Chain quits digital signal AM/FM receivers

[WA3VJB]

Shady O'Rack, known for cellphones, is getting out of the consumer digital AM/FM receiver market, according to a broadcast website.

Source: http://www.thebdr.net/articles/haps.html

8/1/11 - We have heard from several sources that Radio Shack is discontinuing most or all of its HD radio lines. If they are still in stock at your local store, they are on clearance - as low as $30 for the Auvio tuner and $18 for in iPod dongle.

[W3GMS]

Hi Paul,
It amazes me that they are still even in business!  Products that they sell seem to have no cost advantage over the competition.  I am anxious to see what will be the outcome of the most recent survey they conducted.

I guess the plus is, if you want an HD radio now is the time to pick one up on clearance. 

Joe, W3GMS     

[ve6pg]

..the stores have been gone from canada fer abt 8 yrs now..dont miss them...

..sk..

[The Slab Bacon]

Ah yes, you mean "Telephone Shack" 

"You have questions, we have blank stares"        

[ve6pg]

..frank..i still refer to any sales clerk, in any store, be it automotive, garden centre, etc., as giving you "the radio shack stare"...

..sk..

[The Slab Bacon]

Tim,
      Not to mention getting you address and phone number for every item sold, so they could bombard you with advertisement and sell your info to other companies.

I severely cussed out one of the store clerks some years back because he wanted all of my personal info for a $.59 cash sale! ! !   

[KA3EKH]

Hybrid Digital (HD) radio appear just about ready to follow C-QUAM AM stereo and Quadraphonic Stereo broadcasting to the scrap heap of history. All the systems worked, just that they all have failed in the market place. iBiquity has not done anything to help push their system by keeping the algorithms a "Trade Secret" and having high licensing fees for the encoders and decoders unlike digital television where things like ATSC publishes there material for everyone to use and many produce encoders and decoders for digital television but  iBiquity  wanted to keep all the money for themselves. The delays in programming audio, the never ending fees and profit sharing schemes with iBiquity and the cost and complexities involved in transmitting all make me glad to see it go.
Ray F.

[ve6pg]

quad stereo would have been great, but i never met anyone with 4 ears...

..sk..

[K5UJ]

I wonder how often RS bashers even go into one of their stores.   I went into one here yesterday and came out with an 8 inch x 6 inch piece of breadboard for three bucks.  I also got a project box for $6.   Maybe these prices are not flea market specials but RS isn't a charity and if you need a project box right now you don't mind paying $6. 

[W2VW]

If Radio Shack goes it will signal the end of the world as we know it.

Woe is he who had Radio Shack and lost.

[k4kyv]

Back when Radio Shack used to stock parts, going there instead of a real electronics parts store was like going to a corner Kwik-Stop when the supermarket is closed or too far away to travel to purchase one 59¢ item. They could often get you out of a jam and avoid having to wait till Monday morning to get the one little part needed to complete a project. Problem is, the local one here has phased out practically all their components like capacitors, resistors, voltage regulator chips, terminal strips, etc.  The last time I bought anything there was when I picked up a 1/4" stereo headphone male and female set. I got the last ones in stock and the guy said they were phasing them out, and when everything in that drawer was  sold out they probably wouldn't  re-order any more. While I was there, I did pick up for $15 a Texas Instruments scientific calculator that was on close-out.

Years ago, R-S used to be a full-fledged parts store, just like the old LaFayette Radio in Boston and Allied Radio in Chicago.  Their ads can be seen in many of the 30s-50s ham and electronics magazines. As they gradually shifted to "consumer electronics" gadgets, their parts stock dwindled. As late as the 70s, I purchased stuff like copperweld antenna wire and a set of rf coils and i.f. transformers designed to go in a transistor radio, plus they had a line of tubes (lifetime guaranteed) and a small selection of common transistors.

The only time I can remember really being pissed off at R-S to the point of wanting to punch someone out, was the time they refused to take a pocket full of quarters I tried to use to pay for some $4 item I needed at 6 PM, and didn't have any other cash with me and at that time, no debit card. The manager said they "had no place to put" my quarters and the cash register wouldn't hold that many.

I just accept R-S for what they are; I wouldn't routinely go to R-S to purchase the parts for my building projects any more than I would rent a room at Red Roof Inn or Wingate by Wyndham for a permanent residence.  And I am totally familiar with the "Radio Shack Stare".

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I have a Sony HD radio here in the office that's on all day long. Wide assortment of additional music channels that weren't available for free when HD radio wasn't here. Also have Sangean HD tuner hung on the Hi-Fi 4 channel system down in the shack man-space. It's generally far more entertaining then listening to summer static on the ham bands.

[KA3EKH]

IBiquity offers a digital channel that mirrors a stations analog channel on FM, that’s why you have to introduce a seven second delay on your analog to allow it to be in sync with the digital, a fact that makes trying to do real-time off air monitoring imposable for the air staff and creates difficulties in things like sports casting or live remotes. Then they give you a 9.6 kB second channel for alternate programming and other then the digital simulcast of your analog and a low bandwidth second channel you don’t get a lot. Have no experience with the AM system but would wonder if they can provide a second program stream with that. The quality is not what many had said it would be and I have always reminded people its Hybrid Digital and not High Definition like the improvements that were brought about in television. Being that I had to suffer thru implementation of a system I have a distorted view of the system and iBiquity in particular so my mind is damaged and would be glad to see it go before management tells me that it's to be installed on the other stations in the market. Fortunately management is all obsessed with internet streaming radio and has forgotten about HD so I may have lucked out this time. One of the two or three things I can count as accomplishments in my life was installing a C-Quam AM stereo system on a 5 kW directional station and getting it to work correctly. AM stereo worked surprising well and at one time the decoder was installed in many if not all Chrysler and Dodge cars but that appears to be over now. When the FCC expanded the AM band the requirements for all expanded band stations was for them to be 10 kW day, 1 kW night, omnidirectional signal tower and all C-Quam AM stereo. Wonder what happened with AM stereo?
Ray F

[W2PFY]

I asked for some obscure part at a small radio shack store and the manager went into the back and came out with a huge box just filled with the stuff they no longer sell. I'm still buying things out of that box from time to time. It may be a good idea to see what your local shack has in the back room

And I am totally familiar with the "Radio Shack Stare

I noticed that many of their employes have bad breath??

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Parts more expensive - yea
sometimes questionable quality
but less than 1 mile from my house, on the way home from work and they still have several large chests of drawers full of general parts.  If I was building Solid State stuff they would be OK fine, and aside from the capacitors being 50 volts or less, they do ok.  Fets, audio amp chips, and Op Amps plus resistors, connectors, wire, solder & Irons and other tools. 

Like I said, not stellar quality, but in a jamn it works FB.

I DO hate their RF connectors, what ever plating they use does not take solder well. I sand it clean and use liquid flux and that work FB.

They have a SW radio antenna kit, with insulators and bare copper wire for the aerial and some insulated for the lead in... 

[ve6pg]

obscure part...let me guess...a fuse?...metal both ends, glass in the middle?...

..sk..

[Opcom]

Hybrid Digital (HD) radio appear just about ready to follow C-QUAM AM stereo and Quadraphonic Stereo broadcasting to the scrap heap of history. All the systems worked, just that they all have failed in the market place. iBiquity has not done anything to help push their system by keeping the algorithms a "Trade Secret" and having high licensing fees for the encoders and decoders unlike digital television where things like ATSC publishes there material for everyone to use and many produce encoders and decoders for digital television but  iBiquity  wanted to keep all the money for themselves. The delays in programming audio, the never ending fees and profit sharing schemes with iBiquity and the cost and complexities involved in transmitting all make me glad to see it go.
Ray F.

C-QAM was better.

Cause and effect. $300 insult pricing for a crappy Chinese radio with the $299 chip and the $1 innards and speaker is ridiculous. What did they think that people are so stupid they'd all pay for that?

Now, can I have the 4-5KC analog material back in the analog sidebands please?

[WA3VJB]

quad stereo would have been great, but i never met anyone with 4 ears...

..sk..

It's a good line, Tim, but in case you're serious, the extra information takes advantage of the differential ability of the two ears to establish direction. Each ear can take multiple sources of sound to portray the spatial dimensions of near, far, left / right and so on, that are not as clearly defined with only two points of origination.

I've had experience listening to 4 channel LP records, and 4 channel tape playback into a 4 point loudspeaker setup, and I can really compare it to impressions today of "3D" movies and HD television.

[ve6pg]

paul, i recall a friend with a quad set-up, about 1975...he gad this BTO album, that was quad...it was impressive...

..sk..

[k4kyv]

I have always reminded people its Hybrid Digital and not High Definition like the improvements that were brought about in television.

I suspect IBiquity quietly hoped the public would confuse "High Definition" with Hybrid Digital, and associate the improvement in the TV image with the alleged improvement audio quality that may or may not exist.

Problem is, most of the public doesn't really care all that much about audio quality beyond a certain minimal degree. MP3 doesn't sound as good as a CD or an undamaged vinyl record, but with the exception of a few audiophiles, the public has fully embraced MP3 for the convenience of storing a lot of music in a small portable gadget, usually equipped with a crappy little speaker or ear buds.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I still have several(don't remember the count) CD-4 LP records in great shape. They required the use of a Shibata stylus in a high end cartridge to pick up the 45 KHz carrier signal for the rear channels. Just received a replacement belt for my Philips GA-212 turntable so it's now back up and running. I think I'll mount the cartridge and get the CD-4 demodulator wired in and pull out those LP's and see how they still sound. I seem to remember the last time this was up and running, I played the Doors, Riders On the Storm, 4 channel LP, and it sounded like I was right in the middle of the action.

[W7TFO]

Face it, Pete!  You're a gadget freak, with a document library back to before your own time.




Free humor de W7TFO, not valid with any other offers or in Kansas.

 

[KX5JT]

I sure love my surround sound and I only have two ears.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I sure love my surround sound and I only have two ears.

You should hear 75 meters through a pair of 4 channel headphones. 

[WA3VJB]

Point 1: I suspect IBiquity quietly hoped the public would confuse "High Definition" with Hybrid Digital, and associate the improvement in the TV image with the alleged improvement audio quality that may or may not exist.

Point 2: ...the public has fully embraced MP3 for the convenience of storing a lot of music in a small portable gadget, usually equipped with a crappy little speaker or ear buds.

Yeah they came into quite a bit of ridicule and some accusations of deception in using the letters "HD," although they publicly denied anything intentional.  Yet they eventually buried marketing references to "Hybrid Digital," just letting "HD" be interpreted in whatever way would happen.

The continued acceptance of MP3 as a convenient storage medium baffles me, because storage capacity now can handle uncompressed, high quality sound files in the same physical package. 

Earlier, (1968 ?) the low quality hissette came into widespread consumer acceptance, for much the same reason MP3 caught on -- convenient packaging, use, and distribution. Yet, audiophiles, musicians, and recording studios remained loyal for many years to the open-reel tape system as their definitive medium.