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coillah

Fri Jan 09 2009, 02:25AM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

Everybody knows about radio shack. The ultimate disappointment for an electronics nerd bent on getting that one component that they need.

Typically when I go into radio shack its just one giant let down. I've learned to not keep my hopes up...

Bu recently my expectations have been exceeded, and then some!

First, I walked into the Chico radio shack, about a month ago, and was blown away! They had everything, and I mean everything! From copper clad PCB and etchant, to GIANT antenna and everything you need for transmission, along with two, not one but two! racks of components, one side passive the other active! That's four drawer cabinets full of goodies!

Needless to say but, I was stunned! It was like they were actually trying to be a "radio shack"

Anyways, I came home to the bay area for winter break and I have been perusing my local shacks for small things.

Today on my way home from work I decided to hit up a new radio shack on my way home. I needed to see if I couldnt find some copper clad PCB and etchant. As usual I knew it would be a let down, but my recent experience led me to believe that maybe... just maybe they had some. So I am in the store and I find etchant, but no PCB... I go to check out and ask the employees (who were very friendly) if they had any PCB's because I saw they had the etchant. They told me the usual answer, "it wasnt selling so we had to get rid of it." I was not suprised. But then... the manager ran to the back. Before I was done checking out he returned with 6! SIX PCB BOARDS! Two extra thick and four regular! I asked him how much, and he said, "for free dude!" I was shocked!!! BLOWN AWAY. I managed to contained my nerdy glee until I was safely back in my car. So cool! I thanked him and left the store, with roughly 45$ of PCB for free!

Moral of the story, radio shack is still not the premium location to get stuff, but hey people at radio shack are cool!

Anyone else have a radio shack or similar story?

rp181

Fri Jan 09 2009, 02:58AM

Registered Member #1062 Joined: Tue Oct 16 2007, 02:01AM
Location:
Posts: 1529

nope, people at my local store said " A solar panel depends on the heat, so make sure its a hot day".
3 local stores all have 2 cabinets.

Arcstarter

Fri Jan 09 2009, 03:12AM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

I have a story of them being nice, but not giving me stuff like that.

I was just at radio shack getting these PC boards for my SGTC, and this guy came up and asked what i was making. I explained to him that it was basically just HV and stuff like that. Well, we talked for a few minutes, and he told me about his projects :P. He was making a helmet from Halo, for the master chief or w/e the guys name is. He fitted IR camera and a regular camera into it with an LCD screen in the helmet. It sounded pretty cool. We talked about other things as well.

Not giving stuff away, but usually people that work in a store won't even really try to help me that much. So meh!

Anon01

Fri Jan 09 2009, 04:01PM

Registered Member #1589 Joined: Sun Jul 13 2008, 06:40PM
Location:
Posts: 70

Well, at the RS that I work at, he does not have any of the new stock, mainly parts and components. I havn't gotten anything for free from the owner though. It's just a local small town RS with 3 employees total including myself, the owner, and his wife. There are no cabinets, but 4 walls full of components, from HAM components and even a couple of vacuum tube diodes.

Amusing folks though. I'm building SSTCs and other misc things in the back when there's no traffic flow. :P

Andyman

Fri Jan 09 2009, 07:07PM

Registered Member #1083 Joined: Mon Oct 29 2007, 06:16PM
Location: Upland, California
Posts: 256

I wish Fry's Electronics was closer than an hour away, that store is amazing. They have o-scopes, IC programmers, signal generators, digital power supplies, and probably 3 isles of electronic components including high current bridge rectifiers and big electrolytics.

coillah

Fri Jan 09 2009, 08:39PM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

so Fry's is loaded... i wasnt sure.

the closest one to me right now is in concord, that's about 20-30 mins away...

Hon1nbo

Fri Jan 09 2009, 10:22PM

Registered Member #902 Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: North Texas
Posts: 1040

The local radioshacks here are getting better, stocking more components (such as basic stamps, RGB LEDs, RFID boards, the Parallax Ping, etc)

and fry's is AWESOME! - I only wish that they had more Ham stuff, and their workers knew anything about what they sell...

Tom540

Fri Jan 09 2009, 10:24PM

Banned on 3/17/2009.
Registered Member #487 Joined: Sun Jul 09 2006, 01:22AM
Location:
Posts: 617

Frys can be a huge letdown too. We have 2 here. They tend to not restock things if they don't sell just like radio shack. They do however replenish the supply of pcbs but the giant sheets of protoboard the kind with no copper have been out of stock since I bought the last one 5 months ago. Fry's i great for when you need common parts and do not want to wait. They mostly stock the over priced NTE crap when it comes to semiconductors.

Two major letdowns for me was i need a new iron wand heater and they we out and only had the entire 100 dollar wand. They never had it in stock. Same with a breadboard wire kit i desperatley needed in school .Some chick told me they have one in 2 weeks. To this day almost 8 years later its still OUT OF STOCK but has a damn place on the shelf for it.

I still love Fry's though.

usaman65

Tue Feb 10 2009, 07:24PM

Registered Member #1364 Joined: Thu Feb 28 2008, 09:09PM
Location:
Posts: 55

you need t go to a "classic" radioshack store. One thats not in a mall, but free standing in an outside strip mall or something. They have 2 to 3 racks or parts, transistors, everything...

youll find one

kev

aonomus

Tue Feb 10 2009, 09:06PM

Registered Member #1497 Joined: Thu May 22 2008, 05:24AM
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 801

I'm still wondering what the deal is with 'The source' since Circuit City is bankrupting as far as I can remember?

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