Careful. With talk like that, Gerry will send in the pig.
Careful. With talk like that, Gerry will send in the pig.
A clear conscience is usually a sign of a bad memory
RIP ALBI-W3MIV RIP RUSS-W5RB RIP BOB-VK3ZL
Yeah, I got your goat.
You want it back, right?
Last edited by WZ7U; 03-29-2017 at 07:13 PM.
Like that post was...
Moving on, my posts are not helpful
In a previous life, I often visited the original HRO when it was in Burlingame, CA, in the former railroad station. It was part of my one Saturday a month rotation that would start with a ham flea market, then a couple surplus stores, including Halted's, HRO and the Heathkit store. I bought a couple of my first rigs there, and really enjoyed the fact that you could easily compare radios side by side there, on the air. We had another ham dealer much closer to us - Quement's in San Jose, and I bought too much stuff there, but HRO carried all the big names.
Even back in those 'golden years' of ham radio, the guy behind the counter could be more than a little cranky, but I think I know why. Hams are often just plain cheap, and they'll try about anything to get something at a discount or for free. It's got to grate on you after a while, when the customers treat you like a thief because they think the prices are too high, when in fact, the margins just aren't there for the dealer to make any money. HRO is to be admired for managing to stay in business in the face of so much Internet competition.
I was also sad to see AES go - I bought a few rigs from their Milwaukee store, too.
We are fortunate to have a good radio store here in Minnesota - Radio City in Mounds View, and I do try to make a regular contribution to their profits to keep them here as long as possible.
I bought my first piece of real ham radio equipment—an assembled Heathkit SD-300 receiver—at the original HRO in Burlingame. I must have been around 14 years old. The guy was a bit grumpy but seemed to take a liking to my friend Bill and I for some reason.
All the world’s a stage, but obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines. Maybe that’s why it’s hard to tell if we’re living in a tragedy or a farce.
Radio City in Mounds View
Mounds View, you say?
Jim
The machine does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I find it bizarre that the guy would try and sell you the idea that "nobody uses balanced line" and "everyone uses coax". Plenty of hams I know (and have known) use balanced feed. I for one never even considered using coax for my HF antennas. I used balanced tuner/line from day 1 to the present.
I keep my 2 feet on the ground, and my head in the twilight zone.