Heathkit

Lore & Background

The Heath Company was founded as an aircraft company in 1911 by Edward Bayard Heath with the purchase of Bates Aeroplane Co, soon renamed to E.B. Heath Aerial Vehicle Co. Starting in 1926 it sold a light aircraft, the Heath Parasol, in kit form. Heath died during a 1931 test flight. His company went bankrupt, reorganized, and moved from Chicago to Niles, Michigan. In 1935, Howard Anthony purchased the bankrupt Heath Aircraft Company's name, and focused on selling accessories for small aircraft. He had little success until World War II brought a military contract to make aircraft parts. The company grew from five to 125 employees. After the war contracts were canceled and Heath shrank back to five employees. Anthony decided that entering the electronics industry was a good idea, and bought a large stock of surplus wartime electronic parts with the intention of building kits with them. In 1947, Heath introduced its first electronic kit, the O1 oscilloscope with 5-inch diameter cathode-ray tube (CRT) display that sold for US$39.50. With the low price, the O1 became very successful. 500 flyers offering the kit for $39.95 resulted in 350 orders, giving Anthony the funds necessary to hire employees to produce the product. By 1954 Heath had $10 million in annual revenue and Anthony successfully invested in natural gas. In 1954, Anthony was the second head of Heath to die in a plane crash.

After the success of the oscilloscope kit, Heath went on to produce dozens of Heathkit products. Heathkits were influential in shaping two generations of electronic hobbyists. The Heathkit sales premise was that by investing the time to assemble a Heathkit, the purchasers could build something comparable to a factory-built product at a significantly lower cash cost and, if it malfunctioned, could repair it themselves. During those decades, the premise was basically valid. Commercial factory-built electronic products were constructed from generic, discrete components such as vacuum tubes, tube sockets, capacitors, inductors, and resistors, mostly hand-wired and assembled using point-to-point construction technology. The home kit-builder could perform these labor-intensive assembly tasks himself, and if careful, attain at least the same standard of quality. In the case of Heathkit's most expensive product at the time, the Thomas electronic organ, building the kit version represented substantial savings. One category in which Heathkit enjoyed great popularity was amateur radio. Ham radio operators had frequently been forced to build their equipment from scratch before the advent of kits, with the difficulty of procuring all the parts separately and relying on often-experimental designs. Kits brought the convenience of all parts being supplied together, with the assurance of a predictable finished product; many Heathkit model numbers became well known in the ham radio community. The HW-101 HF transceiver became so ubiquitous that even today the "Hot Water One-Oh-One" can be found in use, or purchased as used equipment at hamfests, decades after it went out of production. In the case of electronic test equipment, Heathkits often filled a low-end entry-level niche, giving hobbyists access at an affordable price.

The instruction books were regarded as among the best in the kit industry, being models of clarity, beginning with basic lessons on soldering technique, and proceeding with explicit step-by-step directions, illustrated with numerous line drawings; the drawings could be folded out to be visible next to the relevant text (which might be bound several pages away) and were aligned with the assembler's viewpoint. Also in view was a checkbox to mark with a pencil as each task was accomplished. The instructions usually included complete schematic diagrams, block diagrams depicting different subsystems and their interconnections, and a "Theory of Operation" section that explained the basic function of each section of the electronics. No knowledge of electronics was needed to assemble a Heathkit. The assembly process itself did not teach much about electronics, but provided a great deal of what could have been called basic "electronics literacy", such as the ability to identify tube pin numbers or to read a resistor color code. Many hobbyists began by assembling Heathkits, became familiar with the appearance of components like capacitors, transformers, resistors, and tubes, and were motivated to understand just what these components actually did. For those builders who had a deeper knowledge of electronics, or for those who wanted to be able to troubleshoot/repair the product in the future, the assembly manuals usually included a detailed "Theory of Operation" chapter, which explained the functioning of the kit's circuitry, section by section. Heath developed a business relationship with electronics correspondence schools (e.g., NRI and Bell & Howell), and supplied electronic kits to be assembled as part of their courses, with the schools basing their texts and lessons around the kits. In the 1960s, Heathkit marketed a line of its electronic instruments which had been modified for use in teaching physics at the high school (Physical Science Study Committee, PSSC) and college levels (Berkeley Physics Course).

After Anthony's death, his widow sold the company to Daystrom Company, a management holding company that also owned several other electronics companies. Daystrom was absorbed by oilfield service company Schlumberger Limited in 1962, and the Daystrom/Schlumberger days were to be among Heathkit's most successful despite being Schlumberger's only consumer business. Those years saw some "firsts" in the general consumer market. The early 1960s saw the introduction of the AA-100 integrated amplifier. The early 1970s saw Heath introduce the AJ-1510, an FM tuner using digital synthesis, the GC-1005 digital clock, and the GR-2000 color television set. In 1974, Heathkit started "Heathkit Educational Systems", which expanded their manuals into general electronics and computer training materials. Heathkit also expanded their expertise into digital and, eventually, computerized equipment, producing among other things digital clocks and weather stations with the new technology. Heathkit also produced the TD-1006 light organ kit (1975), which featured a geometric star-burst pattern of 140 lights arranged in alternating color circles. The unit used four bandpass filters at 80, 350, 1000, and 3000 Hz to control red, blue, green, and amber lights respectively, creating visual effects that pulsated, exploded, and pinwheeled with the music. Kits were compiled in small batches mostly by hand, using roller conveyor lines.

Reader's Guide

Heathkit manufactured electronic kits from 1947 until 1992. After closing that business, the Heath Company continued with its products for education, and motion-sensor lighting controls. The lighting control business was sold around 2000. The company announced in 2011 that they were reentering the kit business after a 20-year hiatus but then filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and under new ownership began restructuring in 2013. As of the most recent information, the company has a live website with newly designed products, services, vintage kits, and replacement parts for sale. In August 2023 Heath Company announced its acquisition by Kirkwall (company) as part of a planned expansion in North Dakota, and named former CIA officer and entrepreneur Will Cromarty as President and Chief Executive Officer. The kits taught deeper lessons; a business author writes that "The kits taught Steve Jobs that products were manifestations of human ingenuity, not magical objects dropped from the sky," and quotes Jobs as saying "It gave a tremendous level of self-confidence, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one's environment."

Did You Know?

• Heathkit's first electronic kit was the O1 oscilloscope with a 5-inch CRT, sold for US$39.50 in 1947.
• The HW-101 HF transceiver became so ubiquitous that it is still found in use or sold at hamfests decades after production ended.
• Heathkit produced the TD-1006 light organ kit in 1975, which used four bandpass filters to control colored lights in response to music.
• In August 2023, Heath Company was acquired by Kirkwall and named former CIA officer Will Cromarty as President and CEO.