TE SYSTEMS JOINS TPL COMMUNICATIONS WITH HENRY RADIO AMPLIFIERS
csm...@cogeco.ca
The following was posted on the QRZ forums.
by Robert L "Bob" Burchett WB6SLC of Henry Radio Amplifiers.
Many of you will recall Dave Anderson of TE Systems in Los Angeles; Dave was a closet genius in my opinion having worked with him for many years; he went to college alongside Ted Henry and occasionally Ted would buy a specialty amp from Dave that Henry didn't make. Dave didn't pass away; he has dementia so bad that he has not been able to care for his amplifier business for many years and some months back I was called by his even closer friend; Barry N6VOH who had sent a TE amp to Dave for repair. Well Dave never remembered the event and Barry's amplifier has never been found but that prompted me to go and meet with Dave and convince him to let me recover any customer amplifiers that had been sent to TE for repair. Me & my big mouth now has both feet in there when over a period of 4+ months of cleaning and rooting through the rubble that was Dave's shop we have now pulled out 60+ customer owned amplifiers in various stages of disassembly but nothing repaired. Most are in boxes that have never been opened. What a disaster.
The reason for this news article here in QRZ is to alert all of you to tell your friends who might happen to have a TE amp that got sent to Dave and summarily "forgotten" since Dave has no memory of them being there. Please forward this around and let everyone who may have been affected by their amp being lost in the "TE Black Hole" that was Dave's shop; we may have it now relocated to OUR shop in Torrance and if we can find it and you still want it fixed we may be able to help you out. This is the craziest story I have ever heard much less told to anyone.
After many trips to TE we believe we have all of the amps out and we have also found a small stash of repair parts such as the COR keying board which seems to have a bad reputation for burn out and we can still buy most transistors for them which are usually the problem. Dave built quite beautiful amps and now after close to 6 months of time working on them AND we were able to recover Dave's extensive notes, schematics and parts lists (which we will be poring over for many months I can assure you!) we have begun to dig out from the disaster that was TE Systems to recover what amplifiers can be reunited with customers.
SO the good news is Dave is doing fairly well physically and his brother is working to take over and move him into a retirement community and at 80 years he is quite mobile, still walks the dog but doesn't remember how to pay his phone bill, has forgotten the website credentials (it is still down with little hope of recovery) no email and his apartment mailbox is so jammed with unopened mail that I doubt it can be opened up to clean it out. Dave has become very isolated due to no close relatives nearby so his brother will be visiting this week and he & I will go check in on him and see if there is anything left we can do. In the garage/ carport is a very clean looking 1981 Jaguar XJS covered up that clearly has not been run in many years....anyone have an interest in it? Let me know.
Reply email to me directly at
and that is the website where you can see the current product line as we now take care of not only Henry solid state amps but also TPL Communications which I was able to save the domain & telephone number from vanishing in the Internet drain. DO forward this around and keep the thread going. 73 from
Bob Burchett trying to wear 3 hats......