Yannow, over the years I've tried to support this chain of stores. Any time I needed some odd gewgaw that would cost about one half to one third as much - including shipping, from NewEgg or some such - I'd try to buy it at the local Shack. I figured I should support 'em, because there were times when I really needed something and they'd always have it. I wanted them to be around for just that reason. The Shack is always higher priced - but they generally had what ya needed when ya needed it.
There were so many different things I used to buy - odd connectors, CB radio goodies (antenna ends and what not), computer stuff, soldering supplies - well, if you've ever needed and perused an old time Shack, you know of what I speak. I knew they didn't have stuff like coax and ends anymore, but I figured they'd have the odd and out of the ordinary USB type goodies.
It ain't the same no more no how.
My Blackberry is gradually dying just in time for Verizon's New Every Two plan to kick in - at the end of the month, I'll be eligible for an upgrade with discounts. The data port is headed south on this phone - I can't get my laptop to communicate anymore through the USB hookup. Luckily, it will still charge - and I can pull the memory chip out and read it in the memory slot on the ol' laptop - but syncing up is no longer possible. Unless I go Bluetooth. If I get a Bluetooth USB PC dongle - then the Blackberry will have another avenue of communications available. Insurance is part of my package - I could get another Crackberry to replace this one, but I'm thinking DroidX this time around.
I actually have three Motorola dongles that I got in a Wootoff - but I can't get a driver for Vista. XP and older - no problem. So, I figured that would be right up the Shack's alley, as it were. I looked online at El Marto Del Wal's selection - and while the store in Dodge City has some in stock, the store in Garden does not. So, what the hey - the ones El Marto Del Wal can get are mostly under ten bucks - so I was ready to drop twenty or so at the Shack for the convenience and availability factor.
If they'd had any. The kid working there didn't even know what I was talking about. I looked around and they had bupkis for connectors and adapters and so on. Little things like a USB extension - no savvy, none in stock. If I wanted a Bluetooth headset - well, they had plenty of those. Just like any truck stop. Phone chargers? You betcha, just like any truck stop or convenience store. Frakking WalMart has a better selection of this kind of stuff than the Shack!
Freaking sad.
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Yeah, it's very sad. They should change their name to "Battery Shack" since that's all they seem to keep in stock these days. I worked part-time over a Christmas break years ago (1971?) when I was in College and needed the bucks. A good friend of mine from high-school was the assistant manager there, and he roped me in. The manager took me under his wing because I actually knew a lot about Electronics, and figured I'd be an asset to the store. I had a customer one day who wanted the "Absolute Best Stereo, Money Is No Object", so I sent him down the street to the place that sold Marantz and Macintosh stuff. The manager hit the roof, and I replied I was just making an honest effort to help the guy, as even the cheap stuff at the store down the street was light-years better than the "Top-Of-The-Line" stuff we had. A day or two before my last day there, I heard Da Manager tell a customer "No, that doesn't need batteries, IT HAS TRANSISTORS!", and I knew Radio Shack was doomed if they allowed people like that to run their stores. Still, I've scored some good deals there at their end-of-year clearance sales on things like scanners and Ham radio gear. I bought a ton of that stuff (only the good products, of which some were VERY good) for pennies on the dollar, held on to it, and sold it years later for 10X what I paid for it.
Yeah, it was kinda odd how some of their electronics were crap (stereos) and other stuff was good. I got a pretty good scanner for trucking back in the day there with the RS brand. The Pete I was driving at the time had one of the first digital dashes, and the Bearcat would only pick up interference on certain frequencies - which were coincidentally the ones I needed to hear. The RS model worked very well without all that drama.
A lot of their scanners were made by either Uniden or GRE, both good brands. Most of their shortwave radios (the good ones!) were made by Sangean, another good brand. At one time I knew who made their Ham gear, but I've forgotten. I still have an HTX-202 2 Meter walkie-talkie, and other than lacking the bells and whistles of newer radios, it's an excellent radio.
wv: rimbac What Jesse Jackson wants?
Not to mention that everything you buy at the Radio Snack seems to break in record time. The electronics source of last resort for me.
Yeah, Lisa - I'd never buy a high end stereo from them. Too long a history of spotty reliability and poor specs for much of their stuff.
Then, inexplicably, certain things would be high quality.
Their whole raison detre (AFAIC) was the little odds and ends - now that they've quite carrying what was their lifeblood I have to wonder how long they'll last in a world where Circuit City went belly up with cheaper prices on branded items.
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