Dick Smith

Disk's original (?) store was at Red Hill or Rooty Hill (??) my memory is failing me a bit now. (and you might get the impression I don't live around Sydney) :p

He provided many components and kits for projects published by the Electronics Australia magazine. Several of which I made in those younger years.

Interesting to see a couple of familiar names from EA days - Jim Rowe and Leo Simpson still involved in the Silicon Chip magazine.

No he got rich by providing a valuable service to hundreds of mail order customers.

And do people remember that he was instrumental in breaking the DoC's back when it came to selling and eventually ensuring that the 27MHz CB became legal ??

.. make that thousands of mail order customers. Not everyone lives in Sydney you know. ;)

None of the electronic components I purchased off DSE were crap. They were good quality at all times.

That's a good point and something I'd forgotten about.

I most certainly do. How times have changed...

Without checking, I think it was Rooty Hill, then not long after he opened a second store somewhere which escapes me ATM...

I suddenly feel quite old :)

Try Gore Hill near St Leonards (Sydney, North Shore). Being from the Shire, I didn't appreciate just how far it was from North Sydney, the first time I caught a train there as a teenager...

news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Artarmon, in the north shore:

** The first DSE business opened in Artarmon in 1968, doing car radio installation & repair. It soon moved to larger premises in St Leonards. Components were a side line and then became a main line of business, along with kits. DSE competed with a similar business called Kit Sets, which started in Dee Why and then moved to a city location not far from the DSE store in York Street. ** Jim Rowe worked for DSE for a time, as Dick's technical manager IIRC, then returned to EA magazine in the late 1980s as managing editor.

.... Phil

Still kicking my self that I did not get a petrol powered pogo stick.

every time I post something someone says that. get over yourselves..

I couldn't care less if you believe it or not, but the fact is that Dicky imported cheap poor quality electronic parts, plugs, connectors, you name it, from Asia and China. until then the market was supplied with quality (and more expensive) components mainly from Germany and Europe, but businesses selling those parts then had to compete with Dicky, and since they couldn't match his prices, they were forced to buy and sell the same crap. Radio Parts being a prime example. I recall trying to use RCA plugs where the plastic was so brittle that they broke apart in use or assembly, and the metal parts so flimsy that they came off when you tried to solder them. they were not tinned like the German products were, and needed to be scraped for the solder to take, and needed so much heat that they often just melted off the plastic if you weren't careful.

yes, his kits were instructional but expensive for what you got.

--
"As long as there is this book [Koran] there will be no peace in the world" 
-William Gladstone, four times PM of Great Britain 
http://www.siotw.org/

other electronic companies had a mail order service, but I don't recall their owners becoming billionaires

I would really like to see Trevor Wilson comment in this thread

--
"As long as there is this book [Koran] there will be no peace in the world" 
-William Gladstone, four times PM of Great Britain 
http://www.siotw.org/

** One good thing DSE did during the 70s was to sell PCBs for all their kits, along with any special parts that were needed as separate items.

So I was able to get the PCB and C-core transformer for the "Playmaster Twin 40" in mid 1976 and use them to replace the internals of an existing stereo amplifier to build my own, rather better version.

Along the way, I found fixes for some problems with the published circuit in relation to excessive DC offset at the output and also its variation with the position of the balance pot.

By adding a couple of tantalum caps and Hfe matching some BC639s, the offset went from 500mV worst case to about 20mV. This was important since I was using the amp with a pair of Quad ESLs with an input transformer having only 0.3ohms resistance.

... Phil

I used to get a lot of stuff from Radio parts. One of my responsibilities was the media room in the college and Radio Parts was the best source of good quality gear in the 80s. Used their Nth Melbourne store most of the time but occasionally used their Carnegie store. I remember well the Radio Parts decline. They still have their Nth Melbourne store.

I wonder if they have improved? Haven't been back for a good decade and a half at least.

One of the more interesting electronics hobbyist stores in Melbourne in the 80s was Rod Irving Electronics. They kept a lot of good stuff and I bought my first computer from them back when they only had their Northcote Store. I knew Rod to talk to but he wasn't a very personable chap. He spent most of his time up on the Mezzanine floor at his Northcote Store, away from customers. I knew his manager, Greg Boot, quite well. Greg opened up the A'Beckett Street store in Melbourne and he eventually split it into 2 sections, the usual hobby stuff and, upstairs, a computer software store. Not sure what the arrangement was but it looks like Greg's little software business folded up too;

I remember those well. You only had to breathe near the plastic covers and they would crack. Kid glove treatment needed all the way. I used to hate those aftermarket RCA plugs and sockets as I was always modifying audio stuff.

Yep, done that too.

I used to buy a few mail order items from Dick Smith back in the 70s when I was working in the mines in WA. Apart from various kits, one of the items I bought was my Yaesu FRG7. After WA, I took the FRG7 to Indonesia. That beast still exists and lives in Vic. I sold it to a friend when I left Indonesia.

Apart from the standard EA type kits he sold, a lot of his kits were for kids. I was more into computers in the 80s anyway.

--

Xeno

** Sounds like a good idea.

I made a one, mail order purchase from RIE in 1987. 100 Motorola power tran sistors - 50 each of MJ15003 and MJ15004, or at least that is what they wer e labelled.

Their scruffy appearance worried me, so I did few tests and found they did not meet important specs for the types. An early morning phone call to Moto rla's head office in Phoenix comfirmed they were fake - old stock 2N3055s a nd MJ2955s relabelled as the much more expensive parts with fake date codes to.

When I finally got to speak with Rod on the phone, he admitted buying them from Ellistronics. Turned out Jaycar had a few hundred of them on hand too, from the same source.

So they could not be sold on to any others, I removed the fake labelling wi th acetone and returned them for a refund - which prompted a letter from Ro d's lawyer complaining about this because it "... prevented his client gett ing a refund from his suppliers ".

I eventually got my money back, after EA mag published photos of the fakes with a warning about such counterfeits and advice to buy only from authoris ed Motorola resellers.

.... Phil

Inject some firearms or AGW and you will.

Yes he's a religious zealot! My sig sniff's them out

-- Petzl What perfect set of circumstances placed our Sun a Celestial ball of fire at just the correct distance from our little blue planet for life to evolve? All simply conicidence? The very fact we exist is nothing but the result of a complex yet inevitable string of chemical accidents and biological mutations? There is no Grand meaning; There is no purpose

It probably was. I wonder what's become of Rod now?

Looks like a few people got clipped!

I didn't buy much in the way of components from RIE. Used Radio Parts for much of that. Was known to buy stuff at the DSE store in Bridge Road, Richmond but that was more a convenience thing since I worked just opposite the Richmond Baths a bit further along Bridge Road.

--

Xeno

DSE didn't sell food or clothing.

Sylvia

I guess most of you guys have seen this video:

and this series of videos: