Radio Shack Shipping

Travelover · Feb 3, 2014

Here is a tip. I like to make electronic projects as a hobby, but find the local Radio Shack carries fewer and fewer real electronics components. They do sell on line, though. So, I priced out a resistor: $1.21 plus $6.99 shipping plus sales tax. Hmmm, expensive resistor.

So, I cut and paste the specs into eBay and find that Radio Shack sells the identical resistor on eBay for $1.21 with free shipping and sales tax. Probably ships out of the same location. :confused2:

rekees4300 · Feb 3, 2014

Don't know how Radio Shack stays in business. Even their name is outdated. Not many people are interested in radios anymore! Radio Shack could have been Microsoft, Google, and Apple combined if they had execs back in the 70's with some computer/internet foresight.

buckshot721 · Feb 3, 2014

It should be called Cell Shack. You have questions we have cell phones.

k0ua · Feb 3, 2014

rekees4300 said:
Don't know how Radio Shack stays in business. Even their name is outdated. Not many people are interested in radios anymore! Radio Shack could have been Microsoft, Google, and Apple combined if they had execs back in the 70's with some computer/internet foresight.

Really?.. there are a bunch of us "radio enthusiasts" that would beg to differ!

But then again I am pretty old.

rekees4300 · Feb 3, 2014

I said "not many" didn't say "not any".

View attachment 358723

madmax12 · Feb 3, 2014

RadioShack - YouTube

In case you missed the Superbowl commercial.

k0ua · Feb 3, 2014

rekees4300 said:
I said "not many" didn't say "not any".

View attachment 358723

That was me on the right.

Daver1963 · Feb 3, 2014

Are there any vocational technical schools out there that teach component level troubleshooting and repair anymore? Even the Air Force technical training schools for electronics haven't gone to component level in over 20 years. Its all board level. I got guys fresh out of tech school in 2005-06 that could barely check a fuse.
The demand for electronic components has also gone down due to so much processor control and such. You can't just troubleshoot much with a multimeter these days.

k0ua · Feb 3, 2014

Daver1963 said:
Are there any vocational technical schools out there that teach component level troubleshooting and repair anymore? Even the Air Force technical training schools for electronics haven't gone to component level in over 20 years. Its all board level. I got guys fresh out of tech school in 2005-06 that could barely check a fuse.
The demand for electronic components has also gone down due to so much processor control and such. You can't just troubleshoot much with a multimeter these days.

Dave I was a self taught tech, I started fixing 8 tracks and went on to televisions, and got a job in an appliance store working on TV's then another appliance store, and later started in on 2 way radio repair. I repaired electronic key phones for the first few years of my telephony career, but by the early '80s we just got to where we did not repair the sets much anymore we just replaced them whole. I can still do it, and repair my amateur radio toys, but I haven't component level troubleshot for money in a lot of years. Like you have pointed out with microprocessors and SMD's it is quite a bit different than replacing bi-polar NPN and PNP transistors as discrete components. anyway.

Danno1 · Feb 12, 2014

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Even in the electronics factories troubleshooting is done at a board level. The bad boards are put aside for slow times but even at that only 5-15 minutes are spent on a board before it is considered not economically repairable.

Oh BTW, this is in an American company making low quantities of high end medical imaging equipment. Overseas this wouldn't happen. Not pumping out hundreds or thousands of iPhones/hour. Pick and place machines and robots make it less expensive to just throw the boards away which don't meet spec.

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