Saw a post asking about this and I recall a James Knight company -- maybe
making crystals.
Did Allied buy them and then adopt the Knight name to their kits ????

Just a guess
--
The Anon Keyboard
I doubt, therefore I might be

Keyboard In The Wilderness wrote:

Saw a post asking about this and I recall a James Knight company -- maybe
making crystals.
Did Allied buy them and then adopt the Knight name to their kits ????

Just a guess

There were Knight brand consumer radios going back into the mid-30s and
maybe earlier. It is my understanding that this was the same Allied
company. I don't know of any affiliation with James Knight.

-Bill

"-exray" wrote in message
...
Keyboard In The Wilderness wrote:

Saw a post asking about this and I recall a James Knight company -- maybe
making crystals.
Did Allied buy them and then adopt the Knight name to their kits ????

Just a guess

There were Knight brand consumer radios going back into the mid-30s and
maybe earlier. It is my understanding that this was the same Allied
company. I don't know of any affiliation with James Knight.

-Bill

However, they were somewhat close geographically. Allied was based out of
the west side of Chicago (100 North Western Ave.) during it's Knight Kit
heyday. James Knight Crystal Company was located about 40 west of Chicago,
in Sandwich, Illinois.

I visited their plant in 1973, while involved in selling them thermistors.
Sandwich was just a dot on the side of (IIRC) US Route 30, even then. I dug
up a reference that really surprised me:

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/p...ries/_randall/

The lady is saying that she lapped crystal for Knight during World War I!!
If this quote is correct (her memory too), then Knight was making crystals
at a very early time in electronics. personally, I think she must have been
in a time warp.

Here's a more believable citing, where the James Knight company was being
formed at the beginning of WWII:

http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/97/970801/

And another:

http://www.bliley.net/XTAL/Industry-...#_Hlk390359909

Hmmm, looks like they finally left town, one way or another, circa 2003:

http://www.sandwich.il.us/econdev/ctsknights.html

There's even a pix of the vacant plant. As you might expect with a company
that had been a major employer in a little town, there's Knight street,
Knight park, etc....

If you're really obsessed, you might try emailing the local Sandwich
officials for more detail.

http://www.sandwich.il.us/cityofficials.html

Seems that James Knight company became CTS Knights sometime in the 70's; was
that a merger with another local Chicago company called Chicago Transformer?
But that must be another story.

Finally, if you have to name your product line with something symbolic,
doesn't Knight just sound better than Rook or Pawn?

Ed
wb6wsn

Not totally unrelated but interesting:

I worked with a guy who went to DeVry in Chicago and worked part-time,
nights for Allied's Knight-Kit division as a repair tech. He once told me
the story of a Knight AM-FM tuner that was returned from the builder as
non-working.

The tuner had a newfangled Printed Circuit board (this was in the 1950's).
Instructions told the builder to completely fill the PC board hole around
each inserted component and wire. My friend found a shorted IF transformer
on the board and removed it. Thinking the IF can was quite unusually heavy,
he removed the aluminum cover to find the entire interior of the transfomrer
filled with solder! He then checked the remaining cans on the board....you
guessed it, all the same.

He also described a scandal at Knight kit where inside warehouse employees
were filling the dumpster with boxed kits during the day and then retrieving
them at night.
There was supposedly a big investigation and many firings, that was in the
late 50's.

My friend just recently passed away, no more stories, but it was interesting
hearing directly from an old Allied employee....bet there's not that many
around now.




Keyboard In The Wilderness" wrote in message
news:cpPed.62158$hj.52034@fed1read07...

Saw a post asking about this and I recall a James Knight company -- maybe
making crystals.
Did Allied buy them and then adopt the Knight name to their kits ????

Just a guess
--
The Anon Keyboard
I doubt, therefore I might be

Thanks for the story -- I also had a friend William Hazard King (later
N6AEK) now SK who wrote the technical manuals for the Knight Kits. He told
the same story of employees looting the kits by trashing them.
Small world

--
The Anon Keyboard
I doubt, therefore I might be



"patgkz" wrote in message
...
Not totally unrelated but interesting:

I worked with a guy who went to DeVry in Chicago and worked part-time,
nights for Allied's Knight-Kit division as a repair tech. He once told me
the story of a Knight AM-FM tuner that was returned from the builder as
non-working.

The tuner had a newfangled Printed Circuit board (this was in the 1950's).
Instructions told the builder to completely fill the PC board hole around
each inserted component and wire. My friend found a shorted IF
transformer
on the board and removed it. Thinking the IF can was quite unusually
heavy,
he removed the aluminum cover to find the entire interior of the
transfomrer
filled with solder! He then checked the remaining cans on the
board....you
guessed it, all the same.

He also described a scandal at Knight kit where inside warehouse employees
were filling the dumpster with boxed kits during the day and then
retrieving
them at night.
There was supposedly a big investigation and many firings, that was in the
late 50's.

My friend just recently passed away, no more stories, but it was
interesting
hearing directly from an old Allied employee....bet there's not that many
around now.




Keyboard In The Wilderness" wrote in message
news:cpPed.62158$hj.52034@fed1read07...

Saw a post asking about this and I recall a James Knight company -- maybe
making crystals.
Did Allied buy them and then adopt the Knight name to their kits ????

Just a guess
--
The Anon Keyboard
I doubt, therefore I might be

patgkz wrote:
Not totally unrelated but interesting:

I worked with a guy who went to DeVry in Chicago and worked part-time,
nights for Allied's Knight-Kit division as a repair tech. He once told me
the story of a Knight AM-FM tuner that was returned from the builder as
non-working.

The tuner had a newfangled Printed Circuit board (this was in the 1950's).
Instructions told the builder to completely fill the PC board hole around
each inserted component and wire. My friend found a shorted IF transformer
on the board and removed it. Thinking the IF can was quite unusually heavy,
he removed the aluminum cover to find the entire interior of the transfomrer
filled with solder! He then checked the remaining cans on the board....you
guessed it, all the same.

He also described a scandal at Knight kit where inside warehouse employees
were filling the dumpster with boxed kits during the day and then retrieving
them at night.
There was supposedly a big investigation and many firings, that was in the
late 50's.

My friend just recently passed away, no more stories, but it was interesting
hearing directly from an old Allied employee....bet there's not that many
around now.




Keyboard In The Wilderness" wrote in message
news:cpPed.62158$hj.52034@fed1read07...

Saw a post asking about this and I recall a James Knight company -- maybe
making crystals.
Did Allied buy them and then adopt the Knight name to their kits ????

Just a guess
--
The Anon Keyboard
I doubt, therefore I might be







great fondness for knight kits as a "tinkley park" ill HS student

Back Then The precursor to the flea-market was (in CHICAGO) MAXWELL
STREET....a mess of dreck of that type could always be found in
somebodys stall...As kid,I picked up a NIB Hammond Organ 12"
speaker...weighed a TON ! figgerred the magnet must be a beast as it was
enclosed in a can as big as a 16" softball...

Imagine my chagrin when I couldnt get any sound out of it and looked at
a HAMMOND organ schematic and found they used the speaker as a choke in
the plate circuit of the output stage...a damn electromagnet-speaker !

yodar

James Knight Co. was not connected to Allied
They manufactured crystals, oscillators and crystal ovens at least into the
mid
1980's.

James Knight Co. was not connected to Allied
They manufactured crystals, oscillators and crystal ovens at least into the
mid
1980's.

Ah -- thanks
Just wondered

--
The Anon Keyboard
I doubt, therefore I might be



"Kilcummin" wrote in message
news
James Knight Co. was not connected to Allied
They manufactured crystals, oscillators and crystal ovens at least into
the
mid
1980's.

Ah -- thanks
Just wondered

--
The Anon Keyboard
I doubt, therefore I might be



"Kilcummin" wrote in message
news
James Knight Co. was not connected to Allied
They manufactured crystals, oscillators and crystal ovens at least into
the
mid
1980's.