Singing the praises of the local electronics store

I second that kudo. B&M stores like this are worth their weight in gold these days.

Of course, the real luck is that they've lasted this long.

Most closed down years ago, as rents went higher (or there was redevelopment, such as the World Trade Center disbursing Radio Row), or the owners got older and wanted to retire, or the field changed so much with the coming of ICs (or even transistors) that they decided it was a good time to close the business. Indeed, a lot of those places survived because they catered to a general crowd, not just the hobbyist but the repair outlets. But as electronics got more complicated, the more specific the parts became, and unlike the days when stocking standard resistors, capacitors and tubes would cover much of the need, the inventory had to grow large if it could be of value to the repair of most items.

When I was a kid in 1971, I picked a store out of the Yellow Pages to get parts for that first project. Wooden floors, a combination of new parts, surplus parts and even WWII surplus, and the owner took his shift behind the counter. ON later trips to the store, I discovered it was a cluster of electronic stores, so my original choice was pretty good. There was a more service oriented store that had been around forever (wooden floors too) but also had an amateur radio department, and an upstart solid state only place, who seemed to get most of his stock from Poly Paks. All of those stores are gone, some decades back, and only one store that I know from those early days still exists (but it still has a wooden floor). One store in another location continued on till about five or so years ago, and had disappeared when I returned after what hadn't seemed like too long an absence.

Although, the owner of that first store I went to was mentioned in the paper recently, and he's still selling surplus (though now manufacturing surplus rather than war suprlus), but it seems to be reselling to stores rather than selling to walk in customers.

Michael

Unfortunately, most local electronic parts stores (don't even say radio shack) have gone the way of the DODO bird with this disposable society.

Back in the days of tubes, pre Internet, they were thriving. Then solid state came in. They would stock ECG, SK replacements and such. This was not bad, but they were replacements and not original parts. Then nationwide distributors began to stock ORIGINAL parts at a fraction of the ECG/SK prices. It was a no brainer to service companies to get a parts order together and mail order. The bread and butter of selling tubes and generic semi market was going way down.

Then China came into the picture with no name disposable electronics. I cannot even ship some of the stuff back to China for what they sell it for. The number of repair shops shrunk by 1/2 over a 10 year period. The old guys retired or went out of business. The new guys? What new guys? The only thing they teach in schools these days is computers. The old TV repair tech schools are a thing of the past for the most part. More TV's are put on the curb these days than repaired. What do you expect when you can buy a 20" color TV for $99? Most large shops charge more than that for labor these days. And when the USA DTV changeover takes place in 2009 or so, the CRT will be near extinct

There are a few holdouts in major markets. But the local parts stores are a shell of what they once were in the 1960/70's. As is the repair shop business.

The few repair guys that have found a niche or are the last Mohicans will survive. The rest are either taking on water or have sunk. Its easier just to go to wall mart and buy a cheap new pacific rim TV than get it fixed.

Bob

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