Archive of Radio Shack catalogs

[xr4ti]

This is a neat site that I found the other day:

Radio Shack Catalogs

It came in handy in identifying some of the vintage scanners I have, and when they were made.

[N1SQB]

Holy smokes man! A TRS-80? Man oh man this is a trip back in time....WOW! I havent seen some of this stuff in ages, thanks for posting...

Manny

[DaveIN]

Nice catch. Brings back memories.

[RadioDaze]

That's a great find. I love this stuff. I'm still trying to find the late-60s / early 70's Sears Christmas catalogs that my brother and I used to drool over.

Spent many a day hanging out at the local RS, playing with the CBs.

[N9NRA]

Hey there. I have that site bookmarked too, ya wanna see some really old stuff have a gander at the cellphones and two-way radios they had back then, seeing some of them Bearcat units (crystal-controlled ones) was a fun ride dosn memory lane for me, as i owned one when i was in highschool, used to listen to the Janesville PD while i was at the blind school, i would listen while doing my homework. I kinda miss then old catalogs, they were fun to just look at, even if ya didn`t buy anything. N9NRA

[commscanaus]

Yes!

Thanks very much for posting that link!
What a walk down memory lane for me too- having had all the catalogs from 1980 onwards.
In a moment of total stupidity when cleaning house back in the late 90's, I threw them all out thinking they were just cluttering up the place. Man what a mistake!

So many items I used to drool over as a kid in those catalogs, and to be able to see them again is really cool! I even collect Realistic branded stuff, from eBay and garage sales.
All the stuff I wanted as kid- equalizers, speakers (even the famed Minimus 7's!), scanners, headphones, amplifiers and whatever else may be available.

Have to love the cellphone in the 1988 catalog for $1299!

Commscanaus.

[DPD1]

Wow... Pro 2001 with a whopping 16 channels... $400. Why did I think things were cheaper back then.

[scottaschultz]

Oh man, what a neat site! Thanks so much!

I went through the catalog from 1975 - the year I graduated high school. Their "best" crystal controlled 16 channel was $229.95! If you bought the crystals in quantities of 6 or more at a time, the cost was $5.95 each so that would be an additional $95.20 on top of the scanner. Let's see, $229.95 + $95.20 = $325.15. OK, well maybe that's not too bad, but when you factor in inflation, that would be $1,419.84 today! No wonder I wasn't into scanning back then!! I was working after school and on weekends at a bicycle shop for $2.00/hr.

If you really want to rip your guts out, you will probably also want to bookmark this site: Tom's Inflation Calculator. I am sure there are probably a few inflation calculators out there, but this is the one I happen to use.

[K4IHS]

Tubes! :-)

[NYRHKY94]

Love that site!!! Like most of us "old timers" from the early 70's (sounds funny saying that now), I used to spend hours in my local RS as a kid drooling over the scanners I couldn't ever afford back then. Now I scour E-Bay and collect them (nostalgia bug) for my home shack.

While I couldn't swing a scanner back in 73', I did save up my paper route money to by the Patrolman-6 from my local RS (see pic below). I would be up all night turning that dial back & forth trying to follow my local agencies. I have been in the hobby ever since. Truly the good old days!

[KT4HX]

Thanks so much for posting the link! That site is a fantastic deja vu trip to a time when Radio Shack really was a radio shack.

[Evert]

Yes that is a really neat site. Be sure to look under the Misc tab at the advertisements that go back to 1925.

Earlier this year I sent Mike copies of 298 ads from the 1940s that he included into his site. If anyone has other ads/catalogs I am sure he would greatly appreciate you sending copies or the originals to him to be included in the site.

[gewecke]

Now it's too damn bad radio shack got stupid and started discontinuing their best selling items after only 3 months on the market!! Back then those items were available for years.
IF we could only find a radio shack that still sold some of those oldies? Oh wait...there's ebay!
N9ZAS

[scottaschultz]

I don't know why we call them the "good ol' days" ???

Here is a screen shot I took from the 1990 catalog and highlighted a particular item:



I was moonlighting at RS back then and actually sold a pack of these to a customer late one night a few minutes before closing. Talk about desperate!

[smason]

Ahh the Patrolman 6, my first radio that could pick up our local PD on 462 mhz.