Zenith Company News and other Documents

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by drh4683

Max, thanks for posting all of these! They are great! Its interesting how in just a few of these surviving newsletters, I know some of the people named, some are even family.

First off, I see Wayne got his name mentioned in the April, 1982 issue for receiving or having filed for a patent in 1981. My cousin, David Utt, was also shown in the March, 1982 issue on page 1. Dave joined Zenith engineering back in 1981. I need to send him this one, he'll really enjoy seeing it if he doesn't already have a copy himself.

Another guy I know is Gus Theodos who was shown on page 1 of the March, 1980 issue. Gus worked as a line troubleshooter in plant 2 on Austin Ave. starting back in the 60's as I remember him telling me. He had a lot of great stories working at Zenith. Once he left Zenith in the 80's, he joined in ownership as a service technician at "Better Audio & TV" in Elmhurst, IL which was one of the local TV shops I used to go to when I was a kid. Gus was one the few TV guys who always helped me whenever I was looking for tubes and was always a kind man. I'd call him on the phone and I'd rattle off some of the tube numbers I'd be looking for and he'd guess what chassis the set had that I was working on. He'd typically give me the tubes for a deal since I was only about 12 years old or so at the time, or he'd just give them to me for free if they were good used pulls. I haven't heard from him in probably 10 or so years now after he shut down the business.

Wow, I never knew Gus worked for Zenith. I used to visit Better Audio & TV repair a lot back when I lived in Ill. George Wilder was the other partner in the business, and the one who got me started fixing the tube radios I had been collecting. I have not seen Gus since they closed, but George still shows up Radiofest some years. I seem to recall Gus did not like the way they went out and he and George had a falling out.