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Old 18th Apr 2017, 4:10 am   #403
WilliamTK1974
Tetrode
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
Posts: 59
Default Re: Bygone radio traders

Not sure if anyone's interested in things on this side of the pond, and the "golden era" of radio shops was likely over by the time I came along. But I can think of a few things from my area and the US in general.

Shields Electronics back when it was at the corner of Dodds Ave. and 23rd Street in Chattanooga. They'd been there quite some time, and more than a few of their staff members had been around almost since the beginning. Back before the anti-tobacco laws were so strict, one of the men smoked constantly in the office, and it sounded as though he'd been at that a bit longer than was good for him. But the place was like a treasure cave, with racks of components such as capacitors and resistors, belts for belt-drive turntables... It was where my brother bought a NOS stylus for the Select-A-Vision player he bought on ebay. They moved to a suburban area and lost a great deal of that. They seem to specialize in gun safes and home/commercial security these days.

Roy Cox Appliance in Red Bank, TN- This was a old-school, small-ish town radio and appliance dealer. You could almost imagine going in and walking out with a brand-new Zenith Royal TransOceanic radio, or putting a down-payment on a new RCA hi-fi system. As time went by, they gravitated more toward laundry appliances, cookers, and the like. They town wanted to widen part of the road they were on, and the shop was a casualty of that project.

Ed's TV on Brainerd Road- This shop may have been a Zenith dealer. He could pretty much fix anything. There were always more than a few console TV carcasses behind the shop. My great-grandfather had a Zenith transistor set that he took there when it came time to change its batteries since its battery box had broken. Seems like Ed decided it was time to retire, and the building's since been demolished.

Can't remember the name, but a TV shop still appears to exist on Rossville Blvd in Chattanooga. The story I heard was that the previous owner learned how to fix TVs back in the late 50s. There was some kind of scandal with the man and his spouse. Last I saw, the sign said that they fix flatscreens, plasma, and LED, so maybe they're still going.

In general, shops that once sold parts, radios, and other electronic goods have taken a hard hit over here in recent years. Radio Shack comes to mind as a prime example. Almost as though they were a victim of their own success and complacency. Sears Roebuck was another place to go for radio and stereo equipment. It was fun to walk through that department of the store and drool over stuff. Now, it appears they're circling the drain quickly.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that people who want "just a radio" rather than some kind of whiz-bang marvel of technology are in the minority these days.
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