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Posted: 5/8/2017 7:36:54 AM EDT
[#1]
So many choices: Jameco, Mouser, Allied, Electronix Express, and others.
All online. Radio Shack has been the last choice for anything for decades. Welcome to the world of real hobby electronics! |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 7:51:04 AM EDT
[#2]
I had one about 2 miles away, was there last Oct.
Went to get an antenna connector last week and it store was gone for good. I looked up the part number on line and said it was in stock there. 
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Posted: 5/8/2017 7:53:23 AM EDT
[#3]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Realistically I'm missin it. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
What the fuck is Radio Shack! |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 7:59:32 AM EDT
[#4]
Does radio shack even sell soldering stuff anymore? I thought they were a phone store now.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 8:00:10 AM EDT
[#5]
Haven't they been closed for like a decade?
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Posted: 5/8/2017 8:05:05 AM EDT
[#6]
I knew guys that thought the TRS-80 and the "CoCo" were the personal computers to end all personal computers - better than any Apple and way cheaper.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 8:05:22 AM EDT
[#7]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quite a bit of the nicer Realistic stuff was rebadged Pioneer, among other brands. IIIRC, some of the headphones were Koss. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 8:12:40 AM EDT
[#8]
I got my first line of credit from Radio Shack in like 1985 or so for a radar detector. I liked the stores back in the day. I had two years is electronics in high school often part parts for minor repairs. But as time passed electronics got better and cheaper and I lost intrest.
Radio Shack had it's time and place in history. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 8:35:36 AM EDT
[#9]
They started their death spiral years ago when they wouldn't sell you a battery without demanding your name, phone number, and home address.
Now we happily give all that to Amazon in exchange for two-day shipping. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 8:46:37 AM EDT
[#10]
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Posted: 5/8/2017 8:49:27 AM EDT
[#11]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Radio Shack . . . you've got questions; we've got answers. But in the closing years their only answer involved selling me a cell phone plan. Anybody else old enough to remember Allied Electronics catalogs? LINK When everything went to solid state electronics and integrated circuits and was imported from China, everything became disposable rather than repairable. Seriously. I've repaired everything from my kid's belt fed Nerf gun to the power rectifier in my Sony Bravia television. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 9:17:41 AM EDT
[#12]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
They started their death spiral years ago when they wouldn't sell you a battery without demanding your name, phone number, and home address. Now we happily give all that to Amazon in exchange for two-day shipping. I believe they were the first to think they needed your life story; otherwise the magic cash register couldn't ring up your sale. What they were good for back in the day was those scanners. Up until sometime in the 1990s you could buy those scanners and at least some of them had frequency ranges you could unlock. The law changed here in the US in the 1990s to read that cellular users, for example, had a reasonable expectation of privacy and it became illegal to import an unlockable receiver for sale to someone like me. I had the PRO-2006, a receiver that was very, very easy to unlock. You gained the freqs up between 800 and 900 megs. You also gained a previously hidden step. I think it was maybe 12.5KHz. That was what you needed to listen to cellular back in the day. I guess no one needs an antenna on top of their house anymore. RS had their day, but that day ended more than a decade ago. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:16:49 AM EDT
[#13]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
they deserved it. abandoned their base and shilled cheap chinese shit, flimsy RC cars, and trinkets. At the end their hobbyist section was like 4 drawers of shitty switches and low output leds. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:20:25 AM EDT
[#14]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I had one about 2 miles away, was there last Oct. Went to get an antenna connector last week and it store was gone for good. I looked up the part number on line and said it was in stock there. 
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:21:30 AM EDT
[#15]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Microcenter has stuff those of us who are electronically gifted need. If you find a Radio Shack that's going out of business, you can absolutely buy all kinds of stuff for a quarter of what you'd get it anywhere else. I had three within ten miles of me and I went to all three and bought all kinds of stuff. Reloaded my resistor, capacitor, inductors and diodes stash. Found a quarter farad capacitor and snapped that bitch up for laughs. Got two brand new fluke meters, a 115 and 117 for $60 apiece. New soldering irons, tips, soldersucker, and temperature control on the cheap too. Everyone else was snapping up remote controlled cars and batteries and shit, and I grabbed a metric shit ton of batteries too, CR123's and 2032's, but the best finds were the components because almost nobody else was snapping them up. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:22:32 AM EDT
[#16]
Get Amazon Prime. Two days.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:25:42 AM EDT
[#17]
I really believe what really killed Radio Shack was them asking for all my information when I paid for my purchase. Cash didn't matter. Even for batteries! I avoided them like the plague and only went there when I had no choice.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:27:51 AM EDT
[#18]
First the love shack, then radio shack. Next we'll hear that rock lobsters are extinct.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:28:40 AM EDT
[#19]
Sign up for Amazon Prime and you won't have to wait as long.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:35:04 AM EDT
[#20]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
You're too used to that surround sound crap. Old -school two channel thump your guts audio is where it's at. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:35:51 AM EDT
[#21]
I don't really care that Radio Shack is gone, and the market for that kind of stuff is shrinking in some areas, growing in others, but it's damn hard to find just basic stuff sometimes without ordering it. I guess Fry's would be the closest to me, but how long before they're out too? It's a pretty rough place to shop now a days. Other than that, I'm on the south side of Dallas, most of that kind of stuff is on the other side of town, a good 40 minute drive. Mouser is way out on the west side, might as well order from them, but their website can be a bitch to find stuff. Medium sized towns with Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart? Forget it, you're ordering whatever you need in.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:40:37 AM EDT
[#22]
Say what you will about RS, but it was handy to have the option to go to the local RS store and pick up some resistors, hook up wire, or a toggle switch and not have to put your project on hold for several days.
I'll miss the nearby accessibility of electronics parts...especially when I run out in the middle of cobbling something together. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:44:48 AM EDT
[#23]
Radio Shack became useless when they stopped stocking common items that people who work with electronics need. They didn't have common resistors when I needed some. We have a Fry's if I need something now, but it is easier ordering online.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:49:18 AM EDT
[#24]
Check out Jameco, OP. They carry a lot of the items Radio Shack used to, including some items Mouser and Digikey don't carry.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:49:59 AM EDT
[#25]
I had forgotten them wanting my information when I was buying batteries. That is why I stopped going.
Anyone remember the Heath Electronic Stores? The first color TV my parents had was a HeathKit TV. It had an RCA picture tube made in San Diego (IIRC, but definitely SC) and my father and I assembled the circuit boards and soldered them. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 10:57:15 AM EDT
[#26]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I had forgotten them wanting my information when I was buying batteries. That is why I stopped going. Anyone remember the Heath Electronic Stores? The first color TV my parents had was a HeathKit TV. It had an RCA picture tube made in San Diego (IIRC, but definitely SC) and my father and I assembled the circuit boards and soldered them. 
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Posted: 5/8/2017 11:01:02 AM EDT
[#27]
Quoted:
Since all the local stores closed I drove to a store twenty miles away but they were closing as well. I'm trying to rehab an old Soundcraftsmen amp and needed some soldering tools. Fuck me I just need some soldering braid. Now I'll have to wait till next weekend thanks to Amazon. FUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUC |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 11:05:34 AM EDT
[#28]
I have an entire tool box full of multiples of just about everything that was in the components cabinets. I caught the two near me when the stuff was 80% off, I went nuts in there. My receipts were about 10 feet long.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 11:08:53 AM EDT
[#29]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Does this mean my battery of the month club card no worky? 
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Posted: 5/8/2017 11:19:38 AM EDT
[#30]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
What you did there... |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 11:23:45 AM EDT
[#31]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Sign up for Amazon Prime and you won't have to wait as long. the prices just are not that great |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 12:13:43 PM EDT
[#32]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
they deserved it. abandoned their base and shilled cheap chinese shit, flimsy RC cars, and trinkets. At the end their hobbyist section was like 4 drawers of shitty switches and low output leds. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 2:36:09 PM EDT
[#33]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Realistically I'm missin it. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
What the fuck is Radio Shack! |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 2:39:23 PM EDT
[#34]
I still miss the old Tandy Leather store that used to be here.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 2:42:05 PM EDT
[#35]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Realistically I'm missin it. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
What the fuck is Radio Shack! Not just buy stuff like the kids today...... |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 2:42:45 PM EDT
[#36]
"duhhhh, i don't think we carry weeener diodes..."ZEENER" diodes, oh whatever, man.
what you REALLY need is a new cell phone! ...but your's isn't a good cell phone... ...you need THIS cell phone... ...then you need ANOTHER cell phone. I told you, I don't think we carry weener diodes." |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 2:44:42 PM EDT
[#37]
I stopped by one two weeks ago and cleaned them out of solder and heat shrink tubing at 80% off.
It's a vape shop now. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 3:03:25 PM EDT
[#38]
Fuck Radio Shaft and their overpriced junk, and know nothing mall clerks.
Find a local TV shop, make a friend, shop mom and pop shops. See user name. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 3:03:30 PM EDT
[#39]
I just saw one in Mexico two weeks ago.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 3:12:55 PM EDT
[#40]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
What the fuck is Radio Shack! Around ten years ago, the became a cell phone store, but we didn't need one so they started going under. I can see how somebody under say... age 20 would have no idea about them. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 3:44:38 PM EDT
[#41]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Radio Shack . . . you've got questions; we've got answers. But in the closing years their only answer involved selling me a cell phone plan. Anybody else old enough to remember Allied Electronics catalogs? LINK When everything went to solid state electronics and integrated circuits and was imported from China, everything became disposable rather than repairable. They ignored their base, which admittedly, suffered badly from 1994-2004 due to all the new electronics coming out each month, making people wanting to DIY things rare. That all came back like a light switch in 2004-2008, and Radio Shack didn't adapt to the DIYers that kept them alive for their first decades in business. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 3:47:09 PM EDT
[#42]
I actually saw a radio shack that appeared to be open last weekend in Mission Kansas.
maybe they didn't get word that they died yet. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 4:06:59 PM EDT
[#43]
About 25 or 30 years ago the Radio Shack store in our mall hired the woman (dead now) who lived across the street from me. She had zero electronic education or experience. She really had no knowledge of anything at all as best I could tell.
I asked her what she was supposed to be doing in the Radio Shack store and she said that she was selling computers. I seriously doubt that she could have turned one on. I spoke with an electronics technician at work about it and he said, "Oh. Radio Shack will not hire you if you know anything about electronics." |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 4:08:21 PM EDT
[#44]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I actually saw a radio shack that appeared to be open last weekend in Mission Kansas. maybe they didn't get word that they died yet. 
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Posted: 5/8/2017 6:24:56 PM EDT
[#45]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Sure do! Built a couple robot kits from there and they were cool enough to print out their BBS's code for me when I started my own BBS. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
I had forgotten them wanting my information when I was buying batteries. That is why I stopped going. Anyone remember the Heath Electronic Stores? The first color TV my parents had was a HeathKit TV. It had an RCA picture tube made in San Diego (IIRC, but definitely SC) and my father and I assembled the circuit boards and soldered them. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 6:28:45 PM EDT
[#46]
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Posted: 5/8/2017 6:56:01 PM EDT
[#47]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
This right here. The Fry's I go to has a hell of a lot more than Radio Shack ever had. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 7:17:07 PM EDT
[#48]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
It was only a matter of time, imo... Many years ago, I graduated from Tech school and was looking for a job locally. I found some but they were about 100 miles away. I thought I might work at the local Radio shack until something came up. They would not hire me because I did not have any retail sales experience. I asked about my having electronics knowledge and they said they did not require that.....and now most are closed or closing. Oh, and I did get a job, then another and made a good career in my field. |
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Posted: 5/8/2017 7:44:41 PM EDT
[#49]
Used to play hangman during recess on a Tandy computer like this. RIP Radio Shack.
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Posted: 5/8/2017 7:48:40 PM EDT
[#50]
Guess I'm lucky, my local radio shack still has full parts sections, tools, etc. Hell I just bought a bunch of sections of antenna mast a while back that they had in the stock room for 80% off while I was in there buying some other stuff for an antenna build
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