[WVARC] Henry Radio QRT

[John Orton]

Olympic Blvd. is where the good old HENRY RADIO store was.

LA Radio off Hill St., Dad bought a Hallicrafters S-120 from there when 
it first came to the market at Christmas time, a great gift for me. Gee, 
not too far from the old Heathkit downtown Bldg.

After that I purchased most of my following ham gear from Henry, HT-37, 
(still have one), Central 200V, GSB-201, Gonset G-50, Gonset commIII, 
Dentron match box, Johnson Viking Ranger, waters phones patch, crystals, 
tubes,  and lots of coax.
In the late 60's I bought my first Collins S-line, tower,  two Hygain 
402's and a TH3 from Henry. Purchased most of my gear from that store 
until I moved to the Bay in 71. When I returned in 91 it had changed to 
the dungeon type of store, waiting to die off from the retail business. 
Now there are several items for sale on Ebay from henry's warehouses, 
and of course their Amps are still in production, but sold via the 
internet through RFDan.
Yes HRO did its thing and grew, as well as Jun, a service engineer at 
Henry's, who later opened Jun's electronics in the southern end of 
Culver City, and progressed to a much larger store at Jefferson and 
Sepulveda. Now that too has moved to the second floor of the building 
and is much smaller and doing business via the internet.
A lot of notable hams have emerged from Henry in their younger days, 
Many good chats across the counter as well as DX and contesting.

73 John (Bob)  WA6BOB

Just thought I would add a comment to this article about The Henry Radio 
history.

Joseph M. Wade wrote:

>I had a tear in my eye when Henry moved from Pico Blvd to Bundy.  The
>building and location at Pico was classic.  The Bundy building had no
>charm or personality.  It looked like a sterile office building.  You
>could tell that the sales people didn't like it either.  All of the
>wind was taken out of their sails.  By the way, it allways ticked me
>off that Henry dared put stereo equipment in "our store".  That would
>be like In-N-Out burgers starting to sell burritos.
>
>It took me dozens of trips to Henry's before I bought any equipment. 
>My novice rig was a DX-60B that I built and initially I used a
>Hallicrafters S40-B that belonged to my uncle.  It was a nice
>shortwave receiver but had little selectivity.  So, when I saw an ad
>for a Drake 2C at Los Angeles Radio (anyone remember them?)  I jumped
>at it.  My mom drove me down to L.A. and we picked it up. I spent
>every penney that I had.
>
>My first antenna was a 40 meter dipole.  One of the Henry salespeople
>drew the diagram for me, did the calculations and rounded up all of
>the parts, wire and coax for me.  He also gave me tips and how to
>install it and where.  With two crystals, I worked quite a few states
>and some DX on 15 & 40 CW.
>
>After getting my general I built the Heathkit SB401 xmtr (I think that
>was the correct number) and had a terrible time getting it functional.
> I think the solder was bad because I am, of course, great at
>soldering.  Heathkit had it for about two months and declared it
>fixed.  Not!  It worked for a few contacts and then died on me. 
>Disgusted, I took the SB401, the Drake 2C and the DX-60B to Henrys and
>bought a Swan 350C, TH3Jr, coax, 40 foot push-up and an AR-22 rotor. 
>WVAC members helped me put up the beam and I was in business.  Henry
>was great about the trade-in and as usual, pretty helpful.
>
>When I moved to Orange County, Henry's was in Anaheim.  The store was
>great, but the sales people were not.  Not helpful in any way.  Just
>sat on their behinds all day long.  Meanwhile, a mile away, HRO would
>stand on their hands for you.  HRO had better prices, better service,
>and friendlier people from day one.  All you could say about Henry's
>is that it had more used equipment.  HRO just flat out put them out of
>business.
>
>My last transaction with Henry's was in 1986.  I bought my 2K Classic
>Amp from them.  A two week delivery time turned into 2 1/2 months.  I
>had to call them many, many times to get delivery.  I forget who
>finally got the ball rolling (W6CCP, I think-was he working there?)  I
>got quite an apology and they put the 10 meter coil in for me as well.
>
>I seem to remember getting asked to leave Henry's on Pico once or
>twice when I was with HGU and NWK.  Seems Cy was ticked off for some
>reason.  Bruce and Steve could probably tell you more.  Probably had
>to do with some wise cracks.
>
>I sure miss the rooms full of used equipment.  Even in the late 60's
>most of that stuff was crap.  But it looked so neat.  Lots of knobs,
>the dials were glowing, tubes would light up and they carried all of
>those great names from the past.  And mixed in was some good equipment
>as well, usually even a Collins receiver or a KWM2.
>
>Henry's would let you take home equipment for a test over the weekend.
> A friend of mine, not known to this group, got Henry's to let him
>test an amp over one of the DX contest weekends.  He returned it on
>monday and said that he didn't want to but it.
>
>73,
>
>Joe - ex YNI
>
>On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 18:33:11 -0700, Robert A. Wilson <rawilson at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Nice post Craig.  I remember being quite intimidated as a teenager
>>visiting that store in West L.A.  But I bought my first "real radio"
>>there, a used Drake T-4XB (thanks go N6VI's tip), and I even managed
>>to trade in my old Heathkit HW-16.
>>
>>Eventually HRO put them out of business, because between contesters
>>like W6RJ and DXers like Ted Henry, it's just no contest. :-)
>>
>>I ended up working a few summers at HRO Store #2 in Van Nuys in 1975.
>>The store was managed by Jim Rafferty, N6RJ (SK), and later Al, K6YRA
>>who is quoted in the article.  In those days, Jim and Bob F. were
>>always doing their best to compete with Henry.  And they did a good
>>job.
>>
>>73,
>>Bob, N6TV
>>_______________________________________________
>>Victory through Mug
>>
>>    
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Victory through Mug
>
>
>  
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://loja.kkn.net/pipermail/wvarc/attachments/20041010/a193904e/attachment.htm