PAUL: This is Paul Braun, WD9GCO.

My personal history with Bob started in the late ‘70s when a shy, insecure 14-year-old Novice joined the Marissa Amateur Radio Club. Bob welcomed me in and befriended me, and became an Elmer. 

He trusted me to build the diode-matrix board for the repeater’s CW ID’er. And it was on that repeater where a young me would listen to the weekly Westlink Report from an old friend of Bob’s, Bill Pasternak. Westlink Report was the predecessor to what I’m anchoring right now. 

When the FCC changed the CB radio service to 40-channel radios, many retailers were left with a large number of 23-channel radios on their shelves that they couldn’t sell. One such department store in St. Louis knew of Bob and reached out to see if he was interested in them. Bob said, “We’re hams. Of course we are!” And bought all they had. He brought a pile of them to the next club meeting, and we all got one, and then started a project to convert them to 10 meters. Some also learned how to build discriminator circuits to convert them to FM. I still have mine. Bob then contacted Uniden and bought their remaining supply of 23-channel boards, created a chassis for them, converted them all to 10 meters FM, and sold them under the name Melco FM-10 (For Marissa Electronics Company,) the predecessor to the Heil Sound ham radio line of today.

He invited me to hang around the Heil Sound shop in Marissa and talk to me about the speakers and mixers I saw, and told me road stories which in turn sparked the fire that led to a side career in live sound, broadcasting and running my own concert series.

I am recording this right now on a Heil microphone. I use Bob’s mics in my concert mixes. I use a Heil on my ham radio setup. Another innovation that changed the way I do things.

When I was asked to be president of our ham radio club a few years back, a club that was rapidly declining, I looked back on my experiences with Bob’s club and modeled my plans on them. Bob and I discussed all of the things that we had done and what I could do to reignite interest. Our club is now well on the road to a thriving future. 

Once in a while, a person comes into your life who inspires you and changes the course of your life. Thank you, Bob, for being that person for me. You’ve given me many things throughout the years, but the most precious are the memories that I’ll always treasure.

From that 14-year old kid, thank you. Thank you for everything. 73, my friend.

Next up is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.

NEIL: I've known about Bob Heil, K9EID most of my life, but I really got to know him better in the past several years.  He was always very appreciative of everything we do here at Newsline.  

Well, one day I was in Saint Louis to visit some family in the hospital and decided I'd go visit the Heil Sound factory across the river on the way home.  The doors were all locked, and all I could find was an intercom button.  So, I pressed it and someone answered.  I asked if Bob happened to be available, and told her who I was.  After a couple of minutes, she answered yes and Bob said please make sure I don't leave.  After a few minutes, the door opened and I was given a brief tour of the plant when here comes Bob.  He was so thrilled that I stopped in.  He finished the tour including some of his inventions from his early career.  Then, he autographs one of his handbooks and gives it to me along with several items to give away on my podcast, Ham Talk Live.  
Not long after, Youth on the Air started up here in the Americas and I asked Bob for some headsets for the kids to use.  They were on my doorstep within a couple of days.  He always said if there's anything I can do, just ask.  So after the first year at YOTA, we discovered that we needed a lot of noise cancelling.  I was at the St. Louis area Winterfest, and was standing around talking to Bob and said, you know, we could really use some noise cancelling in the shack with all the kids in there at the same time.  Could we get something for that?  His response was - “Have I ever said no to you before?”  “No Bob, you haven’t."  “We'll send you Pro 7s.  How many do you need?”  

Before the next camp, we had all the Pro 7s and accessories we needed.  We never did get that dinner invitation he kept talking about the last few years because of the cancer battles that he and Sarah endured, but I'm glad we were able to visit from time to time and see his passion for ham radio and getting young people into ham radio like - as he often called himself - just a kid from Marissa, Illinois.

PAUL: We continue with Mark Abramovich, NT3V

MARK: This is Mark Abramowicz NT3V, veteran Amateur Radio Newsline staff member and chairman of this organization’s Young Ham of the Year award for more than 20 years.

Like many of our listeners, I met Bob Heil K9EID for the first time several years ago at the Dayton Hamfest – an introduction that was made by our co-founder Bill Pasternak WA6ITF.
Bob was always busy at Dayton – not just promoting his new microphones and headsets and gear for amateurs – but reaching out personally to so many people who just wanted to chat or shake his hand.
It was on one of those occasions that Bill Pasternak learned that Bob had invited Eagles rock band guitarist Joe Walsh, WB6ACU, to come to Dayton on a Saturday for a brief visit and to spend time with his long-time friend – Bob Heil.
I got in touch with Bob and at Bill’s suggestion asked if we could get an interview with Joe for Amateur Radio Newsline.
Of course, Bob said “Why not?” and agreed he could set it up.
I arrived Saturday morning at Bob’s Dayton booth to check on Joe’s estimated time of arrival.
But Bob had some disappointing news. He told me Joe had called him to say he couldn’t make it.
He said The Eagles were on tour, actually I believe they were somewhere in Kentucky for a concert. Joe said when he told the guys in the band his plan to jump on a small plane to fly to Dayton for a couple of hours and come back in time for the show the band said: “No way.”
It was raining that Saturday and no one wanted Joe to get into a small aircraft or go anywhere – period.
Anyone who knows something about the history of rock n roll knows a handful of well-known performers died in small plane crashes in bad weather.
Bob told me he understood Joe and the band’s decision. I was disappointed, but understood, too.
Bob was gracious about the whole thing and said someday we’d hook up for an interview. Unfortunately, that never happened.
But I won’t forget how much it meant to Bob to try and get Joe onto Amateur Radio Newsline.
Bob was a big supporter of Newsline and was a major sponsor of our Young Ham of the Year Award. Bob and Bill Pasternak were the best of friends and I was humbled to be part of their orbit.

PAUL: And finally, Stephen Kinford N8WB

STEPHEN: One of my recollections of Bob Heil, was at the original Dayton Hamvention back in the Audio Alley as they used to call it.  And, I was talking with him and asked him if would ever think about taking his little red Amateur Radio Handbook and modernize it to a standard that ARRL was using and several other companies had been using, where its a little bit wider footprint.  He said yeah he'd been thinking about it but no real plans.  the very next year I asked him the same question there at the Dayton Hamvention Audio Alley, he said, you know I've been kicking it around a lot I really think I'd like to do it let me get back with you this fall. Well he contacted me that fall, he had already had all of the original text, typed or scanned in.  And, he said would you be able to do this cause I told him I would love to be part of the project, and I said sure. So I learned Adobe InDesign we got the book back into it's original text and we added additional text, I scanned all of the photos from the original book and then he gave me some new photos that he wanted in the new sections of the book and it was released.

Bob Heil: But the big focus here for us this year is our book and a thanks to a lot of people a Stephen Kinford being probably one of the most valuable. We were able to take our book of 1976 and we've enhanced it, a lot of the old stuff left there but we also put a lot of new stuff in it.  And it's really been successful here everybody’s thrilled with it.  And I'm honored to bring things to this industry that haven't been here before.  You look at handbooks today and oh my gracious it scares you to death you got to be an engineer, no, this handbook is written for everybody so were very very happy to have it.

It was a really good project that I was able to be part and parcel with him on and that was a nice memory for me working with Bob Heil and getting to work on that with him.  And also he had called me up this last year 2023, and said that he wanted to do his autobiography, so, that was the last time that I talked with Bob.  I was hoping to be part of that project but a, hopefully somebody on his team or in his family will get that rolling, cause I think that would be a great book for people to know who Bob Heil was and all the many things that he was blessed to do. This is Stephen Kinford N8WB, with my memories of Bob Heil.

PAUL: From all of us at Amateur Radio Newsline, thank you.