Heath Co./Heath manuals

[R. L. Blaney]

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Filice <jpf at PHOTON.COM>
To: HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV <HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV>
Date: Friday, July 24, 1998 2:19 AM
Subject: Heath Co./Heath manuals


>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.


Hi Heath(ens)
Joe brings up a very good question.  I too feel I was ripped off by the
quality of the product the present management of Heath provides.  I, too,
went elsewhere, got much better quality and more accurate copies, for much
cheaper price.  I know nothing regarding the legal aspect of this operation,
but these other sources are providing a very valuable service to the present
owners of the Heathkit products of the former Heath Company, (as opposed to
the present corporate structure of Heath.)  I am also wondering the same
about the reproduction manuals for other marques, such as Drake, EF Johnson,
(both still in business), Hallicrafters, etc.  Maybe somewhere out here in
the World Wide Wasteland, on these lists, there may be an attorney who may
shed some light.  So, waiting with baited breath,-----
73 es gud hamming, de
Dick, WB8MHE
wb8mhe at bright.net



  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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