All of these LOL remarks come from the fact that no one really missed Radio Shack when they left. Maybe they didn't shove cell phones down a customer's throat but if you wanted anything else, well, they didn't have a clue. What's a PL-259?
The local store near me had about 4 square feet of floor space devoted to parts. The rest of the store had (lots of) cell phones, cell phone cases, and a few other consumer electronics, all of which sold cheaper almost everywhere else. Do I miss them? Not really.
Locals near me didnt even have the 4 square feet. I'd long given up Radio Shack in favour of Fry's -
much broader component selection! Then Fry's went & folded up their tents a few years back during all this COVID nonsense (we
massively overreacted under the Democrats to that one - we didn't shut down the country until Biden got into office, and California stayed shut down
far longer than it should have been, if it should have been shut down
at all...) and all the small businesses and "short chains" got ploughed under through lack of business and not being declared "essential" - unlike the whopping great bloody multinational - or at least
national - chains. (Sorry, but when I know people 20 years younger than me that get knocked down for at least a fortnight after
each gene therapy injection meant to prevent the disease, while I get knocked down for three days
with the actual disease - and I've had it precisely
once, while all the "multiple" cases I know have been "multiply-injected" against it, I'm inclined to be sceptical...)
And let's leave aside all the side effects of the secondary panic caused by all the fear porn being blasted at everyone - but that's neither here nor there...
Radio Shack wandered too far from their core of components, tools, and hobbyist-type stuff, and got into consumer elecrtronics - which was a(n over-)saturated market even then, with Wal-Mart and Best Buy - and even Fry's, then (they did everything,) so going into consumer electronics was little more than death throes, rather than a corporate recovery strategy. I knew it was a bad sign - they were trying to fit in, but the segment was already too crowded.
I remember those tube testers - I got a lot of use out of the one at my local growing up, because I was "that kid" - the one that could "fix anything" - motorcycles, bicycles, from monster trucks to your little red wagon; most electronics (including - uncommonly -
tube amplifiers, jukeboxes, coin-op arcade games, most appliances, ...) and I could figure out damned near anything else you put in front of me in short order. Then I started hanging out around the coroner's office at 12-13, and started learning how to fix
people as well (which knowledge has come in handy a number of times over the years - but, again, that's neither here nor there.)
So I spent a
lot of time at my local Radio Shack - they finally quit checking my battery card and just gave me a free packet of batteries in whatever size I needed whenever I'd show up, and ask what all I was working on that week. (About like the guys at the auto parts house, really - same sort of thing. "I need such-and-such for this vehicle." "Okeh, so what are you
really working on." "Well, it's like this ..." I almost never needed parts that
actually fit whatever I was
actually working on, I got all the Frankenstein jobs.) I bought them out on LEDs two weeks in a row. Why? I needed an oscilloscope, and I couldn't afford to buy one. So I was adapting a circuit I found in a Forrest M. Mims book - and was building myself one. I built myself a VTVM, because I needed one. Made myriad adapter cables - a habit which continued into adulthood and working IT, combining hardware that really was never designed to speak to each other (I had programmer buddies working on the software side of things.) Made adapter plugs so I could take steady readings in vehicles while the engine was running (if you think properly
crimping terminals could get annoying, try
uncrimping them such that you could properly
recrimp them on a different wire! That is, of course,
after figuring out how they came out of the shell in the first place. Even NAPA couldn't get hold of everything I needed...)
In short, I'd
like to see Radio Shack make a comeback, but:
- Go back to your roots - stick mainly to components.
- Provide some of the best scanners in the business (if not highly-modifiable, at least highly-capable and easy to use. The PRO-2004/5/6 are
legends.)
- Stay out of general consumer electronics (R/C toys, cellphones, &c) - that market is hideously oversaturated, and it won't help you guys.
If this means that my "local" RS won't be as "local" to me as I'd like, I can live with that - as long as it's still worth going to. But, if it's trying to be a "mini-Best Buy" or something like that, it's just not worth the effort - I've got a Best Buy two blocks away, with a Wal-Mart half a block from it. Why bother going to a "mini" either one of those? Stock components? Now we're getting somewhere - I don't have a decent retail components outfit around here - and I live in
Silicon Valley!
