The Boat Anchor Manual Archive (BAMA) can no longer offer Heathkit manuals for free, nor can commercial services sell the manuals. A company call Data Professionals now owns the copyrights. Their website states:
Data Professionals of Pleasanton California has purchased the Copyrights and existing inventory of all legacy Heathkit product documentation from Heath Company of Benton Harbor Michigan for an undisclosed amount. The new company will make copies of the original legacy manuals available to the marketplace via its website and through eBay and PayPal.
There’s some more information about this at: http://www.pestingers.net/Heathkit_manuals.htm.
There’s also some debate as to whether Data Professionals owns all of the copyrights or not. Some of the manual may have already passed into the public domain.
It’s kind of sad that these manuals have been pulled, but if the company can actually make a go of providing professional support, then it may be a good thing. I suspect that hams will form an informal network of file-sharing to keep these manuals available for free. We’ll see.
Mike Elsner says
Datapro purchased the factories manual collection, and the right to sell copies of those Legacy Heathkit Manuals from us, it doesnt mean that Heathkit gave up any rights we can still sell copies of manuals.
As an employee of the Heathkit Company it’s I feel like a victim sometimes as the money we make selling manuals pays my salary, it doesnt matter that we have not sold that item for 50 years or not it was our product.
If you call Tech Support for help we are still here… if we chose to send you a copy, or sell you a copy that is our business…
You cant just go to the library and pickout a book and republish for money can you ?
Dan KB6NU says
Mike–
Thanks for your comment and for clarifying this issue. I did know that Heathkit was still in business producing educational products, but I didn’t know that one could still call Heathkit for support on the older products.
You’re correct that you can’t go to the library, copy the contents of a book and re-publish it to make a profit, but you can copy portions of it for personal use. The vast majority of BAMA users were downloading the manuals for their personal use and not to make a profit.
joe says
Hi
i have a heathkit AD-40 that still works great! does anyone have any idea what the value is of a working AD-40 heathkit is? and what is the value of of the original owners manual, that is in good shape, is? i would like to sell it if i can.
thank you,
joe s
Mike Elsner says
People were publishing pdfs and selling them on Ebay…
The only way for Heathkit to find a party willing to service our legacy customers needs and maintain the archive of legacy kit manuals was to help them secure status as a legitimate source.
That means strict enforcement, not so much profit motive per manual but cohesiveness
John says
Mr Elsner,
Please spare us the BS about “not so much profit motive per manual but cohesiveness”. You could have gone after the people publishing and selling on ebay. They would have been easy to find. All you have done is make it harder for people to keep wonderful old technology alive. Don’t think for a second that any one believes that this is not just about making a profit.
BAMA was doing a fine job of “servicing your legacy customers”.
John Hopper
Michael Vitetta says
I know this is many years old but there are many selling the manuals online and NONE are Data Professionals. As a matter of fact, the latest about Data Professionals is that they were acquired by Heath. So why not bring them back?
John West says
Well put, John. Well put.
BTW – my friends (one of them is a former Heath engineer) and I very much appreciate ALL of the manuals you have gathered together. We often attempt to keep alive vintage and otherwise just plain old equipment – both ham tube gear and old test equipment of all sorts.
These days some excellent solid-state test equipment and ham gear is becoming “vintage” and being tossed out simply for lack of tech support and service info.
But we like it. We use it. It’s good gear and the age just doesn’t matter.
It’s a shame you don’t have storage and bandwidth for more sorts of manuals. It can be a real pain dredging the web for them.
Thanks again,
John West
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JOHN EAST says
New to the hobby, and I’ve just bought a Mohican and an RG-1 receiver, but am appalled to discover info on Heathkits is being suppressed by geedy copyright grabbing individuals. The RG-1 in particular appears to be nowhere online, maybe because it was a UK only receiver? If it was possible to buy an RG-1 manual from an official source, even from copyright claiming sharks, I would gladly do so, but it appears having cleared the internet of helpful sources the manual I need is not offered from anywhere.
If I cannot obtain servicing data for my old receiver then there doesn’t seem to be much point entering the Heathkit world.
JOHN EAST says
Well it took me a week but I managed to find a DVD on ebay with all the Heathkit manuals. Even this was a bit sketchy on the RG-1 receiver, but it included a manual on the RA-1 which looks very similar, if not the same.