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and catch us live every Sunday night at seven pm Central Standard Time for a
different topic each week. Thank you for the support and thank you for being
a member of the community. Radio Shack is coming back. It may or
may not look like we used to know it, but they have been purchased
by a new vendor and they are gonna make their way back onto the scene
with brick and mortar stores in the USA. Check this out. So this
is another story article that I found about hobby radio. Radio shap is coming
back, but in what form? I actually found the article on three different
websites, and I think this was written up in the best way, or
at least it's most to my liking. This comes from the street dot com
and I'll share a link in the description below, Okay, And they talk
about how Coke and PEPSI have done some relaunches of old brands in the past.
So then they get down. Radio Shack went through multiple bankruptcies while the
brand shuttered thousands of locations. It actually had about seven thousand locations across the
USA at its peak, and it never really fully shut down. There's still
radio Shacks around the country in various places. You might have one near you.
Let me know if you have a radio Shack that's near you, and
if you go in there and talk to them, they're probably gonna tell you
it's a franchise store, not a corporate store. But this article says it
never fully went away in the US. A few hundred franchise franchises continued on,
as did franchise owners around the world. Why does Radio Shack ask for
your phone number when you buy batteries? I don't know. The biggest franchise
operator of the brand was an El Salvador based Unicommer Group. That's the name
of the company, Unicommer, and is now required the company. It has
big plans to not only revamp its website, but also build back its brick
and mortar presence in the USA. Good Deal Okay Radio shacks new owner plans
to add more merchandise for its current franchisees to be able to stock, and
it plans an Amazon storefront as well as well as new physical locations for the
once ubiquitous chain at its peak, because pretty much everywhere seven thousand stores globally,
Okay, I said across the USA, it's seven thousand stores globally.
The new owners plan to lean into offerings that differentiate the brand best Buy and
chains like Target and Walmart to sell that sell of a lot of lictronics.
Best Buy, I guess sort of makes sense, although they're you know,
they're not. You go into best Buy and you see a bunch of TVs
and washing machines. I mean that I haven't been into a best Buy in
a while, but that's pretty much what I even see. Target and Walmart
is just kind of like a conglomerate store. They sell pretty much everything.
Of course, Walmart has a really big online presence. Quote. Private label
offerings including drones, have phones, radios, and adapters were strongly emphasized pre
bankruptcy to offset the margin pressure, a push expected to be continued under the
new owners. A retail wire were reported, which is another article right here.
So there's a good storefront shot of radio shack retail wire. I'll go
ahead and I read through this article, and I like this one from the
street better but I'll link both of these into the description below. Does the
market need radio Shack back? So one of the things. So I want
to touch on this on this radios thing real quick. It might be talking
about an AMFM radio or like an alarm clock rated. They used to sell
alarm clock radios. A couple of their brands that you might recognize as Realistic
Realistic. They used to make car stereo stuff under Realistic. There were some
of the HTx two O two that were stamped Radio Shack at the top and
some that were stamped Realistic at the top. In fact, this is stamped
Realistic at the top right here. This is a radio Shack brand. This
is not my original HTx two two, although I do own it, but
this was the first, not this specific one, but this was the first
model of ham radio that I ever bought, right after getting my license.
So Realistic is one of their brands. They've got some pro scanner stuff.
You used to be able to buy scanners at Radio Shack for NASCAR races.
You could buy like pre programmed scanners to listen to the pit crew. They
were just scanners that didn't transmit, but you could listen to the pit crew
you could listen to, you could listen to AM receive for air traffic frequencies
and air traffic traffic of radio transmissions over the air. So maybe they'll have
some of that back and maybe not. So what do they mean by radios
in this article right here? Not necessarily two way radios. It doesn't say
two way radios. It says radios, and I certainly hope that it's two
way radios. I would love to see the HTx series of radios come back.
You know, we used to have the HGX two O two and the
HGX four O four, the two meter single band, and the four to
forty single band. There was an HTx ten which was a really nice mobile
ten meter only radio. There were a few others in there, but the
closest one, the first duel band they ever did, I think, was
an HTx four twenty or four oh two? Was it four twenty? I
wonder what the guy who named that model was thinking. But you know,
I bought one of those used on eBay several years ago, and I used
it for about a year and I sold it. I didn't like it.
I didn't like it. It wasn't it was a lot smaller. It wasn't
nearly as robust as this as there its predecessors, the two two and the
four O four. So I do have a couple of the HTx two twelve
mono band forty five WAT mobile two meter only radios. That was the first
mobile radio that I ever bought. So unknown if they're actually gonna have two
way radios or some sort of HAM radio or even CB radio. They were
really big in the CBS back in the day. The article continues, Radio
Shack went out of business because Amazon and to a lesser extent, Best Buy
made its selection less unique. So used to be able to buy trinkets and
parts and processors and resistors, transistors, fuses, all kinds of good stuff
at Radio Shack. As smartphones became common, chargers, necessories basically basically became
commodities, which squeezed margins and forced Radio Shack into bankruptcy. And again the
article says they went through bankruptcy twice, two different times. They went through
bankruptcy. Now you have to wonder is And the article goes on to talk
about this here in a minute. So I'm gonna read you the bottom part
of the article, and I'm really curious to see what you guys think about
that. But before that, I mean, how many of you actually still
buy parts and processors and not process but like resistors, transistors, fuses,
microfareads and all that kind of good stuff. What fair eyed beads and fair
eye beads and toroids and all that kind of good stuff. There's a company
called Mouser that is pretty good. They have They're down here in Texas and
I know they ship nationwide, But where would you go. One of the
places you can go you can always go to get all kinds of custom made
parts and boards and CNC machining and other stuff is pcbway dot com. Pcbway
dot com is sponsoring this video. They are supporter of this channel and I
thank them for that. You can always get three D printed materials and get
C and C printed materials. All you got to do is bring your ideas
to life. You send them files and they kind of work on it for
you, and then you can get them to actually physically make you a professional
grade part for whatever project you're working on. They do printed circuit boards,
flexible circuit boards, three or four five different kinds of circuit boards. So
if you want to build your own kit. You can do that as well.
Check the link in the description blow for pcbway dot com and if you
go there and place an order, be sure to tell them that ham Radio
two point zero cent you thank you for supporting this channel. The article goes
on to say that the competition has only gotten more intense and does the least
questions as to whether there's a need for the chain to grow its brick and
mortar presence. I'll be honest with you. I order a lot of stuff
on Amazon. And it's not just because Amazon is so great. I mean,
Amazon is great, and I have Amazon links that I share with you
guys all the time. But it's easy. You know, most days I
don't need something like right now, if I ordered it on Amazon, I
can get it sometimes same day, sometimes next day, two days at the
longest usually and unless there's an emergency or something, then I can drive up
the street and get something maybe, But one to two days shipping on Amazon
is pretty easy to get. So I just order all my stuff on Amazon.
So I hope now RadioShack they're going to do on Amazon said they're going
to do an Amazon store. Great, so maybe we can order some Radio
Shack stuff on Amazon. I certainly hope that they will get back into the
two way radio business, whether it be CB GMRS is pretty hot right now.
Be really fun to see some Radio Shack GMRS radios. Have they ever
made gmrs? I know they made like Businessman and FRS stuff at one point
in time. Does anyone ever know? Does anyone know if they ever made
merhs or GMRS radios. GMRS wasn't nearly as big back when Radio Shack was
big as GMRS to is today. But we see we'll see a major comeback
in the US. Will be extremely challenging. The electronics market has thin margins,
loads of competition, and because the products are very similar from retailer retil
it can be hard to differentiate. I always hear from my Ham Radio retail
partners that there are thin margins and electronics. Yes, that is very true.
This was Global Data Retail Division Manning Director Managing Director Neil Saunders that told
Retail Wire or that other website I shared a minute ago. As such,
I struggled to see a new pathway to success, especially in the current market
where electronics sales remain firmly in the doldrums okay. And then another person who
is quoted, Gary Sankar, who has fifty years in the retail business,
has had less kind comments. I can't see any scenario where this works in
the United States. The market for private label with electronics is small. Ham
Radio Okay, yeah it is. You're right, But they could do it
right if stores like Better Safe Radio and two or three of the other ones
out there by two way radios. You know, they could do it right
if they really wanted to, especially if they made their own product. I
think the market for electronics components, which I do miss, he says,
is even smaller these days. No one fixes anything anymore. That's true.
Yeah, that's true. No one fixes anything anymore. So what do you
think? What do you think? Do you think that do you think there's
a need for Radio Shack to come back? If they did come back,
would you shop there? Do you think they should make two way radios?
And I'm not just talking about him. I would love to see a new
version of this guy with some bells and whistles. Here's an idea. Here's
something I'm gonna say to Radio Shack out loud that we have not seen from
any other radio manufacturer, not even the Chinese markets are doing this right now.
Create a mobile radio that's dual band, all mode. Create a mobile
radio that's two meters and four forty similar to your HTx four twenty I hope
that's the right number, similar to yours, but that's in. It doesn't
even have to be full power twenty five thirty watts. It would be fine.
That's dual band, single sideband, CWFMAM digital modes. Create an all
mode, dual band HAM radio because nobody else is doing it right now.
Ten meters is hot right now, we're coming to the top of the solar
cycle. Another ten meter radio would be fun to see. Of course,
it's gonna take several years in development to get all this done. I don't
know. It may be too late for that. But what would you like
to see from radio shack? Do you think it's a good idea? Do
you think you would shop there if they open one down the street? For
me, I would definitely go there and check it out. In fact,
I do a video tour of it. There's a huge market right now for
gmrs, MERZ radios, CB radios. Even I think they could do it.
It's just a matter of how willing they are,