Heath Co./Heath manuals

[Joe Filice]

Hello to all,

     Out of idle curiosity (not to be confused with idleness),
I have some questions about the Heath Company and its current
policy toward its old kit manuals.  I'm guessing some insight
into this may exist in this varied and scholarly group.
     I became interested in amateur radio a few years back
via an interest in vintage electronics.  I picked up a DX-60
without really knowing much about it.  The only source for a
manual I could think of was the Heath Company.  I didn't even
know if they still existed.  (I built a few of their audio kits
in the seventies, but wasn't interested in amateur radio then.)
Via directory assistance I found there was still a number for
them and ended up ordering a photocopy of the DX-60 manual.
The price seemed pretty steep, I think it came to a little
over $30 with the postage (more than I had paid for the hardware!)
but at least it came complete and legible.  Not long after, I
acquired an Apache and again got a manual photocopy from Heath.
This one was missing random pages, though the test procedures were
complete.  The third and last manual I ever got from them was for
an SB-301.  This one was sort of a mess, though the alignment
and test instructions were complete.  There were no assembly
instructions and the schematic included sections from the
SB-300 (which I suppose isn't all that different).  Also there
were pages from a completely different manual mixed in--believe
it or not from some kind of air purifier!  This would have been
fine if another ham had made the copy for me for a few bucks, but to
charge 30 bucks for something so poor seemed ridiculous.  By then
I realized there were other sources for the manuals, providing a
much nicer product (including binding) and selling them, generally
speaking, for less.  I vowed to never deal with Heath again.
     Recently I noticed their ad in Amateur Radio Trader.  I'm
wondering if, out of the growing realization that there are people
out there who care about their old products, they aren't doing a
better job of it today.  (I would guess that the only motivation
for producing better copies of their old manuals would be pride,
because the money to be made from them must be in the noise.)
The ad says they (Heath) are "the only authorized source for
copyrighted manuals."  Is that true?  Or is, say, a DX-100 manual
in the public domain today?  Is it, strictly speaking, illegal for
someone to profit from the sale of copies of their old manuals?
Personally, I don't look upon it as immoral.
     Anyway, these questions have been rattling around in my head
for a while, but I never had anyone to ask before.  If the subject
has already been run into the ground, then please just point me
in the vicinity of the relevant archive file.  Thanks.

Joe Filice, KQ6GL
jpf at photon.com

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