[TenTec] Lineage of Ten-Tec

[Simmons, Reid W]

Scott;

Thanks for validating this story.  I was born and lived in the Benton
Harbor/St. Joseph area for about 19 years over two occasions.  I worked at
Heath/Zenith and we and Electro-Voice "exchanged personnel" back and forth
over the years.  I think that's where I first heard the part about Al Kahn's
involvement with Heath in the early years - from former Electro Voice people
working at Heath.

It is interesting that Al chose SW Michigan as his place to retire (it's a
GREAT area to live!) rather than Tennessee.  I presume his "K4" call came
from his stay in Tennessee?

Reid, K7YX


-----Original Message-----
From: Ten-Tec Inc. Amateur Radio Sales [mailto:sales@tentec.com]
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 9:10 AM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: [TenTec] Lineage of Ten-Tec



Reid:

The story below is correct.  The PA system referred to was set up
by Al Kahn (K4FW).  Mr. Kahn grew up in South Bend and started
Electro-Voice there in the 1920's and the story of how he named his
company has been accurately repeated to you.   After selling E-V in 
1968, Mr. Kahn bought a 15 acre piece of land and had a two story 
building built right across the street from the Electro-Voice plant in 
Sevierville, TN., and named his new company Ten-Tec. 

Mr. Kahn was also directly involved with Heathkit's beginning's in
Benton Harbor, MI in the late 1940's (just down the road from 
Buchanan).  Mr. Kahn "donated" a train car load of war surplus
electronic parts to Heath, and that load of parts became the 
foundation of the O1 oscilloscope, Heathkit's first electronic project.

Mr. Kahn continues to be the chairman of the board of Ten-Tec,
is still active daily on HF CW and at age 94 is enjoying his 
well-deserved retirement in southwest Michigan. 

Scott Robbins, W4PA
Amateur Radio Product Manager

At 08:34 AM 1/12/01 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Do you know how the name "Electro-Voice" came about?
>
>Since I am from SW Michigan where Electro-Voice currently resides, the
story
>we heard was that Knute Rockne (legendary ND Football coach and professor
of
>Chemistry) needed a device that he could use during practice so that the
>team members could clearly hear him.  This company (then in South Bend,
>Indiana I believe) built him a PA system that Knute referred to as his
>"Electric Voice".  At least that's the story as told around that part of
the
>country.  That was back in the 1930s so some embellishment of the story
>since then is quite possible.  Some say that there were also some ties to
>the Heath Company but I could never substantiate that.
>
>Reid, K7YX
>


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