jaymen

Sadly, there is a very short biography on Bob Dunham on the AMA site, so I sent them this as recounted to me by guys like Mathes, Spreng, Novak, Burlile, and Big John, and Zel Ritchie, all of whome I have worked with. Incidentally, I have the very Aerotrol radio system mentioned below, which was Dunham's first R/C rig:


Bob ran a hobby shop in the early 1950s in the Los Angeles area. He was an avid control line flyer and attended a contests at the Sepulveda Basin, which is today the Apollo 11 model flying field. Bob won a prize at one of the contests, which was a radio control transmitter and receiver called the Berkeley Aerotrol system. It used a single tube in the receiver and transmitter, and was a carrier only, relay type system. Bob was fascinated by it and showed it to his brother, Dick Dunham, who had served in the US Coast Guard as a radio and radar electronics technician and therefore was knowledgeable in radio electronics. The two brothers quickly determined the Aerotrol had some limitations that precluded them from attempting to install it in a model aircraft, and instead, they began working on an improoved design that would overcome the limitations of the Berkely system. It was not long before they appeared back at the Sepulveda Basin with their first home brewed radio in a plane and began test flying it. The system they designed turned out to be extreemly reliable and was a consistant performer. Other modelers took notice and asked the Dunhams if they could build them a radio system. Bob, with his brother Dicks assistance, refined the design and began producing transmitters with matching receivers on a special order basis in the back of his hobby shop. It was not very long before he became swamped with orders, as his radio sets were becoming quite popular due to their reputation for being reliable. The radio business grew to the point that Bob had to make a choice between running a hobby shop, or a radio control manufacturing company, and he opted for the latter. Thus, in the back of Dunhams Hobbys, Orbit Electronics had it's humble beginnings. Orbit was so successful that initially, they did not need to advertize as their biggest problem was keeping up with the orders.
By the early 1960s, Bob had set up a really nice manufacturing plant in Garden Grove, on Anabel Avenue, in a brick building. Progressing from escapement/single channel systems, he had begun producing multi channel tone equipment also known as reeds, and updated his electronics from tubes to solid state transitors. At this time the Orbit "black boxes" had gained a solid reputation with sport and contest flyers as being virtually bullet proof due to their reliability and rugged construction. Dunham worked closely with his fellow hobbyists and LARKs club members Howard Bonner and Bill Deans, using their escapements, servos, reed banks and connectors in his Orbit systems, which further improved Orbits reputation as being an industry leader in radio control equipment.
In late 1963, a windfall befell the Dunham brothers: Zel Ritchie the owner of Space Control, Gardena California, who was producing the first four channel full house analog proportional system, transfered his ownership to Orbit. It turns out that Zels accountant had absconded with all of Space Controls funds which left Zel bankrupt. Unwilling to let Space Control collapse, he gave it to the Dunhams, who in turn hired Zel as afull time employee. At this time, the very first digital proportional radios were becoming availlable, which were far more sophisticated that anything Orbit had to offer. Zel, with the Dunhams worked dilligently over the next 12 months to transistorize the tube type Space Control transmitter and refine the airborne components as well, and bring Orbit up speed by being able to now offer a full house proportional system. The revised Space Controls made by Orbit became know as "Orbitrols" and were very popular, despite their $500 plus price tag. In the mean time, Don Mathes and Dough Spreng had struck a deal with Orbit to design them a digital proportional radio, as analog proportinal systems were by comparison heavier, more expensive, and limited to only four functions. Mathes and Spreng had developed the Digicon, which was the first commercially available digital proportional system, but they went belly up due to financial and technical problems. Stung, but not dismayed, they still wanted to produce and market a digital proportional radio, but they lacked the funding and resources to do so. Here is where Orbit came in; Dunham could supply them with cases, servos and joystick assemblies so all they had to do was to build the actual circuit boards and assemble the radio systems. Therefore an agreement between Dunham and the Mathes/Spreng team was arrived at, wherin they would design the Orbit digital proportional radios and also produce their own version under the name of Micro-Avionics in a seperate facility located in Ontario, California. This agreement was kept a secret, but essentially, the Micro-Avionics radios were budget versions of the Orbit systems and were almost identical in their electronic design.
Zel Ritchie was one of the top aerobatic flyers and represented Orbit on the contests circuit. In 1965, with Dr Ralph Brookes, Ed Kazmirski, and Cliff Weirick, Zel went to Sweden as part of the USA aerobatic team and they won the world championship. Sunsequently, Zel and Bob Dunham took a trip to Japan and visited the O.S. factory where they were given a tour of the engine and radio control manufacturing lines. It became apparent to both Bob and Zel that the writing was on the wall for Orbit, and the entire USA R/C manufacting industry, because the Japanese could produce and sell an entire radio for system for about what the parts cost domestic companies...there was no way they could compete with that. Upon their return to the USA, Zel Ritchie, tired and frustated, left Orbit to pursue othe more lucrative ventures. In the wake of this epiphany, Dunham set about increasing his production and re-vamped his Anabel Avenue facility with new production lines and equipment. Almost everything needed except the electronic components was made in house by Orbit to control quality, and costs. Orbit was now in it's first year of producing digital proportional radios, although their analog "Orbitrols" continued to be produced due to their popularity. In the mean time, Micro-Avionics was having trouble paying their bills and ran up quite a tab for parts and components with Orbit. On several occasions, Dunham had to write checks just so Micro-Avionics could make payroll and keep their doors open. This fact, combined with increasing competion from Japan, and other emerging companies like Kraft, put more pressure on Orbit. When Bobs good friend Howard Bonner closed his R/C business in 1969, he made the decision to sell Orbit.
Datatron, who produced time code generators and readers for tape and film editing purchased Orbit electronics with the idea of dominating the radio control industry, in no small part this was based on Orbits reputation as an industry leader. When they aquired Orbit, they also aquired Micro-Avionics' debt to Orbit, making them the new defacto owners of Micro Avionics as well. Doug Spreng had left Micro-Avionics and gone to England, thus Bob Novak had been hired in his place, and Micro-Avionics had just released,their XL-IC series radios he had designed using the first generation of Motorola integrated circuit chips (ICs). Unfortunately for Novak, and Datatron, the Motorola chips had an unseen fatal flaw as they were not moisture proof and became intermittant in a humid environment. This sealed Micro-Avionics fate, and Datatron management closed down the facility in Ontario, laid off most of the Micro-Avionics staff and consolodated the two operations in a new facility in Santa Ana California.
Although the Dunhams had sold Orbit to Datatron, they still remained connected and involved with the company: Dick was still the head electronics consultant, an Bob became one of Datatrons main component suppliers. Dataron had been so eager to purchase Orbit that they failed to realize one very important aspect of the sale, which was that in the deal, Bob Dunham retained all the metal fabrication and injection molding operation and equipment and formed a new company called Dunhams R&R. This meant that he was now the sole supplier to Datatron of all the control sticks, cases and servo mechanics, as well as any other snall injection molded plastic parts. it turns out that this was the most profitable aspect of the business, something Dunham had learned from Howard Bonner. Because of this, and their lack of experience in the R/C industry, plus the Micro-Avionics debacle and a number of other very poor decisions, like moving production of circuit boards to Mexico, Dataron ultimatly damaged Orbits reputation which allowed companies like Kraft to take over a big chunk of their market share. By Christmass eve of 1975, Dataron had lost so much money running Orbit, and had other problems as well, that they closed dowm Orbit/Micro-Avionics for good. Many of the skilled Orbit staff, such as Chuck Hayes, Joe Martin, and Dick Raihling wound up working at Kraft. It has been said by many ex-Orbit employees that under Dunham, Orbit electronics was like one big hobby shop and a spawning ground from which many people went on to carrers in the R/C industry. Such was the carefree and easy going manner of the owner, Bob Dunham.
Dunham's, and Orbit legacy does not end with Datatron, as one individual, named Jim Burlile related to me. Jim and Eloy Marez, along with a couple other technicians were retained by Datatron to do the obligatory warranty service on radios they had sold. Jim had been the top technician and assumed the designer duties and role at Orbit. He had built several prototype radio systems that incorperated novel features like dual rates, exponential and roll buttons, and a special single stick version he used for pylon racing. Hugh Milligan made a deal with Datatron to buy out the remaining Orbit parts inventory and take over the factory service and repairs. As part of the deal, he aquired Jim Burlile and a few of the remaining techs so he could have them do the repairs and service. Jim showed Hugh his custom prototypes, the ones Datatron had decided not to produce due to new tooling costs, and together they set down and designed the Millcott Specialists radios, which like the Kraft signature series became one of the first "super radios". Thus the next generation of Orbits were essentially the very last unreleased Orbits which Burlile and Millgan re-engineered and refined into what were arguably some of the finest American made radios produced in the 1970s.
In the mean time, Dunham continued to produce a line of plastic injection molded servos and joysticks which were used by many other R/C manufactures. When I went to work for tekin Electronics in 1988, Dunmham was molding all of our R/C products plastic cases and parts Havasu. Bob continued to be a top name and supplier to the R/C industry of highly accurate and detailed plastic injection molded parts up until his passing in 1995. He was always very knowledgeable and helpful, and a great guy to work with, I for one miss him.