In MHO, radio shack should have gone out of business years ago!
I use to know 3 people that worked in different stores.
All of them said basically the same thing. The equipment is nice looking but the
insides are substandard and the parts
(if they have them) are only experimenters quality. I once asked for a replacement
rod type pull up antenna. The guy looked at me and went DUH. Then I said and
motioned, silver antenna, pull up, usually on many radios. He replied, we don't
have anything like that. I went in the back and found a very large choice of 3
types. I brought him one and he said, "oh, is that what you wanted"? I put it back
on the rack because it was the wrong one I needed, of course. DUH!
Where have all the REAL electronic stores gone?? :-(


Sam Byrams wrote:

Anyone with the merest knowledge of DC Electrical Fundamentals can go
into about any Radio Shack company store and be in a position to
tech-slam the employees. Radio Shack has pursued a policy of not
hiring electronics people for decades, they have remained to the small
extent that they are in the electronic parts, tools, books, and 'test
equipment'for image purposes and I have been repeatedly told as much
by Radio Shack management.

Radio Shack is a cancer on the ass of all electronics hobbies and all
electronics professionals, what few remain.

They should be stripped of their image by persistently and
consistently reminding the technically less knowledgeable that "real
nerds won't set a foot in there". Radio Shack's death would be a good
thing IMO.

__________________________________________________ ____________________________
Putting MM on the dime would serve a lot of purposes. It would
displace the devious FDR, send a signal to the Islamist world, make
the currency more attractive, and be a thorn in the ass to the Kennedy
Family, to name four good ones.

kashe posted:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 11:43:36 GMT, "Martin"
wrote:

This thread reminds me of a conversation I overheard in a Radio Shack store
many years ago.

Salesman, trying to sell customer a Micronta sliderule: "See, if you want
to multiply 2 by 2, you put this 1 here on this slider over the 2 down
here
and move this window thing so this line here is on the 2 over here. Then
the answer is down here, see, 2 times 2 equals, hmmm, about 3.95.

That's only for small values of 2, else the answer is 4.2.

Don

But that's my point - why in the world would you rely on the advice of a
radio shack employee? Their job is to ring up stuff at the register. They
don't know anything about electronics.


"Miles O'Neal" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 02:59:52 +0000, mark wrote:

I don't understand this attitude towards RS at all. If you don't like
it,
don't buy from them. You now have a zillion alternatives right through
the
internet.

Hmmm... What's that they say in all their ads?
"You have questions? We have answers." Oddly
enough, if your question is even the least bit
technical, their answer is either "I don't know",
or it's bogus.

Every once in a while they screw up and hire folks
who understand electronics. But IME, not too
often. And heir selection is *abysmal* - and
getting worse.

Granted, the hobbyist market is down. But I contend
that RS helped destro it.

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
"Sam Byrams" wrote in message

I don't understand this attitude towards RS at all. If you don't like it,
don't buy from them. You now have a zillion alternatives right through
the
internet.

Not on Sunday afternoon when the transmitter is down and the boss is
screaming
at you and you're trying to explain to the man that you want an XLR plug
with
four pins, and not three, and he's telling you that nobody uses XLR plugs
any
more.
--scott

That's your fault for not having backup parts in the first place....and
besides - why not just look around yourself. Radio Shacks aren't that big -
ignore the sales guy and just find the plug yourself.

=
"John Miller" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Or you could go to my local RS and talk to the kids who don't
know a carburetor frlom a klystron.

Or you could go to the same store and talk to the retired HP
tech who knows more than any of you.

Your choice.

In your experience, which is the rule, and which is the exception?


I wouldn't know because I don't sit there and chat and question those guys
to find out. I simply write up my list of what I need before going there,
walk in, find the stuff, and then I say "ring it up." And then they
invariably try to get me to buy batteries or some other junk, and I tell em
no.

A quick, painless way to shop at Radio Shack.

On 11 Aug 2004 22:21:09 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:



I swear, my contract is going to say "no Sparta consoles, no TFT STLs"
soon.
--scott

Sparta....a name from my distant past. Thanks.

Steve wrote:
In MHO, radio shack should have gone out of business years ago!
I use to know 3 people that worked in different stores.
All of them said basically the same thing. The equipment is nice looking
but the insides are substandard and the parts
(if they have them) are only experimenters quality.

Leaves one wondering about just one thing, Steve. If the RS employees are
as stupid as you claim they are, HOW WOULD THEY KNOW?
--
John Miller
Email address: domain, n4vu.com; username, jsm

"Because he's a character who's looking for his own identity, [He-Man is] an
interesting role for an actor."
-Dolph Lundgren, "actor"

"Phil Witt" wrote in message
...
On 11 Aug 2004 22:21:09 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

I swear, my contract is going to say "no Sparta consoles, no TFT STLs"
soon.
--scott

Sparta....a name from my distant past. Thanks.

Wow, dude, that's so awesome! You bring back memories of the man-months I
spent getting the RF out of The Yard.

Bill, who thinks you mean "TWT", but who could be wrong.

"Scott McKnight" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 02:46:36 GMT, "VT1" wrote:

RADIO SHACK :

YOU HAVE QUESTIONS? .... WE HAVE DUMB LOOKS!

You have questions? ...we have some products that we'll attempt to
shoehorn into your solution. BTW, can we sell you a cellular phone
today?

-Scott



I usually kill the "new cell phone" pitch by walking in with mine in open
view. Works most of the time! As to shopping, you're better off knowing what
you want and need and what they offer before going in. At least most of us
are better equipped to do that, than the average person! Usually, the guys
at the store I go to, know my electronics background, so they rarely bother
me. It's the newbies who don't know, who approach me. It is sad that many
are clueless in what they sell. It isn't easy knowing everything. What hurt
them, is the motto.. "You have questions, we have answers." Too many take
that for granted. The employees I suppose try to help even if they come up
with half wit answers. They "should" endeavor to learn what they sell, but
they're also made to push the cell phones and such..... They can't be making
any commission worth a damned off off a $1.99 part. The other thing is too,
that with SMT technology, not many are repairing let alone
building/experimenting these days.

L.

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Imagine if you will a group of design engineers sitting around trying to figure
out how to make equipment more annoying for broadcast folks. "I know, we can
put the power supply all at the bottom so you have to pull all the channel
strips out to get to it, making it impossible to test under load." "Great,
and then we can use output capacitors that fail into intermittent shorts
so that the supply has to be loaded to find them!"

I didn't know you'd ever worked at KCSC-FM.

Regulators with failure modes that involve smoking the full-wave
bridge.

Capacitors that explode.

Leaking tantalum capacitors that eat the traces off the boards.

Leaking batteries ditto.

UPS battery chargers adjusted so that the "float" voltage is about 10%
too high, so that the batteries outgas, leak, and die.

Ground-loop city.

A plate capacitor on the ttransmitter's final that turns out to be
a strip of PTFE wrapped around the final tube, above the HV lead,
and which gets punched through about once a month.

A grounding hook with a broken resistor in it. The idea is to
discharge the HV PS capacitors "gently". That's fine, as long as the
resistor maintains continuity and discharge to "safe" levels (0 VDC
for me, TYVM) doesn't take a week.

--
The official state religion of France is Bureaucracy. They've replaced
the Trinity with the Triplicate.

(David Richerby)