New Radio Shack?

[WRGKMC]

Looks like the new owners haven't got a clue. They are follow the same old failed model they used before selling a streamlined version of the junk that got them in trouble before. They don't seem to understand what gave them their name in the first place, namely electronic parts which attracted electronic hobbyists and repair guys. They could make a mint offering all kinds of kits kids could build. Oh well, lucky we still have the internet for that.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/radioshack-is-dead--long-live-radioshack-141217507.html

[MikeRivers]

No parts? I need a 100 uF 50 v electrolytic capacitor, and I need it NOW (though I'd be willing to wait until 10 AM when the local ex-Radio Shack used to open,

[philboking]

No parts? I need a 100 uF 50 v electrolytic capacitor' date=' and I need it NOW (though I'd be willing to wait until 10 AM when the local ex-Radio Shack used to open, [/quote']

 

Really? I probably have a couple laying around here. Somewhere...

[UstadKhanAli]

Here's the new Radio Shack ad!

[Lee Knight]

Ha! ^^^

 

 

 

From my point of view I really don't see anyway RadioShack could come up with a viable business model. Best Buy seems to be holding on through shrewd maneuvering and buying power. And we all know it's very frustrating trying to buy just a simple USB cable at Best Buy while getting reamed from the rear. So you've got Fry's. Could RadioShack really attempt to take that on? I'm not sure there is enough sentimental endearment towards RadioShack to pull that off.

 

 

 

Lee's uneducated business advice for RadioShack: drop the brick and mortar and go Internet. Use the radio shack brand recognition to win in the search wars online. Specialize in offering everything else under the sun a nerd might want well making available associated items you could get just as easily through Amazon.com using the 'those who bought that bought this too' upsell paradigm.

 

 

 

I just need a USB cable but gosh that solid-state drive looks pretty cool.

[Lee Knight]

Oh... And offer an expedited delivery service club similar to Amazon's Prime. Then you know if you need that little Doohickey that goes inside your 1940s ham radio you can get it tomorrow morning at your doorstep.

[UstadKhanAli]

And piggybacking on that, since electronics parts and that kind of thing can be confusing for many, RS could offer online chatting or a phone number so people could call and try and figure out what they need, which would separate it from Amazon...they'd actually be offering a service similar to what they do now, only without stores.

 

Or they could just keep on selling crappy pay-as-you-go cellphones, batteries and vintage 1970s CB/trucker 8-tracks and die an ugly death.

[MikeRivers]

And piggybacking on that' date=' since electronics parts and that kind of thing can be confusing for many, RS could offer online chatting or a phone number so people could call and try and figure out what they need, which would separate it from Amazon...they'd actually be offering a service similar to what they do now, only without stores.[/quote']

 

"You want a hundred military joke? [translation: 100 mHy choke] We don't have those, but there's a great sale on batteries this week. What wireless service are you using?"

 

Actually, Digi-Key has been helpful the few times I've called to get help finding what I really need among a bunch of similar products in the catalog. And their shipping is either free or sensibly priced. But I can't stop off at a Digi-Key store when I'm out on my morning walk like I was able to do with Radio Shack - two, in fact, within walking distance of my house.

[Lee Knight]

I hear you, Mike. The convenience of the internet comes with a huge caveat. No more brick and mortar.

[blue2blue]

 

"You want a hundred military joke? [translation: 100 mHy choke] We don't have those, but there's a great sale on batteries this week. What wireless service are you using?"

 

Actually, Digi-Key has been helpful the few times I've called to get help finding what I really need among a bunch of similar products in the catalog. And their shipping is either free or sensibly priced. But I can't stop off at a Digi-Key store when I'm out on my morning walk like I was able to do with Radio Shack - two, in fact, within walking distance of my house.

Over-expansion goes before the fall.

 

Just before CompUSA went out of business there were THREE within 2.2 miles of my house -- and the distance between the three stores was even less than that 2.2 miles, my place is 'outside' their (former) locus.

 

Mike's got a good point on expertise. It was generally only by accident when you found a RS employee who knew what was what with electronics. Most of them seemed head-dropped when infants. Trying to explain things to a lot of those guys was like talking architecture to a monkey.

 

And trying to reason with them using logic was clearly a matter of going 'outside the chain of command.'

[Beck]

I can't be too hard on Radio Shack. The Internet has killed everything that made sense before the Internet came. Book stores? What's a bookstore? My kids are old enough to have good memories of trips to the book store and to Radio Shack. But my grandchildren are not. Well, my grandchildren have not been born yet, but have I got stories to tell them about quick trips to Radio Shack for a pack of resistors or something while in the middle of inventing something. I left the soldering iron on sometimes. I can hear them now... "Gosh grandpa, you could have burned down the house! Wasn't grandma mad?" "No, not at the time, but later she divorced me when she found out how much electricity I wasted."

[WRGKMC]

Nothing worse then people calling up and saying "I've got a part in my hands, can you tell me what it is" I'd get those calls from actual techs and my response was, "Hold it closer to the phone, so it can tell me what it is"

 

At least most phones take pictures today which could be used, but it wont. A bankruptcy like that is going to separate the old from the new. Radio Shack can distance themselves from any branded products they sold and supported. They probably aren't going to hire anyone who knows anything about electronics (not that they ever did) and will simply be a retailer of junk you can buy cheaper on line.

[Notes_Norton]

Yep, almost 100 years ago they were a parts store, then sometime in the late 20th century they decided to become a consumer store. I think about the time when Tandy bought them.

 

There are very few parts stores, and many telephone/computer stores. It's easy for a WalMart to under cut phones, TVs, computers, etc., but they won't carry capacitors or potentiometers.

 

Oh well, it's their decision, and I'll just have to do the Internet thing and wait for Parts Express to deliver (and keep UPS or USPS in business).

 

Notes

[WRGKMC]

Yep, almost 100 years ago they were a parts store, then sometime in the late 20th century they decided to become a consumer store. I think about the time when Tandy bought them.

 

There are very few parts stores, and many telephone/computer stores. It's easy for a WalMart to under cut phones, TVs, computers, etc., but they won't carry capacitors or potentiometers.

 

Oh well, it's their decision, and I'll just have to do the Internet thing and wait for Parts Express to deliver (and keep UPS or USPS in business).

 

Notes

 

Both Radio Shack and Allied Electronics were Mail Order catalog companies bought up by Tandy Corporation, the mother company.

Allied was founded as the radio parts distribution arm of Columbia Radio Corporation in 1928. They sold parts via mail order catalogs up until 1970 when Tandy bought them out.

 

Radio shack was started as a one store business in Boston in 1921, mostly selling radio gear. They then developed a mail order business in 1939 and sold their own brands in 1954 called Realist. They were sued by a camera company with the same name and switched to Realistic.

They had a total of 9 stores before being bought out by in 1962 on the verge of bankruptcy.

 

Tandy shut down both companies mail order part of the business. Radio shack was down sized from 40000 to 2500 people and all of the top brass let go. They merged Radio shack and Allied and called it Allied Radio Shack.

 

The company did well up into the 90's reaching a peak in 1998. From there its been a steady decline.

 

Two things that made and broke the company were Cell Phones and PC's. Both are highly volatile markets and the products built by Tandy failed to keep up with the times. They were already outdated when they hit the shelves but the public wanted low prices and that's what they got. Inferior products at low costs. Add to that the online buying over the internet and it eventually took them down.

 

I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did. I think if thay had hired some better engineers to develop some better and unique products they could have lasted allot longer, but there was just too many middle men sucking on the profits and the product quality suffered because of this.

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeRivers]

 

Both Radio Shack and Allied Electronics were Mail Order catalog companies bought up by Tandy Corporation, the mother company.

Allied was founded as the radio parts distribution arm of Columbia Radio Corporation in 1928. They sold parts via mail order catalogs up until 1970 when Tandy bought them out.

 

I still have the CK722 transistor that I saved my paper route money for and bought mail order from Allied in 1955. Radio Shack was the original mail order distributor for that part, but it was cheaper from Allied. I think it cost about $2 back then. I was buying electronics parts from Sun Radio in Washington DC at the time, but they didn't stock transistors yet.

[WRGKMC]

 

I still have the CK722 transistor that I saved my paper route money for and bought mail order from Allied in 1955. Radio Shack was the original mail order distributor for that part, but it was cheaper from Allied. I think it cost about $2 back then. I was buying electronics parts from Sun Radio in Washington DC at the time, but they didn't stock transistors yet.

 

I bought my first crystal radio kit from Allied. I had to wrap my own coil and put it all together of course. The magic of hearing radio without any power source other then the earth itself still mystifies me to this day. I'd likely never had become an electronic tech if I hadn't gotten into kit building at such an early age.

[blue2blue]

It was probably my fascination with intercoms and walkie talkies that drew me into electronic DIY kits. It took a while before I worked my way up to a couple of Knight-Kit walkie talkies (One at a time! Little as lonely as a single walkie talkie!) from Allied. I think I started with a non-Knight super DIY intercom 'kit' (actually the basic circuit embedded in a blob of black epoxy, with printed instructions on hooking up outboard resistors, caps, pots, push-to-talk switches, and speakers. When my dad wouldn't let me saw apart the flip-down portable stereo phono I pushed the family to get with part of our stockpile of Blue Chip trading stamps, I elected to build my own stereo so I could finally get more than 20" of separation between the speakers... at that point, my battery-powered, no-capstan tape recorder I'd got for my 10th birthday started looking a bit lo fi and one thing led to the next and the next and... here we are.

[MikeRivers]

 

I bought my first crystal radio kit from Allied. I had to wrap my own coil and put it all together of course.

My Dad got me a Philmore crystal detector for around an 8th birthday. We wound the coil around an oatmeal box, sanded off a strip of enamel insulation, and mounted it on a board with a hack saw blade as the "tuner."

 

 

[WRGKMC]

I used a piece of pencil lead taped to the end of a safety pin that rested on a safety razor blade as a detector. The carbon and hardened steel acted as diode.

 

Later when my mini reel to reel failed (the heads got dirty and I didn't know they needed to be cleaned) I tool the playback head wires and connected it to the headset connection of the Crystal radio and could hear the radio stations clearly. I then did all kinds of mods to get better reception. I really didn't know much about what I was doing but in one instance I had two coils and had one with the antenna and ground connected and slid it inside the other. I found it would not only tune stations but gave a huge boost to the signal. I didn't realize I had just rediscovered the air core transformer that was used in many radio applications. You'd find them in all kinds of radios back then.

 

Years later when doing repairs I actually came across an imported radio, it must have been something like a Grundig or Tamburg of something similar. When you tuned the stations instead of moving an air core capacitor it had little bicycle type break cables cables that would move the iron coil cores in and out to tune stations. It was actually a wonderful sounding shortwave receiver, they just did everything differently to get the same results.

 

I also liked the EQ in the Grundigs. They had a thumb wheel pots for the EQ bands and when turned they moved a little pin up and down in a display window. Connected to the row of pins was an elastic string which showed you the frequency response curve of the audio bands you were adjusting. Today that's at the heart of all your DAW parametric EQ GUI displays.

[motterpaul]

Fry's is not a national chain - as far I know they are only in the West. But I think Wegman's is another electronics chain in the East.

[WRGKMC]

Fry's is not a national chain - as far I know they are only in the West. But I think Wegman's is another electronics chain in the East.

 

Well they don't have any stores on the east coast, or in every state, but they do have many branches across the country. https://www.google.com/maps/search/Fry's+locations+in+the+usa/@37.6,-95.665,4z

 

They also sell on line so you could call them a virtual store front the same way RS was.

EBay has no store fronts and sells world wide.