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<DIV>Yeah Martin, that too! I forgot all about the quad balloon
deflating! I was in charge of the repair shop when that happened I
think. </DIV>
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<DIV>I still have my LR-1500T receiver, and Rectilinear Mini-3 speakers (and two
Garrard 90 turntables) from when I sold stereos in the little noisy room.
I got the Rectilinears because I hated the mushy bass coming from Advent and
other bookshelf speakers.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I still remember some part numbers even these years later, such as a 1/8
inch stereo mini plug being 99-62101. Were you there before they added the
last digit as a checksum? When that came out, we had a great time manually
calculating the last digit! And oh, those OCR receipts! My years in
drafting (lettering) paid off when that happened!</DIV>
<DIV>Terry (LRE store #22, employee #9 or 19?)</DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=dcmk1mr2@gmail.com
href="mailto:dcmk1mr2@gmail.com">Martin</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, November 04, 2015 4:47 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=n4tlf@wb4jfi.com href="mailto:n4tlf@wb4jfi.com">Terry
N4TLF</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=lstoskopf@cox.net
href="mailto:lstoskopf@cox.net">lstoskopf@cox.net</A> ; <A title=tacos@amrad.org
href="mailto:tacos@amrad.org">Tacos</A> ; <A title=ki4hlv@gmail.com
href="mailto:ki4hlv@gmail.com">Iain McFadyen</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: Staff quality at Radio Shack</DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>Terry,
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Small world. I worked in the Hyattsville Lafayette Radio in
Hyattsville in the early '70s.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I thought it was their overinvestment in quadraphonic audio gear that did
them in.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Martin</DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_extra>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 12:53 PM, Terry N4TLF <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:n4tlf@wb4jfi.com"
target=_blank>n4tlf@wb4jfi.com</A>></SPAN> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Hey
guys,<BR>RS has always been rather poor in general when it comes to the
"help". It got much worse after Tandy purchased them. I worked at
the Lafayette Radio store at Seven Corners back in the late 60s & early
70s, and even then RS was known to be less helpful, according to our customers
coming in. (I worked every position in the store except cashier and
manager). Even then, in general RS stores did not treat their employees
very well, which led to lots of employee turnover. I've heard horror
stories over the years about their policies. So, it's no wonder that
virtually nobody sticks around, unless they have a stake in a particular
store. Of course, there are outlier employees who just love the job as
well. Some smart people, including hams, worked at those stores.
Most, not for very long, however.<BR><BR>Lafayette got killed by
over-investing in the CB craze. RS did similar with the cell phone
market and computers, plus their propensity to overcharge for most of what
they sell. Plus, the Internet, with ALL its virtual stores. Why pay a
marked-up price at a RS store, when you can get it for MUCH LESS within a day
or two elsewhere (and maybe better quality).<BR><BR>I was sad to see RS go
(for the most part), but they mostly did it to themselves.<BR>73, Terry,
N4TLF<BR><BR>-----Original Message----- From: <A
href="mailto:lstoskopf@cox.net" target=_blank>lstoskopf@cox.net</A><BR>Sent:
Wednesday, November 04, 2015 3:15 PM<BR>To: <A href="mailto:tacos@amrad.org"
target=_blank>tacos@amrad.org</A> ; Iain McFadyen<BR>Subject: Re: Staff
quality at Radio Shack
<DIV class=HOEnZb>
<DIV class=h5><BR><BR>Ian: You aren't old enough to remember the old
RS. A lot of those employees were somewhat trained or already knew about
electronics. And they had a good stock of supplies. Since their
near death/near bankruptcy experience and down sizing there are no long term
careers there. Our two have a total of one guy who has been there a long
time and knows whats what. Sad that one side of the store has a lonely Sprint
sales girl and the other an almost as lonely RS guy. Most of the
computer stuff is gone and they have cheap discounted electronic toys that are
still cheaper direct from China on Banggood and the parts cabinets. And
I wonder who in Salina needs a SMA to BNC connector with fake gold....I've go
plenty.<BR><BR>Now Amazon carries their own branded cables, etc. and if you
have Amazon Prime you can get them in 2 days post paid.<BR><BR>Times changed a
long time ago...<BR><BR>Speaking of changes: at coffee today we were
discussing the movie: Bridge of Spies, which everyone needs to see.
Powers got shot down by a salvo of nearby missile explosions which stalled the
engine. The Ruskies finally had ones that could get high enough, but no
accurate enough for a hit. Which led to one of the group talking about
one of his relatives working on our WW2 project on proximity fuses....the
batteries available had a max shelf life or 4 months...supposedly a farm boy
told the PhD guys that they needed wet/dry batteries like they bought for the
farm. Was told...ridiculous...how do you charge in a
projectile....spin down the barrel would break the liquid container and
activate. Good story anyway.<BR><BR>Which led to our discussion of the
recent Russian plane.....heard yesterday that our guys reluctantly admitted
that they saw two heat sources surrounding the affair: one when the
plane blew up and the other when it hit the earth. I'm sure they didn't
want to reveal too much that we could in real time pinpoint an isolated,
unscheduled incident in a vast space on a fairly continuous basis.<BR><BR>And
our Ham SDR guys are happy to be up to a couple of dozen SDR receivers on a PC
+. Barry was at Bletchley. How many gals were there copying CW
signals that now could be replaced by a good Skimmer app?<BR><BR>RS
aside, these are great tech
times.<BR><BR>N0UU<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Tacos
mailing list<BR><A href="mailto:Tacos@amrad.org"
target=_blank>Tacos@amrad.org</A><BR><A
href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos" rel=noreferrer
target=_blank>https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos</A>
<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Tacos mailing
list<BR><A href="mailto:Tacos@amrad.org"
target=_blank>Tacos@amrad.org</A><BR><A
href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos" rel=noreferrer
target=_blank>https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos</A><BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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