Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems.

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Default Singing the praises of the local electronics store

After dicking around for many months trying to find a replacement belt
for my trusty Philips cassette deck, by searching the Web, I did what I
should have done first: went to my local electronics store, after having
seen on a previous visit that they had an assortment of drive belts.

Well, it turns out not only did they have *a* belt which would fit, they
had the *exact replacement*! And not only that, but they had the
foresight to have saved a really old copy of the cross-reference book,
which listed my unit (long out of production: I bought it in new in 1980).

So I'd like to sing the praises of what few remaining local electronics
stores there are. Amazingly, around here (the San Francisco Bay Area),
there are just a handful left, even in the high-tech South Bay (I'm not
counting big places like Jameco here, but talking about old-school
stores where you can walk in off the street and buy a few resistors or
whatever).

And I'd like to give a shameless plug to this particular store, Al
Lasher's Electronics in Berkeley on University Ave. They've been there
forever; they have ton of stuff; they know what the hell they're talking
about, and are not above helping the clueless customer who needs a
replacement thingamajig for their old radio, computer setup, or
whatever, find what they need; I hope they're there for a long time to come.


--
Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo. The German Wehrmacht won World War
II. The United States won in Vietnam, and the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The Zealots won against the Romans, and Ehud Olmert won the Second
Lebanon War.

- Uri Avnery, Israeli peace activist
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery09022006.html)
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EDM EDM is offline
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Default Singing the praises of the local electronics store

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message s.com...
And I'd like to give a shameless plug to this particular store, Al
Lasher's Electronics in Berkeley on University Ave. They've been there
forever; they have ton of stuff; they know what the hell they're talking
about, and are not above helping the clueless customer who needs a
replacement thingamajig for their old radio, computer setup, or
whatever, find what they need; I hope they're there for a long time to come.


I second that kudo. B&M stores like this are worth their
weight in gold these days.



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Default Singing the praises of the local electronics store

"EDM" ) writes:
"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message s.com...
And I'd like to give a shameless plug to this particular store, Al
Lasher's Electronics in Berkeley on University Ave. They've been there
forever; they have ton of stuff; they know what the hell they're talking
about, and are not above helping the clueless customer who needs a
replacement thingamajig for their old radio, computer setup, or
whatever, find what they need; I hope they're there for a long time to come.


I second that kudo. B&M stores like this are worth their
weight in gold these days.

Of course, the real luck is that they've lasted this long.

Most closed down years ago, as rents went higher (or there was redevelopment,
such as the World Trade Center disbursing Radio Row), or the owners got
older and wanted to retire, or the field changed so much with the coming of
ICs (or even transistors) that they decided it was a good time to close
the business. Indeed, a lot of those places survived because they catered
to a general crowd, not just the hobbyist but the repair outlets. But
as electronics got more complicated, the more specific the parts became,
and unlike the days when stocking standard resistors, capacitors and tubes
would cover much of the need, the inventory had to grow large if it could
be of value to the repair of most items.

When I was a kid in 1971, I picked a store out of the Yellow Pages to
get parts for that first project. Wooden floors, a combination of new
parts, surplus parts and even WWII surplus, and the owner took his shift
behind the counter. ON later trips to the store, I discovered it was a
cluster of electronic stores, so my original choice was pretty good. There
was a more service oriented store that had been around forever (wooden
floors too) but also had an amateur radio department, and an upstart
solid state only place, who seemed to get most of his stock from Poly Paks.
All of those stores are gone, some decades back, and only one store that
I know from those early days still exists (but it still has a wooden floor).
One store in another location continued on till about five or so years ago,
and had disappeared when I returned after what hadn't seemed like too long an
absence.

Although, the owner of that first store I went to was mentioned in the paper
recently, and he's still selling surplus (though now manufacturing surplus
rather than war suprlus), but it seems to be reselling to stores rather than
selling to walk in customers.

Michael

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Default Singing the praises of the local electronics store



David Nebenzahl wrote:
After dicking around for many months trying to find a replacement belt
for my trusty Philips cassette deck, by searching the Web, I did what I
should have done first: went to my local electronics store, after having
seen on a previous visit that they had an assortment of drive belts.

Well, it turns out not only did they have *a* belt which would fit, they
had the *exact replacement*! And not only that, but they had the
foresight to have saved a really old copy of the cross-reference book,
which listed my unit (long out of production: I bought it in new in 1980).

So I'd like to sing the praises of what few remaining local electronics
stores there are. Amazingly, around here (the San Francisco Bay Area),
there are just a handful left, even in the high-tech South Bay (I'm not
counting big places like Jameco here, but talking about old-school
stores where you can walk in off the street and buy a few resistors or
whatever).

And I'd like to give a shameless plug to this particular store, Al
Lasher's Electronics in Berkeley on University Ave. They've been there
forever; they have ton of stuff; they know what the hell they're talking
about, and are not above helping the clueless customer who needs a
replacement thingamajig for their old radio, computer setup, or
whatever, find what they need; I hope they're there for a long time to
come.


Unfortunately, most local electronic parts stores (don't even say radio
shack) have gone the way of the DODO bird with this disposable society.

Back in the days of tubes, pre Internet, they were thriving. Then solid
state came in. They would stock ECG, SK replacements and such. This was
not bad, but they were replacements and not original parts. Then
nationwide distributors began to stock ORIGINAL parts at a fraction of
the ECG/SK prices. It was a no brainer to service companies to get
a parts order together and mail order. The bread and butter of selling
tubes and generic semi market was going way down.

Then China came into the picture with no name disposable electronics.
I cannot even ship some of the stuff back to China for what they sell it
for. The number of repair shops shrunk by 1/2 over a 10 year period.
The old guys retired or went out of business. The new guys?
What new guys? The only thing they teach in schools these days is
computers. The old TV repair tech schools are a thing of the past
for the most part. More TV's are put on the curb these days than
repaired. What do you expect when you can buy a 20" color TV for $99?
Most large shops charge more than that for labor these days.
And when the USA DTV changeover takes place in 2009 or so,
the CRT will be near extinct


There are a few holdouts in major markets. But the local parts stores
are a shell of what they once were in the 1960/70's. As is the repair
shop business.

The few repair guys that have found a niche or are the last Mohicans
will survive. The rest are either taking on water or have sunk.
Its easier just to go to wall mart and buy a cheap new pacific rim
TV than get it fixed.

Bob

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