Steven Viola

It’s probably been ages since you’ve been inside a Radio Shack, and figured out that there is a thing called the Internet, with much better prices, and with the right item for the job. Whenever I pass a Radio Shack in a mall, I admit that I have a laugh seeing how much they are charging for little things, like foreign jack converters and rechargeable batteries, but sometimes there are times that you need that one capacitor and don’t have time to create a DigiKey order and wait a day or two for shipping, and you pay the ridiculous price just to get it immediately. I did this recently to fix the inverter for my monitor, and paid a few bucks for a capacitor. Within a few hours, I went from a monitor with no backlight, to a fully functioning monitor.

It is this point where I recall reading that Radio Shack was founded for hobbyists who built ham radios, which was probably a niche market at the time and still is, but if you can grow a business catering to a growing niche market, why shift gears to compete against giants like Best Buy. It had been a while since I’d entered a Radio Shack and actually purchased something, but I’ve learned that the only good part of the store is the back where they have the “hobby” section. The rest of the store is full of cellphones on display and maybe a RC Car. it is unfortunate that Radio Shack has abandoned its demographic that made them so popular, but at least they have partitioned an eighth of the store to such a niche market. I found an overpriced capacitor pretty quickly (because there were only 3 different values) and proceded to the checkout. Words can not describe the confused look the clerk gave me as he rang up the capacitor, and after I paid, he questioned me on my cell phone plan, I guess in an attempt to get me upgrade my 5 year old RAZR. I walked out hoping i’d never have to enter Radio Shack again, and anxious to fix my monitor.

I was completely wrong and a week later, I read an article in Hack a Day about a Parallax RFID Reader for $10, a great deal from the normal price of $40. I wasn’t working Memorial Day and figured I’d see if any of the local stores had one or two in stock. I visited 4 stores in total, starting at 9am when they first opened, and the first 3 didn’t have any in stock. Each time I enquired with the clerk, they provided extremely little help, and for the most part were rude. They probably get commission on opening a cellphone plan, and saw me as some nuisance that get them money early in the morning. I was determined to find the RFID reader and driving between s wouldn’t tores and getting stuck behind a Memorial Day parade gave me a lot of time to think about the future of Radio Shack. Radio Shack doesn’t see enough commerce in the hobby market, and are probably going to try and get rid of all the hobby equipment to just be in the cell phone and consumer electronics business.

It wasn’t shocking when I heard that companies are bidding to buy Radio Shack, probably in an attempt to acquire it’s cell phone department. I highly doubt that any company that buys Radio Shack will maintain the hobby section, and the era of the mainstream hobbyest is fully shifting online, which may be daunting to the unguided novice. Luckily there will hopefully always be mom and pop stores who cater to the hobby market, like Unicorn Electronics, which was amazingly convient for getting parts immediately while finishing projects for my undergraduate degree. Luckily there are a lot of replacements helping beginners learn electronics, like MAKE Magazine, and hopefully more will emerge to help the ever growing market of hobbyests learn and challenge themselves.