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Finally got a ham supply store nearby to where I live... Thats about 3 hrs away from me AND my employer has a terminal less then 40 miles from there as well! Texas Towers has a store down there but they are sooo expensive and limited in their stock, I don't bother with them.
I love HRO. We have a great store in Atlanta and the store manager Mark (KJ4VO) is an awesome dude!
The guys at the one in Phoenix, are really nice. Even though I can save a few bucks ordering stuff online, I try to support them as much as possible. Many hams don't support their local ham store, and that's why so few exist any more. More often than not, Gary will meet any online price, or throw in something as an incentive, so at the most, the sales tax is about the only thing that makes the local purchase higher than the online price. The nice thing about having a local vendor, is you can actually go in and evaluate whatever you are considering purchasing. You can't put a price on that. Return freight for returning a radio you bought online that wasn't exactly what you wanted 'aint cheap.
The only other HRO I've been to is the one in San Diego. They were nice, too, but threw me out when I mentioned I knew Carl and Pat. Who Gnu?
Ditto on Mark. He's a great guy. I remember when he first started working at the Atlanta HRO, around 1988, if I remember correctly. He was a kid in his mid-20's back then. Now, he's the big boss and everyone knows to stay off his lawn!Quote:
Originally Posted by N4BBQ
The new Plano, TX, HRO store is just a couple of miles from where I went to High School. Glen, K9STH, should be happy with the news, 'cause he still lives in the area.
Besides the Atlanta store, the only other HRO I've been to is in Sunnyvale, CA. I visited the Sunnyvale store a few times, back when I lived in that neck of the woods.
I wonder if they call on him for those "really tough" repairs?Quote:
Originally Posted by wb5ydk
Yeah, they'll do that. Bastids.Quote:
Originally Posted by K7SGJ
Seriously, the staff at the SD HRO are good guys who know a lot about radio. Like La Rata, I try to buy from them as much as possible, even when I can get it online for a little cheaper.
According to Google Maps, the new Plano HRO store is only half a mile away from the Texas Towers store.
From the 1960's through the early 1990's, there was another ham radio store, in Dallas, called Electronics Center. It was the premier store in the area during its 60's-70's heyday. Aside from selling all the newest gear on the market, they also had a big wall loaded with used trade-ins. As a kid with a modest allowance, about they only thing I could do was to enter the store and drool.
One Saturday per month, there was a tailgate, flea market in the store parking lot. Hams would bring "what they got" and then do some horse trading with other area hams.
I don't know why the store isn't still in existence. Maybe, their location, near Downtown Dallas, was too far away for hams living in the rapidly expanding suburbs to the north (where newly-opened Texas Towers was courting customers). As I recall, Electronics Center also started expanding into the highly-competitive personal computer market. Computers, of course, soon became commodity items.
That sounds like a place that was in downtown Phoenix around the early 60s. Southwest Electronics had all the latest ham gear, and a huge inventory of trade in stuff. Much like you, all I did was spend the drooling, and then catch a bus for the long ride home with nada.Quote:
Originally Posted by wb5ydk
When I first moved to the Pittsburgh area, there was a downtown ham/electronics store called Tydings Electronics. The owner had sold out to another store, South Hills Electronics. SHE eventually folded ALL of their over the counter retail stores in favor of wholesale & bulk sales, more lucarative. SHE is still in existence, although under another name due to mergers, but they don't want to be bothered with the average person.Quote:
Originally Posted by wb5ydk
There had also been a rival downtown store called Cameradio. Yup. Cameras along with radios. They too were bought out by another store, and got folded into Cam/RPC, and their customer retail phased out.
So the corporate entity behind Electronics Center may still be around, but the retail store may have been deemed not profitable or not profitable enough.
There was a little corner electronics shop in the Kenmore (Akron) area back in the late 70s-early 80s. They sold a fair amount of ham gear on consignment and had a number of milsurp/industrial surplus offerings available from time to time.
I got my first look at Heathkit SB10x, SB30x and 40x equipment via that outfit - they certainly had a lot of it in and out their doors.
Ended up buying a Clegg Interceptor and a couple pieces of UHF/SHF mil gear, along with a bazillion discrete parts and other project-centric supplies. They closed shop in the mid 80s. Sad.