Radio Shack May Be Finished

[BISCUT]

Originally Posted By: bubbatime
I am absolutely SHOCKED that they hung around this long. They should have went out of business ten years before Circuit City did.

In this retail market, you either adapt or die, and this company never adapted. Cell phone sales are there bread and butter. Really!!??


+1 They had a big fat zero for a vision! Their stores were so drab and there was no consumer confidence in many of the labels they were carrying.

 

[Donald]

Some 30 or 40 years ago there was Allied Electronics and Lafayette Electronics and Radio Shack. I think Allied merged with Radio Shack and became Allied Radio then Radio Shack. Something like that. I remember buying an electric guitar from Lafayette Electronics.

This was back when Heathkit was around and people bought discrete electronics and built things. Then came ICs and things were never the same.

Radio Shack would not be my first choice store to go buy a cell phone.

 

[Win]

I worked there for a few years in the middle 70's after school and on weekends. I was 16 and it was the first job I ever had that I got to stay clean and didn't sweat. Made $1.90 / hour plus commission.

When Mr. Tandy had it, it was a well oiled machine. He had his own factories to manufacture many of his products, and had other well known makers assemble other products. If we didn't have it, Allied probably did and we could still get their stuff even after the antitrust debacle.

Many small electronic repairs were done on site at the back workbench (by me) while the customer waited and we had a real guy just down the street who did everything else.

I think most of the stores were like that in the good old days.

I don't know when they lost their way, but I'd say they were done when they became cell phone shack and started selling the same stuff you could get anywhere else, instead of their unique, private label goods.

I still have an unbuilt kit of that little transistor regen pictured above (it uses PNP germanium transistors, iirc) , as well as some of their other kits.

When the new catalogs would roll in, we would get them by the truckload, literally, and people would line up for them like the dolts outside an Apple store.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: R80RS
I built my first radios as a kid from Radio Shack "Archer" and "Science Fair" kits. They were very challenging and educational. I don't think kids today have anything like these kits to learn basic skills and engineering.

Actually, Elenco, makes (or made until very recently) some very nice solder kits where the parts are laid over the schematic diagram that is silk screened on the PCB. They also have a pretty good theory section in the instruction manuals.

They're still available on Ebay. I've been picking them up for our newest child in the event (hope) he will like radio as much as I did as a kid.

 

[Vikas]

Originally Posted By: Trav
They should have gone this route. One of my all time favorite brick and mortar stores.

http://www.conrad.de/ce/
I am only guessing but the stuff that I could make out seems to be typical stuff that DealExtreme sells aka made in far east countries! I never knew you liked that kind of stuff

 

[Eddie]

My GO-TO store growing up was Allied Radio where I bought resistors, capacitors and a host of stuff to build most anything electronic. Their gone and now Radio Shack too. Sad

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: R80RS
I built my first radios as a kid from Radio Shack "Archer" and "Science Fair" kits. They were very challenging and educational. I don't think kids today have anything like these kits to learn basic skills and engineering.

Part of the problem is that this radio is so low tech as to be laughable--it's not usable today. Back in the day, it tuned the world, and taught how to do so, using start of the art tech (well, at least contemporary technology). Today an AM radio brings in a talk show from the other side of town that only plays talk radio. It's not relevant; building a kit like this doesn't teach much for skills, nor provide entertainment.

Entertainment. People who built these in their spare time may have been learning something, but IMO they did it to amuse themselves. Whether or not it was soldering something or listening to the world, they were doing something that burned time, their spare time. Lose that ability to amuse, and a technology dies off.

 

[Volvohead]

I have a lot of good memories of RS from the '60s and early '70s.

Not surprised though. The radio, DIY, and electronics hobbyist has died off. They should have gone completely over to home computers by the 80s. They waited too long, and then it was too late.

Once they started competing on major brand products with Best Buy and every other mass market electronics retailer and phone kiosk, the writing was on the wall. The same mistake that helped to tank Sears. I can buy an RCA TV anywhere. Those old house brands and models allowed some differentiation.

When you remember old competitors like Allied (Tandy bought them) and Lafayette, I'm actually surprised RS hung on as long as they did.

 

[leeharvey418]

Originally Posted By: Win
When Mr. Tandy had it...

Can't believe it took until I read that for something to jog my memory.

So many hours of my childhood spent on a TRS-80...

 

[Chris142]

i needed a cb antenna mount and coax last week. they sell cb's still and scanners that use 50 ohm coax but they dont selll any of the needed parts like the mount or coax i needed.

 

[JDW]

I remember this on TV very well back in the day, Sad to see it end.

 

[TooManyWheels]

I imagine KMart will take them over and consolidate them with Sears so there will be all of the things you don't want in one convenient location.

 

[supton]

Radio Shack coax used to be the junkiest, 80% shield, just rubbish. Which is probably ok for the purpose, but nothing of quality whatsoever.

These days, like everyone else, I shop online. Better prices, better selection. I'd pay a few extra bucks to fondle something; but RS stopped having anything of interest for me long ago. Ham radio included.

 

[Volvohead]

At least the memories can live on:

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

 

[javacontour]

I would give them the address and phone number of another radio shack.

Originally Posted By: hoosierrun
Originally Posted By: bubbatime
I am absolutely SHOCKED that they hung around this long. They should have went out of business ten years before Circuit City did.

In this retail market, you either adapt or die, and this company never adapted. Cell phone sales are there bread and butter. Really!!??


I feel the same way. I never liked the store back in its day. I'd buy a $1.50 item and they want your life history at the cash register. The last time I was in there was 8 years ago for a $9 can of contact cleaner. I think they hung around just to bleed the shareholders of all their money.

A very poorly managed business INHO.

 

[eljefino]

I had one of the RS project kits with spring loaded terminals and jumper wires. I got tired of the instructions so I hotwired the 9V battery to the key switch straight to the LED. Hit the switch and the LED exploded and shot a piece of plastic clear across the room.

I showed this to my dad with my "it just happened" face and he put some new LEDs in, but it was never the same.

RS wants the contract ball & chain commission from DirecTV and cell phone outlets.

They were also into sabotaging features to make their lineup make sense. The cheapest police scanner had fewer channels for memory than the second cheapest, and so on. I could get the same scanner chassis from the "real" manufacturer for less money and get more stuff.

I do kinda wonder who'll take their place for tiny parts though. I don't often need a 150 ohm resistor, it doesn't take much space, is probably a nickel in bulk, and I'd pay a buck or two for same-day convenience if I did need one right off.

Noone has yet pointed out their talent pool has or had the same genius that almost sunk Market Basket?

 

[Chris142]

Originally Posted By: supton
Radio Shack coax used to be the junkiest, 80% shield, just rubbish. Which is probably ok for the purpose, but nothing of quality whatsoever.

These days, like everyone else, I shop online. Better prices, better selection. I'd pay a few extra bucks to fondle something; but RS stopped having anything of interest for me long ago. Ham radio included.
i agree but this is just a cheap cb i put in the boss's jeep.i dont expect to talk across the country with it.just jeep to jeep.ended up going to the truckstop to get a mount and coax

 

[Dave Sherman]

Used to be a good customer of RS, and my first job was working there one summer. Loved the electronic kits they had, and I still have the analog multimeter kit I built when I was 10 years old. Got to be on a first name basis with the guys who worked there since I was usually buying parts to tinker with.

Too bad they ditched a lot of their parts, their ham radio gear, and just expertise in general. It's probably been at least a year, and I think the last thing I bought was just pack of fuses. At least they finally wised up a little and stopped doing the name/address/phone gathering if you're just buying a battery. Either that, or they did the trick my colleagues did; use the store's info, which was already known to the computer, and just hope the boss doesn't notice the receipts.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: supton
Radio Shack coax used to be the junkiest, 80% shield, just rubbish. Which is probably ok for the purpose, but nothing of quality whatsoever.


When I worked there, iirc, cable was one of the products that were made in their own factories, their coax cable was US made, and it was good quality in its day.

I think I still have some old pigtails I made up from it, and I'll try to remember to take a look at it.

I know from personal experience their old RG-59 tv coax would handle 600 watts at HF, no problem.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: Dave Sherman
Used to be a good customer of RS, and my first job was working there one summer. Loved the electronic kits they had, and I still have the analog multimeter kit I built when I was 10 years old. Got to be on a first name basis with the guys who worked there since I was usually buying parts to tinker with.

Too bad they ditched a lot of their parts, their ham radio gear, and just expertise in general. It's probably been at least a year, and I think the last thing I bought was just pack of fuses. At least they finally wised up a little and stopped doing the name/address/phone gathering if you're just buying a battery. Either that, or they did the trick my colleagues did; use the store's info, which was already known to the computer, and just hope the boss doesn't notice the receipts.


The name and address thing was for the flyers they sent out in the mail every couple of weeks, and we were told to be persistent in getting it, but it ticked a lot of people off.

I don't recall when the flyers went away.

They also had the free battery / month card back in the 70's, and, like clockwork, some people would come in for their free carbon zinc battery. Most wanted the 9V.

I well remember one lady who had every Tom Jones 8 Track known to man, and would play them over and over again until they were so tight they would no longer play. For the princely sum of $0.50, yours truly would cut the tape, unwind it, rewind it, and splice it, while she waited.

We did lots of little stuff like that for people that couldn't really do things for themselves. Customer service is a lost quality these days.