Then & Now: Bob Heil, K9EID

1950's
Bob Heil started his theater organ career at the young age of 14, playing in various restaurants and at 15, he started playing the 4 manual Wurlitzer in the St Louis Fox Theater. It was during that time, that Bob learned to listen as he voiced and tuned that 25 year old Wurlitzer monster. Listening and mentally dissecting what he heard would prove to play a very important part in his future. At this same time, Bob became an avid amateur radio operator and fell in love with designing and building all kinds of transmitters, amplifiers and antenna systems.

1960's and 70's
The first half of the 60's Bob was designing, building and playing various theater pipe organ installations in the Holiday Inn North restaurant in St Louis. After playing 8 years, 6 nights a week, he decided to enter the retail music industry opening one of America's first 'pro' music shops in the small Southern Illinois hometown of Marissa. Because of the success of his music shop he was thrust into the rock market. He pioneered the live sound industry with clients such as the Grateful Dead, the Who, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck and scores of major touring acts of the 60's and 70's. It was Bob's unique approach to audio that created some of the most innovative products still in use today. The Heil Talk Box, made famous by Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton and Bon Jovi, as well as perfecting the first electronic crossover were some of Bob's great products. Heil Sound was selected by those sound companies still out there in the trenches today, to receive the first ever 'Pioneer Award' at the 1995 Audio Engineering Society convention in San Francisco.

1980's
As the 80's drew near, Heil Sound entered the amateur radio market to fix a problem that rotted the very core of Bob's most beloved hobby - poor transmitted and received audio. So, Bob applied the science of audio that he learned from the likes of Paul Klipsch, Don Leslie, Martin Wick and studying the Bell Labs Fletcher Munson curves. He developed his HC series microphones which brought maximum articulation to amateur radio communication. The goal of Heil Sound is still; to hear the world better and to improve communication.

1990's
As the nineties rapidly approached, Bob sought to bring the audio and video industry together. Combining thirty years of electronics experience with his passion for the movie theaters, Bob became the "guru" of the home theater movement in America and has designed over 2,000 audio/video systems as well as become one of the premier teachers and lecturers at major electronic and satellite conventions. Heil Sound was awarded the 1989 "Satellite Dealer Of The Year" by the SBCA in Las Vegas.

What's Happening Now?
The Heil professional division brings some new and exciting Heil innovations to the commercial broadcast and recording studio world using many of the techniques Bob learned from voicing and tuning that Wurlitzer theater organ 50 years ago.
Recently Bob was invited into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to put up a display of his historically important gear, including the first modular console (the Mavis) his custom quadraphonic mixer (for the Quadraphenia tour) and the very first Heil Talk Box.
No manufacturer has ever been invited into the Rock Hall before.
In 2007, Bob Heil won the Parnelli Award.

Chip Margelli, K7JA

Chip grew up in Tacoma, Washington, although he was born in Carbondale, Illinois, just down the road from Heil Sound headquarters. He's run three marathons, loves to travel with his wife Janet, and he agrees with Jodi Foster's character in the movie Contact: "If we're the only ones in the universe, it sure seems like a big waste of space."
 
Chip has been licensed since 1963, and an Extra Class licensee since 1968. Chip and his wife Janet, KL7MF live in Garden Grove, California. Chip is Vice-President of the Heil Sound Amateur Radio Division. This former Manager of the Engineering/R&D Department at Vertex Standard U.S.A. (Yaesu), is also a Life Member of ARRL, AMSAT, and Quarter Century Wireless Association.
 
For over forty-two years, Chip has been active in DXing and, especially, international radiosport competition. Among his accomplishments are thirteen First-Place finishes nationally in the ARRL November Sweepstakes, and a number of world-high or national wins in the CQ World-Wide DX Contest, ARRL DX Contest, and CQ WPX Contest.
 
Chip's DXpedition activities include operations from St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Saipan, Micronesia, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Martinique, and Barbados. In 1984, Chip and Janet were invited by the Chinese Radio Sport Association to travel to Beijing for operation from BY1PK and help train the new Chinese operators during the early phases of the rebirth of Amateur Radio in China.
 
In 1989, Chip was honored by being selected to be the American representative in the first-ever Finnish-Soviet-American DXpedition to Malyj-Vysotskij Island as 4J1FS. The following year, Chip and his teammate Mike Wetzel, W9RE, won a Silver Medal at the World Radiosport Team Championship held in conjunction with the Goodwill Games in Seattle, an elite competition featuring twenty-three teams from fifteen countries around the world.
 
And in the Fall of 1991, Chip was a member of the Instructor/Operator team in the IARU Albania Project, led by Martti Laine, OH2BH, which brought about the rebirth of Amateur Radio in Albania after many decades of radio silence. The ZA1A Team's efforts stand as an example of the considerable goodwill that Amateur Radio's ambassadors can provide to the peoples of the world.
 
In 1994, Chip and Janet accepted commissions by two magazines to visit the Havana area to document the participation by members of the Federación de Radioaficionados de Cuba in the ARRL June VHF QSO Party, which included operation as COØFRC, CO2/K7JA, and CO2/WA7WMB. Theirs was the first group of American radio amateurs to be so honored. Feature articles by Chip and Janet appeared in The QCWA Journal and QST in late 1994. In 2003, Chip and Janet and four other members of the Piña Colada Contest Club (KP2AA) joined forces with the FRC in the first-ever joint Cuba-U.S. Field Day operation as COØUS. This operation marks the first occasion where a Treasury Department Specific License was granted for a public Amateur Radio demonstration involving U.S. Amateurs.
 
In May of 2005, Chip and partner Ken Miller, K6CTW, made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on NBC, competing with (and defeating) the U.S. champion cell-phone text messenger in a message-completion speed contest.
 
Chip is currently active on all Amateur bands from 1.8 through 1300 MHz, including HF DX and contesting, VHF weak-signal terrestrial and moonbounce work, and satellite operation. Articles by Chip have been published in QST, CQ, and CQ VHF magazines. Outside of Amateur Radio, Chip enjoys photography, astronomy, and is a marathon runner.