HEATHkit cult

[Zuckier, Gerald]

I don't know about everybody else, but my impression of Heath parts
quality is not great. I remember putting together one of their
automotive ignition analyzers for the high school auto shop; had 3
rectifier diodes in the power supply, and one of them looked like the
band was on the wrong end of the bullet shape. Took out the ohmmeter and
it was. So I checked the remaining two; one was correct, and the third
one was open circuit in both directions. 

Flash forward many years to me trying to figure out why my Heathkit TV
was staticy. While fooling around with the tuner sections, just happen
to brush the carbon varistor used to protect from turn on surge.
Immediate static. Home in on this little baby; it was one of the ones
that look like a pencil lead with a crimped on cap on each end; the
crimped on cap on one end was intermittent. Replaced it with a Radio
Shack item. You know parts quality is not good when the Radio Shack
parts are superior.

This would not fly with the current amateur audio crowd. 
Which reminds me: build-it-yourself types ought to check out
http://www.audioXpress.com. They currently put out two quarterly mags,
one for speaker builders and one for generic audio amateur building,
condensed from their former separate mags for tube-type audio, amateur
audio, etc. Also run a little mail order parts service.

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