jaymen

Some other stuff I left out:

Micro was a subsidiary of Orbit, it was a seperate facility run by Mathis, Speng, Joe Martin, and later, Novak was there too. They sold only factory direct at about $100.00 cheaper than the suggested list price of an equivalent Orbit. They at first had all green anodized cases, and the stick assembly was the same as an Orbit. This was a closely guarded secret at first, as it was a way for Orbit to sell radios direct at a cheaper cost to the customer/flyer, and they made more money on them because it cut out the distributor and dealer's disscounts. Orbit did not want their distributors to get mad by selling Orbit radios factory direct, so they created a second brand. With Mathis on a drunk most of the time, and Spreng off flying alot of contests, Bob Novak had alot of time to update the Micro Avionics systems with 1st generation Motorola logic IC chips. Unfortunately, they had bugs in them, especially the receiver, which tended to glitch and latch up at the most inopportune times. This was the ill fated XL and XL-IC series, remember the wood grained cases on the transmitter? Everyone had problems with the first generation of ICs, it was another learning curve for the R/C industry.

Eventually, word reached Dunham, and they ordered several Micro-Avionics radios from Cal Model Supply and put them in several planes. Big John took them out and test flew them...it was pretty hairy as he had to keep them very close to avoid loosing control. One actually was fair, the rest were marginal, and one locked up and augered in, John just could not save it. This was after Dataron had bought Orbit, and the decision was made to close up Micro-Avionics's seperate facility and move them into the Orbit plant under one roof. The XL -IC design was dropped and Orbit PC boards put in orange vinyl clad receiver and transmitter cases, they were really just Orbits, so they had come full circle to where they had started. Rememeber the Micro 71 series? Some of the last Micros were sold retail at the very end, in fact Micros were still being made for a short time after the famouse black box radio production ceased. Datatron had other financial problems, they lost their contracts for time code generation equipement used for film and tape editing, and also over-extended themselves. They never lowered the prices of their radios to compete with Kraft and others, relying instead on the Orbit reputation for sales. Additionally, they did not introduce any really new features and as such in a fast paced industry, they lost their edge. By this time the Dunhams had moved on and lost interest, having made their money on the sale to Datatron several years prior. Ironically, their Cobra and Hawk series pistol grip car radios were years ahead of their time, and the final swan song of Orbit, but it was too late, and the electric car craze was 8 years in the future. Dunham also had plans for a full LCD readout on a programmable radio, stuff like sevo reversing, adjustable rates, exponential throw, the works, but it was only a prototype that never made it into production. Dick Dunham was buisy selling plastic servo mechanics to everyone, and doing other precision injectition moulding projects.


PCS was much the same as Micro-Avionics, but run by Cliff Weirick, and for the same reasons of factory direct marketing to increase profits without causing conflicts with distributors and retailers. Just like Micro-Avionics, you never could buy a PCS retail at a hobby shop unless it was used. By 1969, the new plant in Vista was in full production, and it was not long after that PCS went bye-bye. This happened right about the time that Cliffy got real pissed off about the relaibility of the KPS-9 capacitance feedback servos and stormed out of Kraft, never to return! The capacitive feedback servos were a problem , and Kraft did eventually dump them, on Heathkit!!! PCS never had the problems that Micro did because they were the same design as Krafts. I sure loved Charlene Weirick in those adds, she was a Honey! They nick named her Charlie Brown I'm told, and she didn't stay married to Cliffy all that long either, too bad. Cliffy wound up working for my old boss Lee Renaud, at Airtronics, flying round the country in his plane giving lectures to modeling clubs everywhere. People really liked Cliffy.