Amateur Radio Newsline headlines for Ham Nation. September 13, 2023.

If they do return, hopefully they'll carry a selection of HAM equipment, shortwave equipment, rf adapters, and antennas as they once did. America already has too many cellular phone shops. In my opinion, the reason they went out of business is because they lost the appeal of the HAM/hobbyist/DIY crowd when they focused all of their attention on selling mobile phones. I worked for Radio Shack as my college job in the late 90's, and it was disheartening to see them slowly transform themselves from an electronics/hobby/tech supply store into a cell phone depot. The only way for a worker to make decent wages was to try and sell every customer a new cell phone.

 

I still have a HTX-100, Great radio for what it is !!

 

We had one nearby.
They bailed me out more than once.
The power supply for my HF rig failed in the middle of a contest. I was back on the air in two hours, thanks to Radio Shack.
When they were closing the store I got audio and RF connectors, a speaker-mic, RG-8X, and other stuff for pennies on the dollar.

 

My very last RS experience was unfortunate. I had some time to kill so I wandered in to my local store. They still had bubble packs of various components and I was pondering if I needed something to inspire a project. After a few minutes, the clerk looked up from the football game he was watching and asked if I needed any help. I said, "No thanks. I'm just browsing." He came back with, "I can't have you browsing and you need to leave." I never darkened their door again, but the store lasted only two more weeks.

 

It would be nice to have a store in the area that had those things. Having them nearby saved me on more than one occasion.

Unfortunately, I think the hobbyist/DIY market isn't what it once was, which is why Radio Shack started selling phones. The Radio Shack that was nearest to my home is now a Cricket Wireless. Radio was once upon a time considered to be high tech but that isn't the case anymore.

Whether they come back or not, remains to be seen.

 

Ahh, yes. The actual problem Radio Shack faced was that they had too many stores to serve just the niche market they once catered to (at one time, 99% of all Americans lived within 5 minutes of a Radio Shack). Because of this, Radio Shack felt the need to "join the crowd" and become just like all the other electronics stores. Cell phone stores are basically just like McDonald's franchises. Plenty of them and nothing interesting about them. Sadly, Radio Shack began moving more and more in that direction in its last decade of existence. In the final years, from what I recall, the HAM radio selection been all but eliminated and the kits were gone.

 

Radio Shack may 'come back,' but it won't be anything resembling the Radio Shack of yore. The current owner of the Radio Shack brand is Unicomer Group, which is a consumer finance company that owns various retail brands as a means to support its high-interest consumer finance operations.

If Radio Shack does come back as a store, you can bet it will be generic consumer electronics with high pressure to use their in-house financing. It will have nothing to do with radio, electronic parts, or anything like it used to be. Just my prediction.

 

Radio shack isn't coming back if they did I doubt they would have ham radio equipment

 

Lafayette Hempstead New York got a whole bunch of my paper route money

 

Hey , hope it's true that Radio Shack makes a some back. I still have the Radio Shack Cat# 22-306 frequency counter, Micronta dual power supply, Archer 12VDC supply and Realistic DX-160 shortwave receiver. All still work great. The good old days. Don't know if they will have a supply of electronic components for hobbyist !!

 

Heathkit would be more welcomed

 

I remember when I was first studying for my General another ham in the class who was a Heathkit fan told me the reason he moved away from Heathkit was he felt like he was paying for the "privilege of building it," meaning there were other ham and other electronics products out there that were just as good or better than Heathkit but already built for the same or less money.

I did build a Heathkit SW717 back in the day but I probably wouldn't do it now for the reason I've already mentioned.

 

Anyone remember the old Radio Shack closeout tent in the back corner of the flea market when Hamvention was at Hara?

 

Yeah, good luck finding anything cool at RS even if it does "come back". I was looking at the pictures of the new store fronts on RadioShack.com and most appear to be simply glorified cellular phone shops full of Gen Z stuff. One of the pictures looked like a small store front in an airport. Yes, they may very well come back. No, they probably wont be anything nearly as great as they once were. Hopefully they have the brains to throw us HAMs a few bones. I doubt it.

 

The Russian Woodpecker has been mentioned and imaged in a few posts...The mega-antenna is in very bad shape, and as far as I know it's too shabby to be used. It is in the Ukraine, which is "busy" about now. I did, however, hear a signal on 20M that sounded very much like the woodpecker sounded years ago. Most rogue countries couldn't care less about who they interfere with. Let's hope it's not a trend. That's the last thing the "newbies" need...Tim 73