Heathkit: История компании и её электронные наборы

Brand name of kits and other electronic products produced and marketed by the Heath Company

Heathkit is the brand name of kits and other electronic products produced and marketed by the Heath Company. The products over the decades have included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, robots, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and the influential Heath H 8, H 89, and H 11 hobbyist computers, which were sold in kit form for assembly by the purchaser. 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. , 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 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. The company reorganized and moved from Chicago to Niles, Michigan. In 1935, Howard Anthony purchased the then bankrupt Heath Company, and focused on selling accessories for small aircraft. After World War II, 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 display (CRT) that sold for US$39.50 (39.5 in 1947 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years) – the price was unbeatable at the time, and the oscilloscope went on to be a huge seller.

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.

After the death of Howard Anthony in a 1954 airplane crash, his widow sold the company to Daystrom Company, a management holding company that also owned several other electronics companies. 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. Despite being a small trainer kit, it was powerful and flexible enough to be used in rudimentary control systems. In 1978, Heathkit introduced the Heathkit H8 home computer. The H8 was very successful, as were the H19 and H29 terminals, and the H89 "All in One" computer. The H8 and H89 ran the Heathkit custom operating system HDOS as well as the popular CP/M operating system. The H89 contained two Zilog Z80 8 bit processors, one for the computer and one for the built in H 19 terminal. The H11, a low end DEC LSI 11 16 bit computer, was less successful, probably because it was substantially more expensive than the 8 bit computer line. Seeing the potential in personal computers, Zenith Radio Company bought Heath Company from Schlumberger in 1979 for $63 million, renaming the computer division Zenith Data Systems (ZDS). Zenith purchased Heath for the flexible assembly line infrastructure at the nearby St. Joseph facility as well as the R&D assets. The robot included a Motorola 6808 processor, ultrasonic sensor, and optionally a manipulator arm; the complete robot could be purchased assembled for $2495 or a basic kit without the arm purchased for $999. This was the first in a popular series of HeathKit robot kits sold to educational and hobbyist users.

While Heath/Zenith's computer business was successful, the growing popularity of home computers as a hobby hurt the company because many customers began writing computer programs instead of assembling Heathkits. Also, while their assembly was still an interesting and educational hobby, kits were no longer less expensive than preassembled products; BYTE reported in 1984 that the kit version of the Z 150 IBM PC compatible cost $100 more than the preassembled computer from some dealers, but needed about 20 hours and soldering skills to assemble. The continuation of the integration trend (printed circuit boards, integrated circuits, etc. ), and mass production of electronics (especially computer manufacturing overseas and plug in modules) eroded the basic Heathkit business model. Assembling a kit might still be fun, but it could no longer save much money. The switch to surface mount components and LSI ICs finally made it impossible for the home assembler to construct an electronic device for significantly less money than assembly line factory products. In 1995, Bull sold Heathkit to a private investor group called HIG, which then sold it to another investment group in 1998. Wanting to only concentrate on the educational products, this group sold the Heath/Zenith name and products to DESA International, though it still retained the copyrights and trademarks, and had pointers to people that could help with the older equipment. DESA filed bankruptcy in December 2008. The Heathkit company existed for a few years as Heathkit Educational Systems located in Saint Joseph, Michigan, concentrating on the educational market. The Heathkit company filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

In May 2013, Heathkit's corporate restructuring was announced on their website. An extensive FAQ accessible from their homepage stated clearly that Heathkit was back, and that they would resume electronic kit production and sales. On October 8, 2015, Heathkit circulated an email to its "insiders", who had indicated an interest in the company's progress by completing its online marketing survey. It had now secured the rights to all Heathkit designs and trademarks; secured several new patents; established new offices, warehouse space, and a factory in Santa Cruz, California; and had introduced the renewed company's first new electronic kit in decades. Since then, Heathkit has announced and sold further kits in its new lineup of products. In a last minute, four page, center insert to the 1966 catalog titled “New Product News” Heathkit announced the SB 100 five band SSB transceiver. Like the other transceivers of this time, the SB 100 (and later improved models SB 101 and SB 102) would become one of Heathkit's best selling amateur radio products. This included a scaled back, lower priced version of the SB 100 called the HW 100 (later updated to the HW 101) introduced in 1969. While the SB series were affectionately nicknamed the "Sugar Baker" series, the HW series were affectionately nicknamed the "Hot Water" series. In the next three years, Heathkit brought out several more SB series accessories, including a 2 kilowatt input/1.4 kilowatt output linear amplifier, the SB 220. The SB 400 model transmitter was slightly updated with the newer SB 401 model. The final model in the original SB series was the SB 303 receiver, a solid state replacement (in a smaller case) for the SB 301 and its earlier sibling, the SB 300 receiver. The 2000 film Frequency, starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel, featured a Heathkit SB 301 receiver being used with artistic license as a transceiver (film studio prop), although the SB 301 did not have any transmitter stages in it and was not a transceiver. An SB 302 receiver was never produced (no reason ever given for why the 302 model number was skipped) and some hams who worked at Heath hinted that there was talk of a solid state SB 103 transceiver, but it never made it past the proposal stage. The SB series would continue to be improved and sell well until 1974 and the arrival of solid state and digital design, with the SB 104 transceiver, its accessories and a new generation of amateur radio gear. Though somewhat redesigned physically it had a similar appearance to the earlier SB series generation. The SB 670 was a short lived dream antenna tuner that matched the SB 104. Unfortunately, only a few were produced and those were considered "prototypes". However, technical issues with the first production run of the SB 104 led to Heath having to quickly update it with the SB 104A. By that time, amateurs were buying transceivers made overseas being produced for the same amount of money with more features (including the AM and FM modes that the Heathkit SB and HW series did not have) and did not require user assembly. In 1983 Heathkit came out with their last ham radio kit, the HW 5400 transceiver. It was all solid state with 100 watts output on 160 through 10 meters including the newly available WARC bands. Also available was a matching power supply.

In the late 1970s Heathkit redesigned the line again, bringing out a series of transceivers and separates with more advanced digital features and new styling (abandoning the green motif, a distinguishing feature of Heathkits for more than two decades). During the 1980s, with increasing competition primarily from Japanese equipment makers, wide use of automated manufacturing techniques, and increasingly complex designs, it became much more difficult to produce kits that were both easy to construct and feature rich at a competitive price. Heathkit began to introduce models that were unavailable in kit form such as the SS 9000. The SS 9000 is an all solid state, synthesized transceiver covering 160 through 10 meters (including the WARC bands) with 100 watts output. A total of 375 were produced according to the Yahoo Heath user group. This continued until they left the electronic kit business in 1992. , the Heathkit company has been revived, and is offering both newly designed and vintage products for the amateur radio market.