And as things would have it, I went right by the exit HRO is on by one exit but traffic was so bad I said, "some other time."
I also wanted to get back at a reasonable time and I'm not pulling the trigger until next week but wander around the store like an Olde Phart might have been neat.
Gigaparts if offering exactly the same deal and dates as HRO.
I guess it's odd that I've never been in a bricks and mortar ham radio retailer.
"... and another thing about you democrats ... you all believe in science!" -- denny crane
I'm just lucky I live two and a half hours away from one.Originally Posted by n6hcm
When I was 13 I got to go into the Heathkit store in Miami. I was visiting my aunt/uncle and cousin. That was nifty keen.
There's the one over yonder Portland way, they moved a few miles up the road a few years ago. Made it that much farther to go ;(
I haven't been in HRO for at least a decade, which is sad. I enjoyed twiddling the knobs and listening to the radio amateurs tell stories to one another. I wonder if it's still anything like that anymore?
In my stash of goodies is a demo SB-104. That is, one whose top cover has been cut away and a sheet of Plexiglass installed over the opening. Was meant to showcase the insides of a fully assembled transceiver.
Most of the boards were missing when it came to me, but I have enough spares of various cards that I could populate the insides and put the setup on display somewhere. As near as I can figure it came out of one of those stores. Who knows how many others - if any - are in existence.
"Everyone wants to be an AM Gangsta until it's time to start doing AM Gangsta shit."
When I was in middle school, my friend Bill and I would ride our bicycles out to the original Ham Radio Outlet store in Burlingame, California. It was located in an old Southern Pacific freight shed adjacent to the Burlingame station. I bought my first piece of real ham gear there, a used Heathkit SB-300 receiver.
Last edited by NQ6U; 02-17-2024 at 03:25 PM. Reason: Fixed a typo: out/our
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.
see, that's the thing. I commuted right past the Burlingame location for the better part of two decades... but that was before I revisited radio.
"... and another thing about you democrats ... you all believe in science!" -- denny crane
I just looked at Google Maps. The Burlingame station is still there but it looks like they tore the old freight shed down.
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.
oh, yeah. I haven't gone past Burlingame in the better part of a decade now (six plus years in new york, then nine years before at the VA in SF)
"... and another thing about you democrats ... you all believe in science!" -- denny crane
As things would have it, I was in Atlanta again and 3.2 miles from HRO.
I went in. Walked over to the long desk with all new radios and had a seat. Started tuning around on the 7300 and it wasn't connected to an antenna.
Nothing was connected to an antenna. There's an antenna on the roof. Two of them. A SteppIR and a vertical.
I went through the some of the basic functions on the 7300 like how to quickly move from band to band. Looked at a couple of menu functions and used the touchscreen. It's a nice radio. Well, it feels nice. Very smooth knobs and securely seated buttons. The touchscreen was beautifully responsive.
Spent about 10 minutes seated and no one said a word to me. I got up. Looked at the MFJ stuff hanging all over the walls. They're about twice as big as a Radio Shack now BTW. Looked at coax. Their LMR400 is about 2.50 a foot in prepared ready to use rolls at 100'. I looked at power supplies, microphones and some little nicnaks and paddy wacks.
No one approached me. No one talked to me. My work attire is usually basic slacks, a polo or golf shirt, a nice gray windbreaker, my signature hat and combat boots and today I had a fresh shave too. There were 3 guys at the counter and one in the back. The counter guys were on their computers. Don't know how important their computer work was or what they could have been doing on them.
I pulled up to the parking space right in front of the entrance in a brand new Volvo S60. Nothing.
So, there would be no trigger pulling at their brick and mortar location.
Gigaparts it is!
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