     You mean most of them.  

     In the seventies, I called a Radio Shack store and asked them if they had any CMOS chips.  They put me on hold for a long time while they asked everyone in the store if they knew.  Finally, I got tired of waiting on hold and drove over to the store.  They had a bunch of them right out on the wall.  

     The person I spoke to on the phone came over to me and offered me every excuse in the book for why they didn't know their merchandise.  I told that that their people weren't trained wasn't a good enough excuse.  He didn't have much to say when I said that.  

     Another time, I was putting two SO-239 (aren't they the ones that are the male counterpart to the PL-259s, it's been so long my memory is fading on that issue) onto a Heathkit two meter linear amplifier, replacing the phono plugs on the unit.  I got two SO-239s and wasn't sure which size screws were the right ones to use to mount it.  

     The saleslady opened a pack of the screws, took one that turned out to be the right size, stuck it into the connector (not the mounting holes, the hole in the middle of the connector where the PL-259 was supposed to go) and said, "No sir, it's too small".  I corrected her immediately.  I purchased the connectors and the screws and walked out the door wanting to vow I'd never return to Radio Shack.  But I knew I couldn't make that vow.  

     Then there was the time I brought my Icom 22S into Radio Shack.  It had one of those neat Drake touch tone microphones on it.  The girl at the counter couldn't understand that ham radio and CB were two different things.  Some people there were asking me about the microphone with the touch tone pad on it.  I explained about making autopatch calls.  The girl at the counter shrieked, "You mean you can make telephone calls *and* talk to CB'ers, too?  I want one of these.  How much do they cost?".  

     I explained to her that she needed to worry about getting her license first.  She shrieked, "How much does *that* cost?".  But I did explain to her about passing tests on Morse code and written tests as well.  

     She kept calling my radio a CB and I kept correcting her to the point where I was starting to get upset.  I finally gave up on her.  

     Oh, well.  




                                          Fred, WB4AEJ 

--- Stan - N0YXV <n0yxv@gihams.org> wrote:

From: Stan - N0YXV <n0yxv@gihams.org>
Date: Sat,  4 Feb 2006 10:13:06 -0600
To: TAPR APRS Mailing List <aprssig@lists.tapr.org>
Subject: Re: [aprssig] digipeater query

Radio Shack had both the 1:1 and the 1000:8? Are they actually listed as 1:1 
and 1000:8? If you have them handy can you publish a part number for them? I'm 
sure that _some_ of the Radio Shacks I've been to won't know what a 1:1 
transformer is, so a part number would be handy.

Quoting Jason Winningham <jdw@eng.uah.edu>:

> 
> On Feb 3, 2006, at 10:26 PM, w0ep wrote:
> 
> > Any comments?
> 
> I had consistently bad luck with any sound card interface (decoded  
> maybe 1 packet out of 1000) until I found a web page that said you  
> should use a 1:1 transformer for "data" port audio output, but you  
> should use a 1000:8 transformer for feeding speaker output to a sound  
> card interface.  After I picked up one of these at Radio Shack I  
> immediately started decoding packets nearly as well as my D7.  This  
> probably isn't your problem, but if you're thinking about buying a  
> new transformer it's something to think about.




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