JUST TO LET YOU KNOW...

Yes, I've been hanging around here for a few years, but I am not some seasoned electronics technician/repairman. The only degrees I have are Hot and Cold...LOL. No, I do have a degree in computer programming.

I just took it upon my self to try to soak up as much knowledge as I can from visiting all the newsgroups since the early 90's. What jump-started me was when I took my 1968 Maggie portable to a shop for repairs. One of my classmates gave this to me back in 1974. It was sitting in her garage for years. Anyhoo, this shop is a one-man operation and he does some serious repairs and also sells alot of that esoteric stuff like those tall Magna Planar(sp) speakers and alot of high-end stuff from Sweden and Germany.

He was gonna charge me about $200 to repair my record player (I hope, pictured below from my cell phone) and I declined. One of my interstage transformers had a broken winding and I screwed it up trying to repair it myself. I think there were a couple of repair shops here in Tucson, but they're scarce as hens teeth now. We are fortunate to have an ELECTRONIC supply store in Tucson, kinda like the old Radio Shack back in the 70's. They do sell caps, resistors, diodes, connectors, even phono cartridges and needles. What a gold mine.

Anyhoo, over the years, I have bought old electronics books, subscribed to newsgroups, bought and learned how to read schematics, and learned how to do my own repairs. Through trial and error, I've managed to repair just about everything that came across my threshold without any serious electrical shocks...LOL...I'm still a little leary about TV's with their high voltages and have about four out in the garage that need a little TLC. Some are very nice sets from the 90's.

Should I fix them or go with flat screens all through the house? With this throw-away society, It just bothers me to trash these TV's. Magnavox, Sony Trinitron, Zenith...maybe an Emerson in the mix. They're all 27" diagonal screens collecting dust. These units will still work if you have a VCR with a digital tuner. My 1973 floor model RCA XL-100 is in my master bedroom connected through a VCR/Cable connection.

Sorry for being so verbose, just wanted to let you know that I am no professionally trained technician or know-it-all, and just make my little contributions from past experiences. Go to the professional folks like Record-changer and a host of others who contribute to this forum.

Bobby Basham
Tucson

Doghouse,
"Radio Shack" was the retail part of "Allied Radio Supply" here till "Tandy" (Leather Company) purchased it (and sold off the leather stores and name-- then changed their name to "Radio Shack").
They are still around here, but have reduced their component stock drastically, to focus on "big ticket/fast moving" items. Did "Dick Smith" ( electronic stores) ever make it to the UK? Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:Doghouse,
"Radio Shack" was the retail part of "Allied Radio Supply" here till "Tandy" (Leather Company) purchased it (and sold off the leather stores and name-- then changed their name to "Radio Shack").

Ron, that is not quite the right sequence of events/history.

Hinckley-Tandy Leather Co was formed in Fort Worth, Texas in 1919, In 1960 after several disolutions and mergers the Name was Changed to Tandy Corporation and listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Radio Shack was formed in 1921, in Boston Mass. By the early 1960s it had Expanded to nine retail stores plus a mail-order operation. The Company fell on hard times due to poor operating practices. Charles Tandy bought the essentially bankrupt company in 1963 for the equivalent of $300,000 cash. Tandy bought Allied Radio and Allied Electronics, which had begun in 1921 as a mail-order and parts distribution arm of Columbia Radio Corporation, in 1970. This caused many of the new Allied Radio Shack stores (former Allied Radio stores) to be in close competition with existing Radio Shack stores, sometimes in the same shopping centers. In 1973 Federal Lawsuits caused the company to divest itself of Allied Radio. Allied Electronics would continue as a "Division of Tandy Corporation" that served the manufacturing sector until the mid-1980s when it began to change owners. In 1975 Tandy Corp became exclusively an electronics company after it spun off all other operations into Tandycrafts and Tandy Brands. In 1986 it spun off its foreign retail operations into InterTAN, Inc. In 1999 Allied Electronics was acquired by Electrocomponents plc the largest catalog distributor in the world.

PS. I hope that you received the tone arm wire, and that it worked out well for you.

Brian

Brian,
Well I was close---thanks for setting it right--Yep-wire's perfect--Thanks ! Ron Rich

Would any of you guys know about Olson's Electronics. I remember visiting one in Columbus, Ohio back in the 70's. They sold electronics, raw speakers and gutted (used) speaker cabinets, and used (erased) reel-to-reel tapes. --BB


Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona

"Olson electronics for everyone" is NO More.
I have the two last relics by them. Very good quality amplified Omni-directional microphones rated at 15-20,000hz.
I use them once in awhile.
Bill Cahill