Heath's "cheap" parts: WAS DX-100 Project

[Dick Blaney]

Very well said, Chuck.  You don't see "Heath" quality components used
in todays "rice-box expendables".  Todays crap is meant to be like a
paper cup or Kleenex, use it once and throw it away.  Even after a
horrible abused DX-100 or SB-XXX has bit the dust, it still yields
many very high quality components for the homebrewer or restorer,
almost like a commercial version of the "ARC-5".
73 de
Dick, WB8MHE
wb8mhe at bright.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Penson <wa7zze at JUNO.COM>
To: HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV <HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV>
Date: Monday, June 28, 1999 7:58 PM
Subject: Heath's "cheap" parts: WAS DX-100 Project


>On Mon, 28 Jun 1999 21:56:16 +0100 Steve Harrison <ko0u at OS.COM>
writes:
>At 04:03 PM 1999-06-28 -0500, Don wrote:
>
>>Sorry to disagree, Dick. Heath always used the cheapest and usually
>>the lowest grade of any material available
>
>Sorry to disagree, Don, but there is no virtually evidence to support
>this statement. The fact is Heath bought parts from name-brand
>manufactures. These included transformers from Chicago Transformer,
>switches from Centralab, meters from Simpson and Weston (in the
DX-100
>years), capacitors from Mallory, resistors from IRC, relays from AB,
>connectors from Cinch, tubes from GE, and later on, semiconductors
from
>Fairchild, to name only a few.  And Heath was quick to advertise
this.
>Early catalogs make a point of naming names of suppliers.
>
>Further, Heath specified parts that were well rated for the task at
hand.
>And many parts were conservatively rated.  Evidence of this can be
found
>with no more than casual inspection of the top or bottom of any
DX-100.
>Now and then parts failed but failures were almost always related to
>engineering miscalculations, not the quality of the parts themselves.
And
>of course we can call upon statistics as well. In 500,000 capacitors,
a
>handful are bound to be bad--even with good QA.
>
>The reason Heath was able to buy parts cheaply is because it bought
parts
>by the hundreds of  thousands at a time. (Heath was Fairchild's
single
>largest customer.)  In many cases Heath cut deals with manufacturers
for
>custom made parts.
>
>Heath exhasted its stock of surplus parts very quickly and I doubt if
>very many found their way into amateur equipment (especially after
the
>AT-1), and supposing they had, those parts were originally bought by
the
>military, and the military wasn't buying crap either.
>
>Chuck Penson / WA7ZZE
>
>Sponsored by the City of Tempe
>
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