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Welcome to Heath, Earl!

Field Day of 1967 was the greatest of all Field Days for me.  That was the year that I became a member of a very special group.  The “Mud Lake Michigan Monster Hunting, Crawdad Fishing, and Field Day Society”.  I had spent time coordinating the three preceding Field Days down at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.  It felt great to be able to participate in one where preparations were taken care of by someone else, and I could just enjoy the benefits.

What was even more exciting was the fact that this one was sponsored and funded by Heath Company.  I was now working for the “World's Largest Manufacturer of Electronic Kits”.  I had used Heath equipment for a number of years, and was lucky enough to be working, and learning how to design kits, for Heath, after graduating in February.

MUD lake, Michigan was a Field Day site that had been used by the Heath group for a number of years during the mid 60's.  I really don't know how many years it had been used, but it was obvious that the group knew its way around Mud Lake pretty well.

The great people I was working with added to the excitement of my first Heath Field Day, making this a fantastic happening for me.  I had no idea at the time that some of the friendships that started that Field Day would help guide my thinking and actions during the coming years.  There was no one there who I ever came to dislike.  In fact, they were all great guys that totally lived up to the things that have made Ham Radio the great hobby that it is, and Heath the great Ham Radio company that it was through the years.  I still remember everyone who was there.  Some of the names I don't recall, because of our short acquaintances, but their personalities and their actions I will never forget.

I do remember the names of two men who were to make the greatest impressions on me and have the greatest effect on my life during the years that followed.  I am sure that they never knew it, because, like most of us, I have never thanked them for it.  It is a shame that we can't occasionally walk up to a friend and say, “Thanks.”

I don't know who was in charge of the Mud Lake Field Day that year but I do remember that “Diesel” Doyle Strandlun was the man behind the CW site and Dar Evans was the man in charge of the SSB site.  Both Doyle and Dar were engineers in the Ham Engineering Department at Heath.  Even though I was never to work directly with either Doyle or Dar, they are always in my mind, and their approach to the way they treated assignments and people have been guiding stars in my developing heavens since that day in June of 1967, when they unknowingly said, “Welcome to Heath, Earl.”

*  Diesel Doyle was the nickname that Doyle's friends gave him because of the old Diesel Mercedes that he drove and kept patched together with duct tape.

                                          Earl Harris,  1991