Be nice! A lot of RS stores have gone to Hell in a hand basket, but I resentthe stereotype, nonetheless.Up until fairly recently (I'm talking 6 or 7 years ago), my local RS storeshad quite knowledgeable staff. But let me tell you what happened to me about 19 or 20 years ago.There was a local RS office in downtown ("Old Town") Eureka. It was a fewyears prior to the start of the "Urbanization of Eureka" project. God Damnthe city council! In this event, there was an employment ad run in the local job market, for a"manager trainee" position. This point is important to note! I did not wantto be a salesman. I like dynamics, not stagnation. Thank you very much!Well, it turns out that the so-called "manager trainee" position was a hoax:A come-on. Truth is: ANY employee can be later considered, trained, andpromoted. I didn't realize that then, but I do now.Let's backtrack. OK. I applied for the job.At the interview, we talked turkey. This is where I probably shot myselfdown, but I didn't care at the time. I was blinded by intellect. During thecourse of the interview, I was alarmed to learn that RS was phasing out the"smart salesmen", in a quest for volume sales push. The interviewer startedto explain the policy to me. Here is what I heard him say:"Actually, we are not looking for manager with electronics knowledge. Theless they know about electronics, the better."I asked, "Why?" (big mistake)"Well, it's a distraction. We don't want customers calling up our store topick our brain. We want to be able to keep sales on an even keel, andbasically just run the store."I proceeded to tell him, quite frankly, what I thought about that protocol.I didn't get the job, needless to say. But at least I left an impression.Yeah, it's sad.In the past 20 years, ost of the knowledgeable staff in my area RS stores haveeither been transferred, fired, or have gotten frustrated and quit!-- -john wide-open at throttle dot info

Be nice, my ass. Too damned many people in this world are "being nice" in an effort to avoid offending the tender sensibilities of some worthless waste of humanity, when what's needed is a good solid smack upside the head with a dose of reality.Resent it all you like. Your resentment means *EXACTLY NOTHING* to me, as my view is dead-on accurate: If you walk into pretty much any Radio Shack today, you cannot find anyone with even the amount of electronic know-how needed to point you at the capacitor rack, let alone give you any useful information to decide why "This one is the one you want, rather than that one." You'll find a shitload of salesdroids that'll try and sell you a cell-phone when what you want is a 33K resistor, but beyond that, you're walking into an intellectual wasteland.Most of them wouldn't know a capacitor from a resistor from a pimple on their ass. Of course, this assumes that the store you walk into even *HAS* a capacitor rack. It's getting to the point where Radio...

Re: Role of ignition condenser in a distributor?

Sep 24, 2004 21 Replies

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Tim Auton 21 years ago

Al wrote: [snip]

Was it better (cheaper, smaller, sounded better...) than a commercially available non-transistor radio?

You still can. Things have moved on, so we build different things these days. The components are much better though. I built a PVR (digital video recorder). I didn't make the motherboard, or the CPU, or the RAM and I didn't write most of the code (I did write some though, and I spent a whole lot of time making the damn thing work) - but I bet you didn't make your own transistors or capacitors or invent much of the circuit topology for your radio either. I also build boards for my robots - not from discrete components, but from micro controllers, integrated H-bridge drivers, packaged power regulators and the like. Why not make it all from discretes? Same reason you didn't make your own transistors.

All the time! Go to an R/C hobby shop, the place is full of 'em. Go to a place they fly gliders, the sky is full of 'em.

Perhaps because the cheap planes suck?

Tim

Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do.

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Ed Price 21 years ago

Not dumping on them, it's more like wondering how an old friend went over to the dark side. RS just might have some wire-wrap wire. Do you think they also have wrapping tools, suitable DIP sockets, switches with WW compatible terminals, and maybe even an IC or two? Analog & logic stuff is not mutually incompatible with RF, but I just notice the RS lack of RF components more acutely.

Thus far, based on my last visit of a week ago, there's no evidence of any new emphasis on component selection or quality. Fortunately for me, I have a nearby Gateway, and a couple of big surplus stores too. Each has their strengths, and I try my best to keep them all profitable. NAPA too!

Ed wb6wsn

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