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 Goodbye Radio Shack

It's official. Radio Shack is closing their doors. The nearest store to
me (in a big city about 60 miles away), is having a "going out of
business sale". Yesterday it was 80% off almost everything. But there
was little left to choose from. I got a few audio cables, some heat
shrink tubing and a couple 12v 1a transformers. That's about all I could
find.....

This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old electronics
stores, and while they have not had much in recent years, I still liked
their stores, and over the years I found their equipment was made fairly
well.

The guy said they are presently going to keep about 70 stores, which is
about one per state, and they will only be in the very large cities.

This sucks!!!!

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Tue, 23 May 2017 15:58:07 -0400, Michael Black wrote:

On Tue, 23 May 2017, Foxs Mercantile wrote:

On 5/23/2017 1:29 PM, wrote:
This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old
electronics stores


Radio Shack was NEVER an old time radio store.
Except maybe back in the '50s before Tandy Leather bought
them.

Yes. They were traditional when they were a s mall chain in the Boston
area. But they were going bankrupt, which is why Tandy bought the chain.
And one reason Radio Shack was successful after that was that it was
everywhere, at a time when electronics were widening. The average home in
1971, the year Radio Shack came to Canada, had a tv or so, some am/fm
radios, maybe a record player or stereo. But five years later, there were
pocket calculators, digital watches, home computers, tv games, endless
stuff and getting wider, the result of the switch to semiconductors, and
then especially digital ICs. And Radio Shack was there on every corner, a
more familiar place than the old time electronic parts stores that were in
basements away from the mainstream. Radio Shack was niche back then, but
it was a place when a wider audience could get those metal detectors or
shortwave receivers or scanners or whatever without having to go to some
niche store. There was no competition, the others came later. Radio
Shack was there every time something new came along, so you could get that
Casio music keyboard that would sample, even if you were in some small
town.

ANd that's how the parts survived, Radio Shack could sell other things and
carry the parts. ANd it worked. I didn't buy parts there much, too
expensive and limited in selection, but it was convenient. But since I
paid attention and got the catalogs, when I started buying "stereo" stuff,
I bought at Radio Shack, usually when the item was on sale, or better yet,
a clearance item. And I bought a bunch of computers there, since they
were convenient. The catalog gave all the information, I could just go in
and get the item off the shelf.

And then at some point, other companies were doing the same thing, and
Radio Shack stumbled, losing its way.

Michael


So there was a bankruptcy even back then..... I did not know that, but
it seems they have gone thru a lot of them. Two recently.

I never understood the connection with the Tandy leather company. Maybe
there was no "real" connection, just that they bought the business. (Is
Tandy leather still around?).

There was a point when Radio Shack was called Allied Radio Shack. Did
Allied buy R.S. or was it the other way around? I dont know much about
the history, I only recall what I remember over the years. I remember
when they sold Archer brand items too.

However, I was pleased with most if not all of their gear, and I have
quite a bit of their stuff, from a few scanners, a radio, several
multimeters, lots of plugs and connectors, and a video switcher.

I realize their parts prices were on the high side, but I paid the price
because their stores were nearby and handy. Sure beats paying the
shipping from most places, and before the internet buying by mail was
involved, required mouth to mouth discussions and having a pile of paper
catalogs laying around. Far too complicated just to get a resistor,
capacitor, phono jack or semiconductor. It was easier to drive to R.S.
and just buy it. But I do agree their parts in recent years were very
skimpy and limited.

Regardless, I liked their stores and will miss them.....

The only reason I even found out that they were closing is because the
9volt battery connector broke on my portable weather radio, so I stopped
at R.S. to buy one. (I did not know they were closing). I had no problem
paying probably about $4 for one of them connectors. Now, I'm stuck
ordering one from ebay (I found a pack of 5 for about $3), but I hate
having to wait a week or more to get small parts like that, and my bench
piles up with projects waiting to be repaired, while I wait for parts.
Lately, when I buy a part, I usually buy 5 or more and keep them on
hand, so I have that stuff here. Its costing me more to stock all that
stuff in the end, but there is no way around it....

What once took a day or two to repair something sometimes takes months
now, because I have to keep waiting for each and every part I need.
Radio Shack provided a good service in that sense, and I was willing to
pay their prices for the convenience. Now they are gone, and I'm not
happy about it....





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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Tue, 23 May 2017, Foxs Mercantile wrote:

On 5/23/2017 1:29 PM, wrote:
This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old
electronics stores


Radio Shack was NEVER an old time radio store.
Except maybe back in the '50s before Tandy Leather bought
them.

Yes. They were traditional when they were a s mall chain in the Boston
area. But they were going bankrupt, which is why Tandy bought the chain.
And one reason Radio Shack was successful after that was that it was
everywhere, at a time when electronics were widening. The average home in
1971, the year Radio Shack came to Canada, had a tv or so, some am/fm
radios, maybe a record player or stereo. But five years later, there were
pocket calculators, digital watches, home computers, tv games, endless
stuff and getting wider, the result of the switch to semiconductors, and
then especially digital ICs. And Radio Shack was there on every corner, a
more familiar place than the old time electronic parts stores that were in
basements away from the mainstream. Radio Shack was niche back then, but
it was a place when a wider audience could get those metal detectors or
shortwave receivers or scanners or whatever without having to go to some
niche store. There was no competition, the others came later. Radio
Shack was there every time something new came along, so you could get that
Casio music keyboard that would sample, even if you were in some small
town.

ANd that's how the parts survived, Radio Shack could sell other things and
carry the parts. ANd it worked. I didn't buy parts there much, too
expensive and limited in selection, but it was convenient. But since I
paid attention and got the catalogs, when I started buying "stereo" stuff,
I bought at Radio Shack, usually when the item was on sale, or better yet,
a clearance item. And I bought a bunch of computers there, since they
were convenient. The catalog gave all the information, I could just go in
and get the item off the shelf.

And then at some point, other companies were doing the same thing, and
Radio Shack stumbled, losing its way.

Michael
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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Tue, 23 May 2017 15:31:24 -0500, amdx wrote:

On 5/23/2017 1:29 PM, wrote:
It's official. Radio Shack is closing their doors. The nearest store to
me (in a big city about 60 miles away), is having a "going out of
business sale". Yesterday it was 80% off almost everything. But there
was little left to choose from. I got a few audio cables, some heat
shrink tubing and a couple 12v 1a transformers. That's about all I could
find.....

This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old electronics
stores, and while they have not had much in recent years, I still liked
their stores, and over the years I found their equipment was made fairly
well.

The guy said they are presently going to keep about 70 stores, which is
about one per state, and they will only be in the very large cities.

This sucks!!!!


The last one in my town closed about two weeks ago.


According to the guy at my local one, they are all closing or have
already closed in the last month. This one will be closed the last day
of this month. There is so little left that they may as well be closed
already but they are also selling shelves and parts of the store's that
are not attached to the walls of the building. I offerred to buy the
small parts drawers, but they were already sold and paid for. But he
said the buyer has to wait till May 31 to pick them up.
Some of the largfe shelves were already gone and there were 8 or 9 boxes
of cables and cords on the floor because they did not want to hang the
stuff again.

I asked if I could make an offer for an entire box of those cables, but
he told me to come back around the 29th or 30th. He said right now he
must still sell everything at the percentage off rate that corporate
told him to do. I may make a trip there on the 29th just to see if I can
get boxed deals.

I got a laugh, because I found a connector in the parts bin that was not
in a bag, and he said although all small parts were priced at $1 each,
he could not sell that plug without a part number, but since I spent
over $25, I could have it for free as a bonus. That was nice of him!




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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Tue, 23 May 2017 17:04:56 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article , says...

On 5/23/2017 1:29 PM,
wrote:
This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old
electronics stores


Radio Shack was NEVER an old time radio store.
Except maybe back in the '50s before Tandy Leather bought
them.

They sold predominately cheap import stuff.
Middle management was draconian at best. Always grinding
on the store managers to meet constantly changing quotas.
No amount of mismanagement or corporate greed could save
them.


Most of the components seemed to be low quality.

The manager of the local store 40 years ago had a major complaint with
the company. Whatever was on sale, the company would ship him many of
the items. He had an alotment of so many dollars. He may wind up with
half of that in antennas that he could not sell, but could not order
many of the items he could sell.

Even back in the 1970's I almost never bought anything from them in the
parts line. They did sell a few nice large items. Bought one of the
Model 3 TRS 80 computers from them, and a nice police scanner.


One part I seem to find that is more often than not, the correct size,
are those stereo 1/8th inch plugs that plug into a computer or MP3
player. They almost always seem to be a sloppy fit and get noisy because
of loose fitting.

I bought several cheap ones on ebay and they were all crappy (from
several sellers). I bought a Radio Shack one on Ebay for 3 times the
price of those cheap ones and it fit perfectly. The seller had 3 left. I
bought all of them, even at $6 a piece. I dont know why no one else can
make them things to fit properly, but I was happy to find some that did
fit and not annoy me with crappy sound.

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Tue, 23 May 2017 13:59:25 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

We still have these guys: http://store.acradiosupplyinc.com/

They may have a gussied up website, but they are still an 'old time' radio store with
wooden floors, bins and hang-racks. And I can get a 'onesie' on a Saturday afternoon.

Not cheap. But, there.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA


I wish we had that nearby!!!

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

We still have these guys: http://store.acradiosupplyinc.com/

They may have a gussied up website, but they are still an 'old time' radio store with wooden floors, bins and hang-racks. And I can get a 'onesie' on a Saturday afternoon.

Not cheap. But, there.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA
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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On 5/23/2017 3:47 PM, Foxs Mercantile wrote:

Middle management was draconian at best. Always grinding
on the store managers to meet constantly changing quotas.


Yup, had a GREAT manager at the local RS -- helpful, knowledgeable, a
really nice guy. Sadly, they fired him because of the bogus quotas.

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Tue, 23 May 2017 16:15:39 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 May 2017 17:04:56 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...

On 5/23/2017 1:29 PM,
wrote:
This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old
electronics stores

Radio Shack was NEVER an old time radio store.
Except maybe back in the '50s before Tandy Leather bought
them.

They sold predominately cheap import stuff.
Middle management was draconian at best. Always grinding
on the store managers to meet constantly changing quotas.
No amount of mismanagement or corporate greed could save
them.


Most of the components seemed to be low quality.

The manager of the local store 40 years ago had a major complaint with
the company. Whatever was on sale, the company would ship him many of
the items. He had an alotment of so many dollars. He may wind up with
half of that in antennas that he could not sell, but could not order
many of the items he could sell.

Even back in the 1970's I almost never bought anything from them in the
parts line. They did sell a few nice large items. Bought one of the
Model 3 TRS 80 computers from them, and a nice police scanner.


One part I seem to find that is more often than not, the correct size,
are those stereo 1/8th inch plugs that plug into a computer or MP3
player. They almost always seem to be a sloppy fit and get noisy because
of loose fitting.

I bought several cheap ones on ebay and they were all crappy (from
several sellers). I bought a Radio Shack one on Ebay for 3 times the
price of those cheap ones and it fit perfectly. The seller had 3 left. I
bought all of them, even at $6 a piece. I dont know why no one else can
make them things to fit properly, but I was happy to find some that did
fit and not annoy me with crappy sound.

Back in the day, when we had Radio Shack in Canada, MOST of their
product was middle of the road or better. A lot of their stuff was
REALLy good stuff.
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On Tue, 23 May 2017 19:27:39 -0400, Carter wrote:

On 5/23/2017 3:47 PM, Foxs Mercantile wrote:

Middle management was draconian at best. Always grinding
on the store managers to meet constantly changing quotas.


Yup, had a GREAT manager at the local RS -- helpful, knowledgeable, a
really nice guy. Sadly, they fired him because of the bogus quotas.

Here in Canada a LOT of the stores were franchises - locally owned
businesses that HQ could not fire - - -
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On Tue, 23 May 2017 15:52:31 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 May 2017 15:58:07 -0400, Michael Black wrote:

On Tue, 23 May 2017, Foxs Mercantile wrote:

On 5/23/2017 1:29 PM,
wrote:
This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old
electronics stores

Radio Shack was NEVER an old time radio store.
Except maybe back in the '50s before Tandy Leather bought
them.

Yes. They were traditional when they were a s mall chain in the Boston
area. But they were going bankrupt, which is why Tandy bought the chain.
And one reason Radio Shack was successful after that was that it was
everywhere, at a time when electronics were widening. The average home in
1971, the year Radio Shack came to Canada, had a tv or so, some am/fm
radios, maybe a record player or stereo. But five years later, there were
pocket calculators, digital watches, home computers, tv games, endless
stuff and getting wider, the result of the switch to semiconductors, and
then especially digital ICs. And Radio Shack was there on every corner, a
more familiar place than the old time electronic parts stores that were in
basements away from the mainstream. Radio Shack was niche back then, but
it was a place when a wider audience could get those metal detectors or
shortwave receivers or scanners or whatever without having to go to some
niche store. There was no competition, the others came later. Radio
Shack was there every time something new came along, so you could get that
Casio music keyboard that would sample, even if you were in some small
town.

ANd that's how the parts survived, Radio Shack could sell other things and
carry the parts. ANd it worked. I didn't buy parts there much, too
expensive and limited in selection, but it was convenient. But since I
paid attention and got the catalogs, when I started buying "stereo" stuff,
I bought at Radio Shack, usually when the item was on sale, or better yet,
a clearance item. And I bought a bunch of computers there, since they
were convenient. The catalog gave all the information, I could just go in
and get the item off the shelf.

And then at some point, other companies were doing the same thing, and
Radio Shack stumbled, losing its way.

Michael


So there was a bankruptcy even back then..... I did not know that, but
it seems they have gone thru a lot of them. Two recently.

I never understood the connection with the Tandy leather company. Maybe
there was no "real" connection, just that they bought the business. (Is
Tandy leather still around?).

There was a point when Radio Shack was called Allied Radio Shack. Did
Allied buy R.S. or was it the other way around? I dont know much about
the history, I only recall what I remember over the years. I remember
when they sold Archer brand items too.

However, I was pleased with most if not all of their gear, and I have
quite a bit of their stuff, from a few scanners, a radio, several
multimeters, lots of plugs and connectors, and a video switcher.

I realize their parts prices were on the high side, but I paid the price
because their stores were nearby and handy. Sure beats paying the
shipping from most places, and before the internet buying by mail was
involved, required mouth to mouth discussions and having a pile of paper
catalogs laying around. Far too complicated just to get a resistor,
capacitor, phono jack or semiconductor. It was easier to drive to R.S.
and just buy it. But I do agree their parts in recent years were very
skimpy and limited.

Regardless, I liked their stores and will miss them.....

The only reason I even found out that they were closing is because the
9volt battery connector broke on my portable weather radio, so I stopped
at R.S. to buy one. (I did not know they were closing). I had no problem
paying probably about $4 for one of them connectors. Now, I'm stuck
ordering one from ebay (I found a pack of 5 for about $3), but I hate
having to wait a week or more to get small parts like that, and my bench
piles up with projects waiting to be repaired, while I wait for parts.
Lately, when I buy a part, I usually buy 5 or more and keep them on
hand, so I have that stuff here. Its costing me more to stock all that
stuff in the end, but there is no way around it....

What once took a day or two to repair something sometimes takes months
now, because I have to keep waiting for each and every part I need.
Radio Shack provided a good service in that sense, and I was willing to
pay their prices for the convenience. Now they are gone, and I'm not
happy about it....



Radio Shack, by the late 60s, had stores in Boston and Portland Maine. Tandy bought them and a few years later bought Allied which was out of Chicago.


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They're long gone in central Virginia.

There is nowhere else to get a connector or other small part locally. Big box home improvement stores don't have anything close, and the specialty hardware stores were driven out of business long ago.

Yeah, you can get cheaper and better stuff online, but you can't have it when you need it.
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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Tue, 23 May 2017, Carter wrote:

On 5/23/2017 3:47 PM, Foxs Mercantile wrote:

Middle management was draconian at best. Always grinding
on the store managers to meet constantly changing quotas.


Yup, had a GREAT manager at the local RS -- helpful, knowledgeable, a really
nice guy. Sadly, they fired him because of the bogus quotas.


That's some of the mythology of the place.

People complain about "Got questions? We've got answers", because they
took it literally. When in reality it wasn't that they'd be a source of
information, but having that adapter fo solve a problem.

I don't think the chain ever deliberately hired "technical people". But,
lots of people need jobs, and retail often means flexible schedules. So
the teenager interested in electronics would apply for jobs at Radio
Shack, since it was in line with the hobby. And I seem to recall
something about an employee discount, which had to be good.

So in the seventies I certainly had friends who worked there.

But I think with time, it became a less interesting place to work, more
about consumer electronics than hobby type things, so the hobbyist was
less likely to apply. Or maybe it's that "electronics" became mainstream,
so any kid with a cellphone applied, fancying himself as a "stereo whiz"
or something, so the hobbyist had competition.

Michael

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On Wed, 24 May 2017 07:49:59 -0500, Chuck wrote:

Radio Shack, by the late 60s, had stores in Boston and Portland Maine. Tandy bought
them and a few years later bought Allied which was out of Chicago.


It's crazy how businesses merge and re-merge, and unmerge. The only
connection that Tandy had with Radio Shack was that both were for
hobbiests. (Entirely different hobbies).

Allied Radio is gone, but Allied Electronics remains today (their
commercial business).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Electronics

Since I was on Wiki, I looked up Radio Shack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RadioShack

It's a long article and quite interesting. As technology changed, so did
R.S. (This article is worth reading).

In that article it says that May 31, 2017 is the official closing date
for most stores (except private ones_.

That confirms it.


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wrote in message
...
It's official. Radio Shack is closing their doors. The nearest store to
me (in a big city about 60 miles away), is having a "going out of
business sale". Yesterday it was 80% off almost everything. But there
was little left to choose from.


A few months ago I found a Radio Shack calculator dropped on the ground by
some recycling bins.

Its an old retro LED job and the = button needs a convincing jab to work -
but it has a proper on/off slide switch that doesn't get knocked on in my
jacket pocket.



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On Wed, 24 May 2017, Ian Field wrote:



wrote in message
...
It's official. Radio Shack is closing their doors. The nearest store to
me (in a big city about 60 miles away), is having a "going out of
business sale". Yesterday it was 80% off almost everything. But there
was little left to choose from.


A few months ago I found a Radio Shack calculator dropped on the ground by
some recycling bins.

Its an old retro LED job and the = button needs a convincing jab to work -
but it has a proper on/off slide switch that doesn't get knocked on in my
jacket pocket.

I'd forgotten about the days of slide switches to turn calculators on and
off.

Though, the TI30 I got in 1976 or so used two pushbuttons for on and off.

And most of the calculators I've had since have had solar power, so I
never worried about whether they were on or off.

Michael

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"Michael Black" wrote in message
xample.org...
On Wed, 24 May 2017, Ian Field wrote:



wrote in message
...
It's official. Radio Shack is closing their doors. The nearest store to
me (in a big city about 60 miles away), is having a "going out of
business sale". Yesterday it was 80% off almost everything. But there
was little left to choose from.


A few months ago I found a Radio Shack calculator dropped on the ground
by some recycling bins.

Its an old retro LED job and the = button needs a convincing jab to
work - but it has a proper on/off slide switch that doesn't get knocked
on in my jacket pocket.

I'd forgotten about the days of slide switches to turn calculators on and
off.

Though, the TI30 I got in 1976 or so used two pushbuttons for on and off.

And most of the calculators I've had since have had solar power, so I
never worried about whether they were on or off.


I have a Casio solar with no battery at all - its allegedly collectible, so
I took the opportunity to put it somewhere safer than my jacket pocket.

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

I still have 3 or 4 free comics they gave away in the 1970's. I think
they were made by DC. They were the last place in town that had a tube
tester and sold tubes. Gold plated pins with a lifetime warranty.
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On 5/24/2017 6:01 PM, C.Copperpot wrote:
They were the last place in town that had a tube tester and
sold tubes. Gold plated pins with a lifetime warranty.


I have about 2 dozen of their gold pin "Lifetime warranty"
tubes that keep at the shop.


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http://www.foxsmercantile.com

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On Wed, 24 May 2017 13:22:20 -0400, Michael Black
wrote:

On Tue, 23 May 2017, Carter wrote:

On 5/23/2017 3:47 PM, Foxs Mercantile wrote:

Middle management was draconian at best. Always grinding
on the store managers to meet constantly changing quotas.


Yup, had a GREAT manager at the local RS -- helpful, knowledgeable, a really
nice guy. Sadly, they fired him because of the bogus quotas.


That's some of the mythology of the place.

People complain about "Got questions? We've got answers", because they
took it literally. When in reality it wasn't that they'd be a source of
information, but having that adapter fo solve a problem.

I don't think the chain ever deliberately hired "technical people". But,
lots of people need jobs, and retail often means flexible schedules. So
the teenager interested in electronics would apply for jobs at Radio
Shack, since it was in line with the hobby. And I seem to recall
something about an employee discount, which had to be good.

So in the seventies I certainly had friends who worked there.

But I think with time, it became a less interesting place to work, more
about consumer electronics than hobby type things, so the hobbyist was
less likely to apply. Or maybe it's that "electronics" became mainstream,
so any kid with a cellphone applied, fancying himself as a "stereo whiz"
or something, so the hobbyist had competition.

Michael

The manager of one of our local Radio Shacks was a HAM radio
operator.
The manager of another was a former military elecronics engineer.
Both could tell you anything you needed to know about CB radios,
Stereo sytems etc and knew their components inside out. Sadly, that
all ended when Circuit City closed the last Canadian Radio Shacks in
2007 -


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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Wed, 24 May 2017 16:01:41 -0700, C.Copperpot
wrote:

I still have 3 or 4 free comics they gave away in the 1970's. I think
they were made by DC. They were the last place in town that had a tube
tester and sold tubes. Gold plated pins with a lifetime warranty.


I dont recall the comics, but now that you mentioned it, I do remember
the gold plated pin tubes. I think R.S. was the only company to make
gold plated pin tubes.

So, if I have one of these tubes and it is bad, where do I go for the
"lifetime warranty".


---
Now I know I'm old. I cant find any store with a tube tester anymore,
and when I went to phone in a complaint about it, I could not find a
single pay phone booth to make the call.
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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

Oh, well. I still have some RS parts on the blue card in the plastic bubble from 1979. Plus I have all 3 of the Transistor projects DIY books from Forrest Mimms and I built almost all of the projects. As a 14 yr old, with no internet, the projects were the only way to learn.

The most fun was the DC to DC converter that could zap people.

I also still have the portable Tandy / RS chess computer with 8 levels.I don't think it works, but I suppose I could get in there and fix it.Never opened it to see if the chips were socketed etc. I got up to level 6 which took a looong time to make a move. Several hours sometimes.
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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On 05/25/2017 09:10 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 05/23/2017 02:29 PM, wrote:
It's official. Radio Shack is closing their doors. The nearest store to
me (in a big city about 60 miles away), is having a "going out of
business sale". Yesterday it was 80% off almost everything. But there
was little left to choose from. I got a few audio cables, some heat
shrink tubing and a couple 12v 1a transformers. That's about all I could
find.....

This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old electronics
stores, and while they have not had much in recent years, I still liked
their stores, and over the years I found their equipment was made fairly
well.

The guy said they are presently going to keep about 70 stores, which is
about one per state, and they will only be in the very large cities.

This sucks!!!!


I bought up all the BNC connectors/automotive switches/guitar effects
box switches from my local store; 6 packs of nickel-plated brass RG-58
and RG-59 crimp-on/twist on connectors with gold contacts, usually
around $18 a pack. IIRC got 20 packs of different types for about $1.50
each.

Also bought up all their TO-3 power transistors (2N3055 etc.) for around
30 cents each


I have more connectors than I really know what to do with now. If anyone
needs some of this nice stuff for cheap let me know I get you good
price...;-)


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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

My single experience with R/S "Lifetime" tubes does deserve mention. For a few years I worked in Saudi Arabia - and lived in Al Khobar, near the causeway to Bahrain. As we had a 'multiple' visa, we would visit Bahrain about every other weekend for unrestricted shopping and for the many interesting sights and sites. One of the locations visited was the Seef Mall, wherein was a Radio Shack.

I brought a couple of tube-type TransOceanics, and of all things found a Dynaco FM3 at a used electronics souk near Qatif. So, I had some tube stuff. In any case, a 1U4 in my B600 developed an open filament, and it was a R/S Lifetime tube. So, on a whim, I took to to the Radio Shack at the Seef Mall..

The manager looked at it, said "Yes, Sir", and about 3 weeks later, a new 1U4 arrived. No warranty on the replacement, but it was good, and I did not have to pay anything. Service with a smile. This was in 2004.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA
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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 9:16:52 AM UTC-4, wrote:
My single experience with R/S "Lifetime" tubes does deserve mention. For a few years I worked in Saudi Arabia - and lived in Al Khobar, near the causeway to Bahrain. As we had a 'multiple' visa, we would visit Bahrain about every other weekend for unrestricted shopping and for the many interesting sights and sites. One of the locations visited was the Seef Mall, wherein was a Radio Shack.

I brought a couple of tube-type TransOceanics, and of all things found a Dynaco FM3 at a used electronics souk near Qatif. So, I had some tube stuff.. In any case, a 1U4 in my B600 developed an open filament, and it was a R/S Lifetime tube. So, on a whim, I took to to the Radio Shack at the Seef Mall.

The manager looked at it, said "Yes, Sir", and about 3 weeks later, a new 1U4 arrived. No warranty on the replacement, but it was good, and I did not have to pay anything. Service with a smile. This was in 2004.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA



Yep, I've heard similar stories. Some stories including young guns working the counter who didn't even know what a vacuum tube was or why it would have a lifetime warranty. But just as in your case, the tubes were duly ordered and replaced. Some of these were tubes like the pricy 7591s before the Russians started new production of them. I don't know where RS got the replacements but they kept their end of the bargain even if they did spend more to replace the tubes than they used to charge for them back when they were common items.

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Wed, 24 May 2017, C.Copperpot wrote:

I still have 3 or 4 free comics they gave away in the 1970's. I think
they were made by DC. They were the last place in town that had a tube
tester and sold tubes. Gold plated pins with a lifetime warranty.

I can't remember if I ever saw a Radio Shack comic book. I did have a
Tandy Leather comic book in the early sixties.

I still have an Archie comic book from the late eighties or early
nineties, the ARRL organized something so the characters would be in a
special issue about amateur radio.

Michael

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Thu, 25 May 2017, Ancel B wrote:

Oh, well. I still have some RS parts on the blue card in the plastic bubble from 1979. Plus I have all 3 of the Transistor projects DIY books from Forrest Mimms and I built almost all of the projects. As a 14 yr old, with no internet, the projects were the only way to learn.

The most fun was the DC to DC converter that could zap people.

I also still have the portable Tandy / RS chess computer with 8 levels.I
don't think it works, but I suppose I could get in there and fix
it.Never opened it to see if the chips were socketed etc. I got up to
level 6 which took a looong time to make a move. Several hours
sometimes.

And it's probably not the software that's slow, but the processor.

I don't know when it came out, but I suspect it was an 8 bit cpu, which
likely ran at best 2MHz. Compare that with this computer, a Pentium
running at 3GHz, and I bet the same program would give results in a blink
on this (if only the program ran on a Pentium).

Michael

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On 05/25/2017 10:04 AM, Michael Black wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2017, Ancel B wrote:

Oh, well. I still have some RS parts on the blue card in the plastic
bubble from 1979. Plus I have all 3 of the Transistor projects DIY
books from Forrest Mimms and I built almost all of the projects. As a
14 yr old, with no internet, the projects were the only way to learn.

The most fun was the DC to DC converter that could zap people.

I also still have the portable Tandy / RS chess computer with 8
levels.I don't think it works, but I suppose I could get in there and
fix it.Never opened it to see if the chips were socketed etc. I got up
to level 6 which took a looong time to make a move. Several hours
sometimes.

And it's probably not the software that's slow, but the processor.

I don't know when it came out, but I suspect it was an 8 bit cpu, which
likely ran at best 2MHz. Compare that with this computer, a Pentium
running at 3GHz, and I bet the same program would give results in a
blink on this (if only the program ran on a Pentium).

Michael


Additionally good modern chess programs use lots of different heuristics
to evaluate board positions while avoiding traversing large areas of the
search space.

The Tandy just doesn't have enough memory to store all the tables.
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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Thu, 25 May 2017 09:10:07 -0400, bitrex
wrote:

On 05/23/2017 02:29 PM, wrote:
It's official. Radio Shack is closing their doors. The nearest store to
me (in a big city about 60 miles away), is having a "going out of
business sale". Yesterday it was 80% off almost everything. But there
was little left to choose from. I got a few audio cables, some heat
shrink tubing and a couple 12v 1a transformers. That's about all I could
find.....

This is a sad day..... Radio Shack is the last of the old electronics
stores, and while they have not had much in recent years, I still liked
their stores, and over the years I found their equipment was made fairly
well.

The guy said they are presently going to keep about 70 stores, which is
about one per state, and they will only be in the very large cities.

This sucks!!!!


I bought up all the BNC connectors/automotive switches/guitar effects
box switches from my local store; 6 packs of nickel-plated brass RG-58
and RG-59 crimp-on/twist on connectors with gold contacts, usually
around $18 a pack. IIRC got 20 packs of different types for about $1.50
each.

Also bought up all their TO-3 power transistors (2N3055 etc.) for around
30 cents each


The store I went to, all the small parts in the bins were $1. No matter
what it was. But there were little left.

I got Three 12V and One 24V power transformers for just over $2 each.
That was at 80% off, but the packages on them showed they were OLD
stock, thus old prices. I first grabbed one of each off the shelf, but
for that price, I decided to take all four. That's a steal.

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Default Goodbye Radio Shack

On Tue, 23 May 2017 15:52:31 -0400, wrote:


The only reason I even found out that they were closing is because the
9volt battery connector broke on my portable weather radio, so I stopped
at R.S. to buy one. (I did not know they were closing). I had no problem
paying probably about $4 for one of them connectors. Now, I'm stuck
ordering one from ebay (I found a pack of 5 for about $3), but I hate
having to wait a week or more to get small parts like that, and my bench
piles up with projects waiting to be repaired, while I wait for parts.
Lately, when I buy a part, I usually buy 5 or more and keep them on
hand, so I have that stuff here. Its costing me more to stock all that
stuff in the end, but there is no way around it....


Quick! As fast as you can before it gets away, grab the nearest 9
volt battery. Preferably an exhausted one.

Now take your dykes and carefully peel back the case. Snip the two
metal straps going to the connector on top.

Viola!!!! You now have a brand new, high quality 9 volt battery
connector. Solder your red wire to the big terminal and your black
wire to the small one. Apply a little liquid tape if you think it
necessary.

You've now replaced your defective connector without having to drive
to Rat Shack, pay a piddling amount of shipping from Mouser, etc., or
whine about ebay.

What once took a day or two to repair something sometimes takes months
now, because I have to keep waiting for each and every part I need.


Sounds like extraordinarily bad project management to me. Surely you
don't order each part individually, do you? Hmm, maybe you do. Bad.

Because of our relative locations, I can order something from Mouser,
select the cheapest UPS ground shipping and get it in 1 or 2 days.

John
John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.tnduction.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

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On 5/28/2017 4:07 PM, Neon John wrote:
Sounds like extraordinarily bad project management to me.
Surely you don't order each part individually, do you?


I used to do side jobs in construction.
The plumber that worked with us ALWAYS had to make several
trips to Home Depot for more fittings, and other things.

Finally, Jack, our foreman, asked him, "Are you going out
of business? How come you don't have any inventory on your
truck?"

Because of our relative locations, I can order something
from Mouser, select the cheapest UPS ground shipping and
get it in 1 or 2 days.


McMaster Carr is almost over night. If I order before 9AM.
Same with Mouser.

With a shipping charge of $8 for USPS, I ALWAYS order enough
bits and pieces and extras quantities so I don't have to
immediately re-order the same things.



--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

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