter and AGC selection, plus independent control of
transmit and receive freq. But no transceive-with-RIT, no processor,
no noise blanker, and you had two boxes and their interconnecting
cables.

Similar problems dogged almost all other makes and models. There was
always something left out that could have been easily incorporated,
but wasn't in the designer's vision.

Most of the ham gear outfits were not as big as we hams like to think.
In the case of Collins, ham gear was a sideline that existed in large
part because Art Collins wanted it that way. Heath sold far more
non-ham kits - we were just one division.

Most of the big names were still being run by their founders. These
folks were getting on in years by the 1960s.

Then in the '70s 'serious' Japanese ham gear began to appear. Yaesu's
FT-101 and the Kenwood TS-520 families showed up with lots of desired
features all in one box, at a reasonable price. They were almost all
solidstate, too.

What American-made setup of the time could compete with a TS-520S? It
was a 100W transceiver that covered 160-10 plus WWV. Optional CW
filter, DC supply and external VFO. AGC switch, processor, fan for the
finals, RIT, etc., etc. All in one receiver-sized box.

Heath and Drake at least tried to compete. But the Japanese had the
advantage of a head start, plus a favorable exchange rate and cheaper
labor.

Heath had the double whammy that their designs could not require
serious test gear for alignment.

The result was that the hams who bough new gear bought so much
Japanese-made and so little American made that the bottom fell out.

By the way, the old Heath Tube-Audio junque commands a premium from
the audio-nuts. I don't know why. It's not like -cough-cough-
tube SSB transceivers.

Three reasons:

1) It's hollowstate

2) It sounds pretty good as-is, and even better with a few mods.

3) It is well documented and easy to modify.

A word about tube audio vice tube (boatanchor) radio. The audio
nuts say that tube audio is superior, produces better sound.

I could give you a pile of reasons for that, but it all comes down to
one thing: What constitutes "better sound" is purely subjective.

Generally tube SSB/CW types don't claim that. I have tube radios
because they are inexpensive and I can fix them. Solid state
radios could be just as maintainable but the manufacturers make the
parts too small for me to work on. My SB-104A and SB-303 are
really tube style radios (except for the 104A's digital readout),
mostly big, cheap common parts.

They're also 30 years old. When I built my HW-2036, the parts looked
tiny. Now they look huge.

It wasn't just the economics of kits, the Hallicrafters, National,
etc were done in by something else.

They did not/could not keep up with the competition.

In the 1960's, during the ramp up to Incentive Licensing, Wayne
Green was blustering and pounding the table about how Japan, which
was toying with both no-code and a low-barrier licenses, would
produce millions of engineers and technicians, Their skills would
design and build products that would dominate ham radio and
eventually electronics.

Wayne was and is full of it.

Japan has had no-code-test ham radio since 1952, when their government
took over the licensing from the occupation government. They got away
with it because of some creative interpretation of the treaty.

They have never had "low barrier" licenses - their written tests are
and were quite involved. Licensing beyond the 4th class required code
tests in both International Morse and Katakana.

While other factors contributed to the die-off, there is no question
that Wayne called it exactly right.

I disagree.

Remember in the 1960's, there
was essentially no Japanese amateur radio gear imported, except for
that mechanical key and maybe code practice oscillators..

Not true. Lafayette was importing ham/SWL receivers from Japan in the
'50s. Allied did the same somewhat later.

It probably wasn't until the early 1970's that Yaesu and Kenwood
showed up. Now ICOM, Japan Radio, and others have the lions share
of the market.

What really happened was that Japan was devastated by WW2, but began a
longterm process of rebuilding everything. It took some years before
they got to niche things like ham gear.

Post WW2 Japan did not get involved in big military spending, a space
program, or foreign entanglements. Their focus was on rebuilding their
country and becoming a world economic and industrial power. Once the
basic industries and infrastructure were rebuilt, they focused on
specific areas like consumer electronics because such items are
relatively small and high-value. And because so much of their pre-1945
industry had been destroyed, everything was relatively new compared to
US industry.

What happened to Hammarlund? EF Johnson? Were there fire sales
every year at Dayton? What happened to the last run of HQ-215's or
the last batch of NC-270's. Did National ever make a solid state
radio, other than the HRO-500?

See above. Their managements reached retirement age and the required
investments in new designs were not made.

Some designs were simply not that good, too. Compare the NCL-2000 to
the Drake L-4B or even the SB-220. The latter are more rugged, less
fussy and use cheaper tubes.

When they turned the lights out at Hallicrafters, were there a batch
of SR-500's in a warehouse that took that last ride to Dayton?

Did people see bins of bare chassis or front panels at the tailgate
sales? Incomplete NCL-2000's?

Some of that. Usually, however, the way it worked was that the last
batch was sold off and then there were no more.

I'm guessing that the die-off happened about 1970, give or take a
few years. I didn't go to Dayton until around 1980 so I missed it.

I also stopped reading the ham magazines between 1966 and almost
1980.

The ads alone tell the story. Collins hung on the longest, I think,
making the KWM-380 because it was part of the deal when Art sold the
company.

Ten Tec apeared in 1968 making little QRP rigs and just kept on
growing. Look at the Orion...

Signal One came and went, but was a factor in "paradigm shift" about
ham rigs.

By the by, I'm here because I have started collecting and restoring
boat anchors. I believe these are valuable collectables and that
in 5, perhaps 10 years, these old radios will be incredibly
expensive. Currently the prices are rediculously low but that is
about to change.

Not compared to what they used to be in the '70s, '80s and very early
'90s. That was a "golden age", in a way. 'Nobody' wanted tube stuff.
You could get all kinds of gear and parts at hamfests for a song.
Examples:

- Working SX-101A in good condition - $35
- Very clean, almost mint working Viking 2 - $35
- Viking Valiant that needed the VFO dial coupling replaced, otherwise
working and good shape: $25
- Unmodified clean ARC-5s - None more than $10. Often a whole batch
for $10.
- Unmodified clean working BC-342-N - $2 (Not a typo - two dollars)
- QSTs back to pre-war: Dollar a year
- Receiving and small transmitting tubes - $1 each NOS, less for used
- I-177 or Hickok 6000 tube tester with book - $10
- 75A-4 receiver, VGC, working, with all mech filters, reduction knob,
book, spare tubes, just aligned - $250

I could go on and on but you get the idea. I didn't get all of these,
but I saw all of them at various 'fests within 2 hours of
Philadelphia.

Current prices are low because as hams age and go to the QSO party
in the sky, their prized radios are being dumped on the market,
primarily eBay.

That was going on 20 years ago, too, only it was at the 'fests.

If BPL doesn't kill HF and I don't think it will, not because we
will defeat it but because cable, DSL, fibre to the home, sat, and
Gen-3.5 cell fones will crush the interest in BPL,

I hope you are right!

the proposed
no-code Generals and the almost no-exam entry HF licensees
will double and triple the interest in Ham Radio.

Maybe, but I doubt it.

The requirements for a ham license have been dropping since 1975. They
were radically reduced (both written and code) again in 2000, but we
have not seen lots more new hams. There are a bunch of reasons, but
I'll name just three:

1) Antenna restrictions
2) Free time doesn't come in big blocks for a lot of folks
3) You are looking at it.

When that happens, everything Ham Radio, especially the historic
radios that have "class" will soar in value.

That started 10+ years ago.

Even if that isn't a factor, the weird, useless stuff that people
collect, pottery, knick-knacks, wood furniture, carvings, Hummels,
and so on, if an HT-32B appreciates as much as that stuff, it would
be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

But it won't because the market for an HT-32B is far smaller.

Maybe that won't happen but when I can buy a 1960's tube radio for a
couple hundred dollars, it seems like a bargain. Especially when
that radio originally cost two or three times that much.

Even more when you adjust for inflation. A 75A-4 in 1959 cost about
$700 - back when $5000 a year was a really good middle-class income.

whatever. Tell me your stories from the die-off.

Just did.

And if you want to see what ham kitbuilding has become, check out
Elecraft.

73 de Jim, N2EY

Signal/One devolved into a criminal operation.

I never heard about this. Can you elaborate?

73, John - K6QQ

On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 23:44:17 UTC, "John Moriarity"
wrote:

Signal/One devolved into a criminal operation.

I never heard about this. Can you elaborate?

Two years ago, I was admiring a boatanchor at a Northern Maryland
Hamfest. Some folk got to talking about Signal/One and a large,
angry fellow started in on XXXX, that S.O.B., if I ever catch
him....

The last incarnation of S/1 was as a rebuilder of ICOM IC-781's,
something about software, filters, the military, or some such.

That fellow had sent his 781 to S/1 along with 6, 8? thousand
dollars. He believes that S/1 sold his radio to someone else, mail
fraud, grand theft, conspiracy to defraud. Donno what actually
happened but I've heard from others that "something wicked"
happened to Signal/One at the end.

Based on multiple reports, I believe that S/1 did turn criminal.

Too bad.

I have a mild interest in S/1. Towards the end of my first phase of
interest, S/1 was advertising heavily. I used to hear contest
stations clip off, "Signal/One Alpha", one word, real fast.

It was out of my price range. 30 years later, I bought a
"guarenteed dead" CX7A off ebay. I've got it working on receive and
am gathering parts to bring the transmitter back to life.

It might be beyond my ability to repair.

de ah6gi/4