cb@hlwpc.UUCP (Carl Blesch) (01/07/85)
>What is Heathkit coming to? Maybe they will be Heathassembled next year. -- >Bill Loeffler Without making too offensive a digression in net.audio, let me offer my thoughts on what Heathkit's coming to. I'm no electronics whiz, but I could hold a soldering iron and follow Heathkit's excellent kit-building instructions. Ten years ago, Heathkit represented a way for me to get a particular electronic item (e.g. stereo) at a price well under a similar assembled item, or to get an item that didn't exist in the outside world (e.g. digital clock -- Heathkit had one long before you could find them in the department stores). Now, kits offer no savings, and items that were once unique to Heathkit are now everywhere in the general market. Carl Blesch
jans@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman) (01/08/85)
In article <458@hlwpc.UUCP> cb@hlwpc.UUCP (Carl Blesch) writes: >Ten years ago, Heathkit represented a way for me to get a particular >electronic item (e.g. stereo) at a price well under a similar assembled item, >or to get an item that didn't exist in the outside world (e.g. digital clock >-- Heathkit had one long before you could find them in the department >stores). Now, kits offer no savings, and items that were once unique to >Heathkit are now everywhere in the general market. Hmmm... Let's thumb through the latest Heath catalog... A robot for under $600... A National Bureau of Standards linked digital clock for $250... A computerized weather station for $400... Solar energy kits, audio spectrum analyzer, computer interfaced ham radio equipment, hand-held frequency counter, a line of test equipment under $50 each, video fish finder, computer and electronics training courses, IBM compatible computers... Yup, you're right. Why just the other day I saw all these things in K-Mart. (Or perhaps technology is passing you by. Let's move this to net.followup) -- :::::: Jan Steinman Box 1000, MS 61-161 (w)503/685-2843 :::::: :::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans Wilsonville, OR 97070 (h)503/657-7703 ::::::
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (01/10/85)
> Hmmm... Let's thumb through the latest Heath catalog... A robot for under > $600... A National Bureau of Standards linked digital clock for $250... I cannot address the value of the other items listed, but these are both overpriced worthless junk. The craze for "robots" has created a market for essentially worthless devices that perform no useful function. A "robot", to have any value, must perform a useful function as an independent mobile unit. Anything the current batch of "robots" can do can be done better and cheaper by existing devices (burglar alarms, etc.). We'll have a useful robot when it can do dishes or use household appliances (vacuums, toasters, etc.) made for human use. The "NBS-linked" clock is a piece of trash. We have discussed this rather thoroughly on net.ham-radio some months ago and I won't repeat all that here again. Suffice it to say that the radio receiver circuits built into this clock fail to perform adequately to keep it slaved to the NBS time signals, and, when it runs independently, it is simply inaccurate! See Larry Magne's review of this that was aired on Radio Canada International and might be reprinted in Radio Database Int'l or the World Radio TV Handbook. Also, Heath just came out with a new shortwave receiver. Though a kit, it is priced higher than factory assembled radios like the Kenwood R-600, and has much poorer performance. Again, this was reviewed by Magne on RCI, and was termed a major disappointment. Heath could redeem itself -- it isn't too late. They should: a) get out of computers entirely. Return to their traditional lines and base. b) cut costs by eliminating all these silly retail outlets. Return to pure mail order operation out of the home site. c) develop and market a line of test equipment that clearly offers the performance of factory-built gear at a lower LIST price than the DISCOUNT price of the Japanese assembled stuff. It needn't be innovative or spectacular; they can copy existing circuits and equipment designs and use different cosmetics. (For example, they should sell an RF signal generator with a built-in line power supply and a simple dial readout for $79.95 -- you'd use your frequency meter instead of having to have a high-accuracy readout on the generator box itself. A decent 3-inch 'scope kit for $150 or so, etc.) d) produce a good shortwave receiver kit, digital readout, with few frills but decent filters for selectivity, for $200 tops. e) sell a line of audio gear based on REAL audiophile interests, such as the stuff described in The Audio Amateur and Speaker Builder. and so on... I'm sure others have their own particular desires and suggestions. The point is that Heath locked up a segment of the market and then shafted it by poor performance and bad behavior. This wouldn't matter if there were three other electronic-kit vendors out there competing equally; Heath would then simply get killed off by natural selection. It IS a problem because Heath is the ONLY firm in the business (there are a few other companies selling a couple kits each, but nothing really equivalent). When they die off, there will be no replacement, and everyone interested in kit-built electronics will have nowhere to turn. Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) (01/14/85)
Remember that the economics of kits have changed. In the days of tubes and hand-wiring, there was a considerable savings in labor to be had by building a kit. These days, what with automated part placement and wave soldering, final assembly costs comparatively little -- but writing and testing an instruction manual still costs a lot.
karn@petrus.UUCP (01/15/85)
> Remember that the economics of kits have changed. In the days of tubes > and hand-wiring, there was a considerable savings in labor to be had > by building a kit. These days, what with automated part placement and > wave soldering, final assembly costs comparatively little -- but writing > and testing an instruction manual still costs a lot. This is very true. The most cost-effective kits are those that still require a lot of manual labor to assemble, either in a factory or at home. A good example is the Heath H-19 terminal; the digital board came preassembled but the kitbuilder built the monitor board (lots of large discrete components) and put all the subassemblies together. This seems to be an optimal practice, although one generally competes for the value of his time with workers in Hong Kong or Singapore, not the US. Phil