"Michael A. Terrell" ) writes:
"David G. Nagel" wrote:

No. They were very succussful until another company who's name starts
with a "Z" bought them out so that they could get a foothold in the home
computer business. They ("Z") left Heathkit to flounder without proper
finances until Heath closed. With proper finance and control a company
could succeed with out much trouble. There are several "kit" companies
out there that seem to be doing very well.

Dave WD9BDZ


According to trade journals at the time Zenith wanted to bid on a
large computer contract with the US government, but they were not
building computers yet. So, they bought Heathkit to get their existing
government business, and to get the contract.

Whatever Zenith wanted to do with the company, I don't think it's that
simple.

Circa 1976, Heathkit had to recall a 2M transceiver (I think it was
a handheld) because it was generating spurs, I think in the aero band.
If I recall, it wasn't that it couldn't be a clean output, but that
it couldn't be clean with the equipment the average ham had. So they
called them in, and eventually came up with a new design.

As times went by the equipment became more complicated. And then
it became harder and harder to make them something that anyone could
build. If in the fifties they'd sell a shortwave receiver kit with
the coil slugs "pre-adjusted", a couple of decades later they'd be
selling a kit that had some crucial circuitry in a preassembled module.

Over that same period, they'd be selling tube gear that was well
oriented towards hand wiring (so it made little difference whether
it was wired in a factory or by the end user) to solid state devices
on circuit boards. The latter was more conducive to automated manufacturing,
and the moreso the more years that passed. So the cost of manufacturing
went down (I got my DVD player two years ago for fifty dollars, and that
is far more complicated a device than any Heathkit till at least the
mid-seventies if not later), while the overhead of making something a kit
stayed the same or more.

Remember, Heathkit did not cater to the hobbyist, even if they were
among the customers. Heathkits were intended to be built by anyone.
And they were seen as a way of getting something a bit cheaper if
you were willing to put some time into the project. As time went
on, the automated manufacturing and one assumes overseas manufacturing
lowered the cost of manufactured equipment. A color tv set was still
a relatively major purchase forty years ago, while today if someone
needs a tv set they just go out and buy it that day. There became
less interest in building the kit except by a relative handful of
the population. I would think the mass consumer items, the tv sets
and the Boonie Bikes and such, helped to subsidize the amateur radio
equipment. If Heath had to live off the profits from just the ham
equipment, they wouldn't have lasted so many decades.

But towards the end, they had really complicated equipment for
sale to hams, and likely the "kit building" of those required
less time by the builder than the old gear, and it was expensive.
Heath had become less of a common name, and it seemed like
the later catalogs were slimmer and less interesting than
a couple of decades before.

Combine all these, and the kit business as done by Heath couldn't
survive.

The kit companies that have come along since, they cater to a much
more limited market. They cater to a hobbyist crowd, and while
they may need handholding, one would hope not as much as someone
walking in off the street who's never soldered and wants to save
some money by building that color tv set. Heath spelled out everything
in their manuals, while I suspect many of the more recent kit companies
say things like "stuff the board, solder the components, and then
turn it on" (not so brief, but not nearly as specific as Heath). That
saves money. And if you sell products where the kit building is
as important as the end project, ie a regen receiver kit where someone
can have fun building it and can have fun playing with something new,
but who doesn't expect to use it as a main receiver, then you are
dealing with a different market than Heath, where they were selling
the end items and they had to have a transceiver that was competitive
with what everyone else was selling, be it the HW-100 in the late
sixties or the Yaesu or Kenwood lookalike that was sold towards
the end of the company's life.

Michael VE2BVW