Scanner Tales: The Other Radio Stores

[kc2asb]

Not just the change from discrete components to ICs, but from through-hole to service mount components. Once upon a time ICs came in DIP packages (little black rectangles with legs) and in many cases were plugged into a socket on the circuit board rather than soldered directly. Now? Surface-mount. Unsoldering and re-soldering a large surface-mount IC is bayond the tools and ability of most. Evem replacing a surface-mount resister or capacitor is much more of a challenge than replacing the equivalent through-hole component.

Go look up "DIP package" and "surface-mount" on Wikipedia and you'll see what I mean. Some pretty good pictures that illustrate the challenges.

True. Surface mount components changed everything. In the case of IC's that were replaceable, replacements were often not available from the manufacturer, leaving one to search out the used parts market. A lot of old Electra Bearcat scanners were irreparable because the IC's were unobtainium.

 

[sallen07]

Not just the change from discrete components to ICs, but from through-hole to service mount components.

Typo that I just noticed but too late to fix ... obviously I meant SURFACE-mount, not service!

 

[es93546]

I grew up in southern California and remember many of the stores that some have been mentioned here. Not mentioned because I don't think they sold any scanners, was an epic store. It was a great ham radio and HF listener store. It was called "Henry Radio." It was located northwest of the junction of the 10 and the 405. They sold HF receivers that were of a high quality as well as everything ham. What they were known for were the people behind the counter, they were extremely knowledgeable "Elmers," every one of them. They prided themselves on helping people, no matter how long it took. I went in there one time when I wanted to be able to receive, directly, Radio Hanoi. This in 1967 or 1968 at the height of the Vietnam war. I had a cheap, questionable quality, AM/FM portable radio that had great coverage of the HF bands that had the frequencies that a large number of countries had broadcast stations on. The Elmer that helped me could see that I had intense curiosity about radio. He drew me a picture of what his design of a very long dipole antenna was. We lived on a large lot because it was located on a corner. He then got me what I needed and custom cut copper wire and everything I needed to mount the antenna to a tree in one corner and on the roof of the house. They had everything there including the large eye bolts and cans of tar to seal the roof after you screwed the bolt into the roof. I built it with a little help from my father, an aerospace design engineer. After I completed my homework I would slowly turn the dial and after many evenings I got a moderate signal where the person talking spent a half hour degrading everything about the USA. I got excited as this must be Radio Hanoi. At the top of the hour a recording came on that had the words "Radio Hanoi." I think I received this directly from Hanoi as I don't think the North Vietnamese had any broadcast sites closer to the U.S. That experience hooked me on the radio bug and it lasts to this day at the age of 76. I moved away from L.A. permanently when I was 22 and after 4 small towns in 3 states finds me on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. I think Henry Radio shut down in the 80's or 90's, but I will always remember that store!

 

[kc2asb]

I grew up in southern California and remember many of the stores that some have been mentioned here. Not mentioned because I don't think they sold any scanners, was an epic store. It was a great ham radio and HF listener store. It was called "Henry Radio." It was located northwest of the junction of the 10 and the 405. They sold HF receivers that were of a high quality as well as everything ham. What they were known for were the people behind the counter, they were extremely knowledgeable "Elmers," every one of them. They prided themselves on helping people, no matter how long it took. I went in there one time when I wanted to be able to receive, directly, Radio Hanoi. This in 1967 or 1968 at the height of the Vietnam war. I had a cheap, questionable quality, AM/FM portable radio that had great coverage of the HF bands that had the frequencies that a large number of countries had broadcast stations on. The Elmer that helped me could see that I had intense curiosity about radio. He drew me a picture of what his design of a very long dipole antenna was. We lived on a large lot because it was located on a corner. He then got me what I needed and custom cut copper wire and everything I needed to mount the antenna to a tree in one corner and on the roof of the house. They had everything there including the large eye bolts and cans of tar to seal the roof after you screwed the bolt into the roof. I built it with a little help from my father, an aerospace design engineer. After I completed my homework I would slowly turn the dial and after many evenings I got a moderate signal where the person talking spent a half hour degrading everything about the USA. I got excited as this must be Radio Hanoi. At the top of the hour a recording came on that had the words "Radio Hanoi." I think I received this directly from Hanoi as I don't think the North Vietnamese had any broadcast sites closer to the U.S. That experience hooked me on the radio bug and it lasts to this day at the age of 76. I moved away from L.A. permanently when I was 22 and after 4 small towns in 3 states finds me on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. I think Henry Radio shut down in the 80's or 90's, but I will always remember that store!

What a great story! I can imagine the excitement when you heard the positive ID on Radio Hanoi, having experienced it myself listening to shortwave. Sad that stores like Henry Radio, with knowledgeable salesman who are also mentors, are nearly non-existent.

Henry Radio sounds familiar. If they lasted into the late 80's or 90's, it's possible I saw their ads in Popular Communications. I got my first issue in 1988 and my parents soon after bought a subscription for me.

 

[ratboy]

We had a couple of local places, one was "Warren Radio", which was definitely on the downhill slide by the time I started going there about 1971. Insane prices. Last time I went in, I needed some high voltage capacitors to build an AM broadcast band filter. I needed two for each one, and I planned on buying 6 so I could make 3 of them. I asked the sales guy and he comes back with a box of them, at $13 EACH! I passed on them and found them online somewhere for $2.86 each, for the exact same cap. Everything in the store was full list price, and if I would have bought the aluminum box, coax connectors, caps, and coils, each filter would have been about $45. I built all three for about $50.

There was a place that hung on into the early internet days, I can't remember the name, but I bought a lot of substitute transistors there and they had a lot of NOS tubes and stuff. A guy and his wife ran it.

Another local place was "Lifetime Electronics" owned by a relative of mine, my dad's second or 3rd cousin. His brother owned the Radio Shack I went to most of the time. Most of what I remember about "Lifetime" was the old old men who were always there, and the kid salesman who would buy the business and be it's last owner. Lifetime had some very odd used stuff and a lot of oddball kits that I think they made themselves. I missed Lifetime a lot more than Warren.

I went to a place in Chicago that had both ham and CB about 1970-73, and I spent a lot of money there the first time I went. That was the year I had saved a bunch of money up and my dad had let me and my sister clean out his top drawer which he dumped his change into every day after work. There was about 3" of quarters, dimes, and nickels in that drawer, and I had like $400. I was very well financed the last couple of years my dad was alive when we went to Chicago. I had money in general, I was selling stereo stuff and was a 15 year old with 2 credit cards! Burstein-Applebee, and Sears.

 

[CECR1992]

And probably nothing like it will ever appear either. We don't repair electronics anymore, probably for several reasons. The electronics are cheaper now and have become like Bic lighters. When it breaks, you throw it away. Also, electronics don't break down like they used to. Related to that is the fact that everything has at least one little computer in it now. Sometimes they call them ECUs or electronic control units. In the event it breaks down, no one knows how to fix it and that reverts back to the "when it breaks, you throw it away" concept.

The real culprit (if you want to call it that) is what they used to call "solid state." I don't think anyone uses that term anymore because tubes are 99.99% gone and everything is pretty much assumed to be solid state. Remember tube testers? A lot of businesses had 'em: drug store, hardware stores and, yes, Radio Shack. If the TV went out, anyone with just a little electronic awareness would look at the tubes because you could usually find the culprit. Once you got it out, you went to the nearest tube tester. Now, you can't even look for the transistor (not that it would help) because it's buried in an integrated circuit with a couple of thousand other components. TV repair people have gone the way of coopers, cobblers, blacksmiths and country doctors.

I know about those and yeah, modern electronics are pretty dumb to wear down that quickly and it is pointless for that "when it breaks, you throw it away" concept.